“The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth.” ~Dan Rather. I fully believe in this quote and it is constantly in my mind whenever I am with students. When it comes to my teaching philosophy I have to say that it has evolved greatly since my first year in college. It grows and develops as I learn more about how I want to teach and what kind of teacher I want to become. The three things that I find most important when it comes to being a teacher are my classroom management skills, my teaching style, and how I want my students to learn.

            My organizational skills and the flow of my classroom are very important to me. I want anyone to be able to step into my classroom and always see my students on task and learning something new. This does not necessarily mean that they will be quiet or in their seats because I think that in order for some students to learn they need to be on their feet and discussing with other classmates. There is however a time and place for students to be quiet and in their seats and I want to make sure that my students know when that time is and respect it accordingly. I want my classroom to be very inviting to students but at the same time I do not want my students to be too distracted and not able to learn. This also goes along with the safety I want for my students.  I want them to feel like they are safe in my room and nothing can harm them. The most important aspect of a good classroom to me are rules.  I will make sure that students follow my set of rules as well as the schools. My classroom will always have respectful students who not only respect adults and authority but also respect one another.

            My teaching style definitely defines me and who I want to be as a teacher. I am very enthusiastic about teaching my students and making them as smart as they can be. I am able to relate to them at their age level while at the same time showing the authority I need to in order to get the respect I deserve as their teacher. I have great patience for all ages and can help solve any problems that may be brought up during the school year. I believe that each child learns differently and I want to be able to touch every child’s life in the way that changes them and opens their eyes to a world of information that is out there for them to grasp and take hold.

            “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” It is because of this belief that I firmly stand behind both Vygotsky and Gardner’s theories about how children learn. I think that students sometimes learn better from each other than from us as teachers. Students can relate to each other better, and they know what each other can understand and cannot understand. They can better explain subjects to one another because they know the appropriate language to use. I agree with Gardner because I know that everybody learns in a different way and has a strong intelligence in one field where someone else might be better in another. Both of these theories opens children’s eyes to bigger and better things than we teachers could ever do alone. This is why I want my classroom to reflect these theories and become an environment to kids that engages them in learning and opens their eyes to everything the world has to offer them.

This week I was able to work one on one with some children that were having more trouble reading and comprehending what they were reading. With some of the children all I had to do was watch them read and help them whenever they needed help with a word. Then with some all I needed to do was watch them take their AR test and make sure that they are looking back at their book before submitting their answer, most just needed someone to stop them from getting distracted. Lastly, there were some students that I did flash cards with because they still had trouble recognizing site words when reading. Their main trouble was not comprehending but rather just recognizing words when coming across them while reading. They seemed to struggle at first but when I worked with them again on Wednesday I was able to see some improvement which gives me hope that they will continue to get better and become efficient in recognizing site words.

After the children had listened to the story being read to them, the teacher wanted them to do an echo reading which she does with them each week. I got to do this with them this week though and it was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed doing this with them. When hearing them read aloud I can really see who has good reading skills and who doesn’t. Some were able to follow along quite nicely and stop when needed. Others had the monotone voice and read right through most any punctuations. Whenever this was done though the teacher made sure to point it out and ask the class what they think should happen when they come upon a comma, period, question mark, or any other type of punctuation. This helped the struggling students greatly without pointing them out individually and embarassing them. I thought this was a great idea and I will try to use it in my classroom one day as well.

In my first grade classroom during reading and writing I have seen several things that we have talked about in class. When my students first read a story from their textbook the teacher has a recording of that story and they just follow along while finger pointing. After they have heard the story one time through then she does echo reading with the children page by page. This is all done on the first day of reading the story. On the third day she picks different groups (girls boys, by rows) to read certain sections of the story. When this is done she goes back and asks them context questions and recognizes the vocabulary in the story.

In my first graders writing I have noticed that a lot of them are in the letter name stage because they are spelling what they hear. There are a few that recognize some patterns, like the silent e, but they use in the wrong context at times.

• What have you taught in your internship?

I have not specifically taught anything. I have helped with echo reading. I work one on one with two students who struggle with their fluency in reading. They have the basic words down and when they are focused they can sound the word out perfectly. I have noticed that several times with many of the children in the classroom when they come to a word that they do not know if they take their time and pay attention to the letter they will figure out the word, sometimes still with a little help.

• Comment on any interesting things that you have noticed about your school, the teachers, the students, or the curriculum.

I love the setup at our school for the kindergarteners and first graders. They are all in little sections right beside each other so it is easy to go to another teacher for help. At this school they are very focused on making sure that the children are learning at every minute possible which has put a lot of pressure on the teachers and on certain days I can really see that. Overall though I have really enjoyed the past two weeks and I look forward to going back again.

