After becoming familiar with the processes and routines that go on in my clinical placement for the spring of 2014 one subject area I would like to reflect on is literacy.
Literacy is done in many different ways in the kindergarten classroom I am placed in. I have witnessed lessons being taught in large group, small group, and individual instruction. So far I have personally participated in small group and individual instruction. As I observe and become familiar with the processes I have realized that my cooperating teacher has a lot of effective strategies that she uses with her students. When she is instruction large group she gives each student a chance to respond as long as time permits. As she is doing this she keeps the students interested by having them give signals or cheers to show if they agree or disagree with the student who is responding to the questions she provides. When the students are in a small group literacy instruction setting there is an adult at each table. At my placement the teachers are very lucky to have parents that are actively involved in their students’ education. They have parent volunteers they come in and work the literacy stations (along with math stations, classroom parties, other classroom activities, and completes the photocopying & laminating). These parents help teach mini lessons at each station or table. Since students are in such small groups at this time there is also an opportunity for individual instruction if needed. During these instructions the students are read to by the teacher, read on their own, and do some guided reading along with a teacher or adult. The teacher or adult asks the students questions throughout the reading to keep them engaged.
During my time in my clinical placement I have not seen a lot of formal literacy assessments. The assessments I have seen seem to be rather informal and formative. My CT does a lot of white board checks, hand signal checks, and other ways that keep the students active or engaged as she asses. By doing this she can see what the students grasp or what she may need to reteach or support them with. She does this by telling them if letters are “walking backwards” or if they need to make any other changes as they work. My CT also collects student work on a regular basis. This gives her a chance to take the time to look over their work. One thing she does is has the students make corrections the next day. This is a way for students to learn rather than to just get a complete or incomplete mark on their paper.
The students in this are actively involved in their learning and in their assessments. My CT uses many signals as ways for the students respond. The signals may include: Hands up, hands on your head, cowboy cheer, thumbs up, etc. The students also use whiteboards. As the students work they can either hold up their board for the teacher to see or the teacher can walk around and see the students work.
I believe a lot of the strategies used in this class are more effective than I thought they could be. I never realized how much information you can take away from simple assessments like checking their whiteboards as they work. By doing this you can help plan for you next lesson or a follow up lesson. Many of these strategies I will carry into my future. The hardest task is going to be getting the parent involvement that these teachers have been able to get. By being at the school for 28 years she has made a lot of connections. Some people that come in to help are parents, grandparents, or even parents from past years that still enjoy helping in the classroom. There are also retired teachers from the district and the area that come in to support the learning. I am looking forward to finding good strategies to get parents involved in my classroom.
We have spent quite a bit of time learning about assessments and literacy strategies at Illinois State University. My CT demonstrates strategies that we learned and how important each type of assessments are. Although I have not been able to witness many summative assessments my CT has made it clear that they are equally as important. My CT also supports what I have learned at ISU by using literacy strategies that I have learned about in class. She uses haggerty phonics lessons, we practice handwriting, we practice sitting correctly while doing handwriting, and we support the students by including group work throughout the literacy lessons.As I go on to be a teacher there are many things I have learned from and that I will take away from focusing my attention the literacy in my clinical placement. I will remember that having students interact with their peers during literacy can be beneficial. I will also remember to keep all students involved and engaged during a large group lesson or reading. I intend to do a little more research about this though. I want to find more ways to keep the students engaged other than agreeing and disagreeing with the response of one student. I will also concentrate closely on formative and informal assessment. By doing these assessments I will be able to better plan my lessons and future activities for my students. I may also need to look at ways I need to differentiate for my students. Literacy is something I have always enjoyed as a young student and as an adult. I hope to teach my students not only to read but to love reading.
To give you an idea about some of the attention getters that can be used with young students I have included examples:
I have also included a link to some great informal assessment ideas that can be used in the classroom: Informal Assessments
I also included a link to another education blog that has great ideas for Literacy Centers.
I was excited to read about another Kindergarten classroom because I was in a Kindergarten classroom last semester that I absolutely loved. When I compare the literacy instruction that you wrote about and the literacy instruction that I have seen occurring in my room, I find myself relating and enjoying what your CT is doing more than mine. In my classroom, when the students are at centers, I notice that often times they aren’t engaged or focused at all. I partially feel that the activities they are being given aren’t that interesting to them but also there is no one around to really keep them on track. The fact that your classroom has adults at every table is something I don’t think is normal but is amazing. This is very different from my clinical setting where parent involvement in the classroom is pretty much non-existent according to my CT. I think having parents come in on a regular basis can be beneficial on several levels. First, there is someone around to keep students on track and monitor how students are doing. At my clinical, if students don’t complete something during centers nothing is really done about it. Their packets are constantly going unfinished and so that information is going unlearned or unpracticed. I’m assuming and hoping that the parents at each of these centers are motivating and helping students complete their work and helping them move forward. Another benefit of parents being present in the classroom, in my opinion, is that it sheds a positive light on literacy for students at a young age. I feel that if students see their parents getting excited about aspects of literacy and showing how it is important, even at an older age, it will help students be excited and connect to why they are learning what they are.
ReplyDeleteI don’t see much large group literacy instruction in my classroom but I really enjoyed some of the ideas you gave that your CT showed you on how to keep your students engaged. Like we have discussed in class, with large group instruction you need to make sure that all students are involved, even if it is in a small way such as having students cheer to show they agree or disagree. Something I thought of when reading about this is how I could integrate technology into large group to get all students engaged. My teacher uses the SMART board a lot in her classroom for displaying information but doesn’t really use it in an interactive way. Just like we did the other day in class, you could have students come up to the SMART board and move things around and then use cheers, thumbs up, hands up, etc. for students to show they agree or not. There are so many great activities that are interactive on the SMART board that you could use for large groups. I don’t know if you have ever seen this sight before but here is a link to the Smart Exchange (http://exchange.smarttech.com/#tab=0). Here you can find pre-prepared lessons based on both subjects and grade levels. I have used this before for a literacy lesson and thought it was a great tool!
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting to read you blog because I found myself comparing our clinical teachers. Because our teachers plan all of their lessons together I thought that you would have seen most of the same things in regards to literacy instruction and assessment as I have. Based on your blog, it seems as though there are some similarities but I noticed some differences as well. One difference that I really like is how you said your teacher "does a lot of white board checks, hand signal checks, and other ways that keep the students active or engaged as she asses". I think this is something important to do and I have noticed that my teacher does not do this. Sometimes I think that students are not understanding what she is learning and I think that doing simple checks like these would be a great thing for my teacher to add into her instruction.
Something else about your post that caught my eye was the list of attention-getters that you attached. I have noticed that my teacher's only attention-getter is "1, 2, 3, eyes on me". For my science lesson I tried using this method and I am definitely going to introduce a new attention-getter to my students before my next lesson. I think the reason her method does not work so well is because the students do not have to say or do anything, they are just expected to get quiet.
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteThanks for breaking down the literacy happenings at your site in such a detailed and thoughtful way! You really brought these happenings to life for us and have given everyone the chance to read what good modeling you are seeing and maybe learn from it! The links you provided were super-informative. I love how the one is from ISBE! They sometimes surprise you with good and helpful info!
I agree with Eva & Jessica that the informal (formative) assessments you are seeing in the checks for understanding that your CT uses are awesome! She does a fantastic job of helping kids to want to be engaged by inviting them to do so with these. I appreciate that you are thinking about how else they can all participate outside of agreeing/ disagreeing. We'll be talking about this more in 277, so hopefully you'll have even more ideas soon.
I also appreciated your reflection on the benefits of having so many volunteers during literacy instruction and how your CT has come to have so many. I definitely agree that the more adult support you have during literacy instruction, especially in Kindergarten, the better! Jessica mentions how in her site, her CT reports that there is little to no parental involvement. Because we know that there are a variety of reasons why parents, specifically, cannot volunteer during the day, and as a new teacher you will not have the connections that your CT has necessarily, how would you facilitate getting volunteers for this time of day? What supports would these volunteers need to make this time of day a success for the kids? How does your CT facilitate having these volunteers? Let us know what you find out so we can learn from it!
:)Kira