• Curt is in the 3^rd grade and is 8 years old.

2. What was the flash score for words at: first-grade level? second-grade level? third-grade level?

• 1^st grade: 75%
• 2^nd grade: 50%
• 3^rd grade: 20%

3. What was the accuracy score at: 1-2 level? 2-1 level? 2-2 level?

• 1-2 level: 98%
• 2-1 level: 97%
• 2-2 level: 90%

4. What was the rate score at: 1-2 level? 2-1 level? 2-2 level?

• 1-2 level: 68 words per minute
• 2-1 level: 65 words per minute
• 2-2 level: 44 words per minute

5. What was the percentage correct score for: first-grade words? second-grade words?

• 1^st grade words: he got 6 out of 10 correct resulting in 60% correct
• 2^nd grade words: he did not get any words right resulting in 0% correct

Consider the following expected scores, then compare those expectations to the scores Curt produced. With the Word Recognition Test, flash scores are generally interpreted as follows: 90-100% indicates Independent Level; 60-85% indicates Instruction Level; Below 50% indicates Frustration Level.

With oral reading accuracy, scores are generally interpreted as follows: 98-100% indicates Independent Level; 95-97% indicates Instruction Level; Below 92%   indicates Frustration Level.

With oral reading rate, expected grade-level ranges are as follows:

Grade–Words per minute

1^st–45-85

2^nd–80-120

3^rd–95-135

With spelling scores, around 50% correct indicates Instruction Level.

6. Which grade-level flash score is the best choice for Instruction Level? (*Note: 92-94% accuracy is marginal; take a close look at Rate.)

• Level 1-2 with a score of  75%

7. Which grade-level accuracy score is the best choice for Instruction Level?

• Level 1-2 with a score of  97%

8. What do Curt’s rate scores indicate about his grade-level reading? Where is he instructional according to rate?

• Curt is reading below his grade level. He mostly read at level 1-2 and 2-1, which means he is reading at the first grade level. On the 2-1 level Curt read only 44 words per minute and on the 2-2 level he read only 36 words per minute. All of this is evidence that he is below grade level in reading.

9. What do Curt’s spelling scores indicate about his Instruction Level.

• He got 60% correct on the 1^st grade level and on the 2^nd grade level he failed to get any of the words correct. This indicates that his instructional level is at the 1^st grade level. However on the flash score he is at the instruction level for level 1-2 (late first grader).

10. Put all of these scores together, and what do they indicate Curt’s reading level to be?

• Most of his scores were between that of a first grader and a second grader so his reading level should be around a late first grader or an early second grader.

• The first dimension is accuracy in word decoding.  The reader must be able to sound out words in a text with barely any mistakes being made. To determine this you calculate the percentage of words a reader can accurately decode on grade level material.  An accuracy level of 90 to 95% is considered adequate. 
• The second dimension is automatics processing. In this dimension readers need to expend as little mental effort as possible when decoding words so that they are using their finite cognitive resources for meaning making. Teachers can assess automaticity in decoding by looking at the student’s reading rate.  The target reading rate increases as students move through school. The readers who fall 20 to 30 percent below the target rate will have to additional instruction. 
• The third dimension is prosodic reading. For this the reader must parse the text into syntactically and semantically appropriate units. If the reader does not express any fluctuation when reading or stop at points where it is correct to then it is unlikely that they will fully understand the text.  The easiest way to assess this is to listen to a student read a grade-level passage. Then judge the how well they read using a rubric that scores a student on the elements of expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness and pace.

2.    Rasinski refers to fluency as a “bridge” between decoding and comprehension. What does he mean by the “bridge” metaphor?

• The bridge that Rasinski refers to is a bridge that covers the gap between being able to read and understanding what you are reading. The student must first be able to sound out words in a text and recognize them. Then the student needs to be able read with fluency and without using much mental effort when sounding out the words. Finally to finish the “bridge” students need to read a passage with appropriate exaggerations and pauses when needed.

3.    What instructional methods does Rasinski suggest for students with difficulties in automatic and prosodic reading?

• He uses assisted readings and repeated readings, which both have shown to improve reading fluency. Students need to hear what fluent reading sounds like and how fluent readers interpret text with their voices.

4.    Multidimensional Fluency Scale (MFS) is used to measure prosodic quality of oral reading. List components of the MFS and describe briefly what each refers to (p. 49).

• Expression and Volume- The student moves from reading just to get the words out to making it sound like natural language through most of the passage. Then they are finally able to read with good expression and enthusiasm throughout the entire text, varying when needed.
• Phrasing- In the beginning of this component the student reads monotone with little phrasing involved.  From this the students learns to generally read with good phrasing, mostly in clause and sentence units, with adequate attention to expression.
• Smoothness- For this component the students first makes frequent extended pauses, hesitations, false starts, and or multiple attempts. The student then learns to read smoothly with some breaks, but resolves word and structure difficulties quickly, usually by correcting themselves.

• The process that takes place during comprehensions of informational text is that it requires accessing accurate, relevant knowledge, managing mental processes (both top-down and bottom-up) during reading within the confines of a limited working memory, and constructing a coherent mental representation through pruning and organizational processes.

2. Specify the effect that background knowledge may have on constructing mental representations from informational text. Why should teachers be concerned about activating prior knowledge?

• There is evidence that indicates that young children rely heavily on background knowledge in their interactions with text. Mediation that prompts young readers to activate relevant background information is an important support, but teachers must be sensitive to dialogue indicating that children may be relying on inaccurate or irrelevant prior knowledge.

3. What are the three instructional approaches that can be used to help primary-grade students comprehend informational text? Describe their common (p. 365) and distinctive features           (p. 363-5).

• Picture Walk: This is commonly used with leveled text—small paperbacks that have been leveled using a narrow gradient readability scale based on qualitative text features. The conversations typically occur as the teacher and students preview each page or few pages of a new book, before reading. The pictures are used a catalyst for a discussion of what the book is likely to be about. 2 or 3 vocabulary words are explicitly introduced during the PW.
• Know-Want to Learn-Learn: this technique was originally developed by Ogle to enable teachers to access the prior knowledge of students and to help students develop their own purposes for reading expository text. KWL is a process during which the teacher generates a discussion about a text topic and uses a chart or worksheet to record students’ statements about what they know, want to learn, and, after reading, what they learned.
• Directed Reading-Thinking Activity: this is an instructional framework that views reading as a problem-solving process best accomplished in a social context. The teacher’s role is to select an instructional level text, divide the text into meaningful sections, and facilitate discussion of each section of text. Students are responsible for establishing their own purposes for reading, generating predictions, justifying those predictions, independently reading the text, and verifying or revising predictions based on evaluations of information in the text during the teacher-led discussion of each section.
• All 3 instructional methods are based on 3 common theoretical principles that are viewed as necessary to the meaning-making process. These commonalities are an emphasis on reader engagement and social mediation, activation of relevant prior knowledge, and anticipation of what information might be likely to be included in a text.
• The PW format calls for students to preview the entire text before reading with a page-by-page discussion of predictions. The KWL discussion is more open-ended that the other 2 procedures, which are more tightly tied to the text. DRTA does not include the extensive buildup before reading that is a part of both KWL and PW.

4. What is the purpose of the experimental study reported?

• To see and understand how the PW, KWL, and DRTA could influence developmental reading abilities and content acquisition when used with informational text in the primary reading group context.

5. Who were the subjects?

• The subjects were thirty one 2^nd grade students in two schools that were similar when it came to demographics. They also were in the same school district, in a midsize Midwest City.  All of the students were proficient in English.  Teachers reported that reading and comprehending informational texts was challenging for these students.

6. Describe the reading materials used during the intervention.

• The reading materials used were informational text on topics that would be considered familiar to 2^nd grade students. These books were usually about science topics that had been taught to the students. Twelve books total or leveled little books were used during the study as well.

7. How long did the experiment last?

• The experiment last ten weeks, it consisted of conducting two 4 week periods of intervention within that frame of time.

8. What were the experimental conditions?

• Before reading, the students made predictions about the text based on the title, cover, prior knowledge and table of contents as well as giving reasons for their predictions.  Students would predict a two or three page section of text.  Then they read that section.  After the student reads each section, a brief discussion was held to verify predictions, summarize the information, and generate new predictions for the next section of text.

9. Describe the procedures specific to the Picture Walk, KWL, DRTA, and the Control Group conditions.

• KWL: On Day 1 and Day 3, the students made a group KWL chart together with the teacher.  After the experimenter introduced the topic, the children discussed it.  Their input was written on the chart in the Know column.  On Day 2 and 3, each child wrote was he or she known on a personal KWL chart before it was shared and written on the large group chart.  Next the children categorized the information.  The next step was for the kids to generate questions about the topic. 
• Picture Walk: Before reading, students were presented a short synopsis of the text.  They then engaged in an interactive discussion about the book as they worked through the book page-by-page, talking about the pictures, the text structure, and the student’s prior knowledge, and formulating predictions based on that information. 
• DRTA-Before reading, the students formulated and justified predictions about the text based on the title, cover, prior knowledge and table of contents.  Students predicted for a two or three page section of text.  After reading each section, a brief discussion was held to verify predictions, summarize the information, and generate new predictions for the next section of text.

10. What measures were used to determine the relative effectiveness of the treatments? Describe the measures briefly.

• The VRT is an experimenter constructed yes/no task used to estimate vocabulary recognition in a content area and to confirm that groups had similar levels of prior knowledge of the topic. The task consisted of a list of 25 words; 18 of the words were related to the content in the informational texts and 7 words were unrelated foils. Students circled the words that they both were able to read and related to the topic. After the children selected words on the VRT on Day 3, they additionally categorized those words under provided headings on a concept web. They determined that the yes/no task is a reliable and valid measure of vocabulary assessment. Based on student interviews and correlations with other vocabulary tasks, they determined that it provides a better measure of whether students know the meanings of words than a multiple-choice task, especially for younger students.

11. Which treatment(s) were found to be more effective in increasing students’ vocabulary knowledge and maze performance (p. 381)?

• All the groups made very similar gains in vocabulary. Both DRTA and PW had statistically high effect on the maze. Both of the processes were more effective then KWL as well the control procedures.

12. Students’ comprehension of the texts was greater under the DRTA condition than KWL and the control conditions. What do you think explains DRTA’s advantage over the KWL condition (p. 382)?

• DRTA procedures tended to demand higher levels of thinking by the students than did the other three procedures by requiring justification and verification of predictions. The immediate interaction around the text also helped promote consistent engagement, clarify confusions, and provide a vehicle for creating an accurate representation of text as well as assimilation with prior knowledge.

13. It was found that the treatments did not differ in the quality and quantity of students’ retellings (p. 384). In other words, students were not differentially affected by the treatments in the way they integrated textual information with prior knowledge. What does this finding mean in terms of the different emphases employed by experience-based (KWL) vs. text-based (DRTA) treatments?

• This means that when asking a student to recall or retell the story that was told from an informational text, it did not matter if you did an experience-based instruction or a text based instruction.  Their prior knowledge did not really have an effect.

14. In light of the findings from this study, what conclusions can you draw about the role of teacher support in children’s construction of mental representations from informational text?

• When children are reading and trying to understand what they are reading it is very important for the teacher to guide them through it the first couple of times. When this happens all of the studies have shown that students will learn a great deal more. It is also important for teachers to direct children’s background knowledge into the correct direction because if they don’t then the rest of the work is going to be going in the wrong direction.

Students may write with scribbles, letter-like forms, or random letters that have no phonetic relationship to the words they confidently believe they are writing.  These students may “read” familiar books from memory using the pictures on each page to cue their recitation of the text. During this stage, children lack an understanding of the alphabetic principle of show only the beginning of this understanding. Also, children can become quite attached to selected letters that they notice in their name.

2.      How does a Letter Name-Alphabetic speller read and write?

As readers and writers acquire more complete knowledge of letter sounds in the later part of the letter name-alphabetic stage, they will include, but often confuse, vowels in the words they write and read. These students resemble Ehri’s full alphabetic readers who begin to use the entire letter string to decode and store sight words. The reading of letter name-alphabetic spellers is often disfluent and word by word, unless they have read the passage before or are otherwise familiar with it. They need to read aloud to vocalize the letter sounds. Readers in this stage continue to benefit from repeated readings of predictable texts, but also from the reading of text with many phonetically regular words.

3.      How does a Within Word Pattern speller read and write?

Transitional readers and spellers move into the within word pattern spelling stage when single letter-sound units are consolidated into patterns or larger chunks and other spelling regularities are internalized. Short-vowel rimes are learned first with consonant blends in the context of simple word families or phonograms. Students move from needing support materials and techniques to being able to pick from various texts and reading them independently. With easy, independent-level material, students stop finger-pointing and, for the first time, read silently.  Their reading moves from halting word by word reading to more expressive phrasal reading, and they can read fluently at their instructional level.

4.      How does a Syllable and Affixes speller read and write?

Syllable and affix spellers read most texts with good accuracy and speed, both orally and silently. For these students, success in reading and understanding is related to familiarity and experience with the topic being discussed. They may obsess on reading fantasy or historical fiction and voraciously consume all of the books in a series. Students who are in this stage of word knowledge delight in writing persuasive essays, editorials, poetry, or their own versions of fantasy or realistic fiction.

5.      How does a Derivational Relations speller read and write?

Derivational relations spellers have a broader experience base that allows them to choose among a variety of reading styles to suit the text and their purposes for reading they read according to their own interests and needs and they seek to integrate their knowledge with the knowledge of others.

6.      What is the existing research evidence on the relationship between spelling and reading? Briefly describe research findings discussed on page 20.

Significant correlations between spelling and various measures of word recognition and decoding have been reported. Ehri (2000) reviewed six correlations studies in which students of various ages were asked to read and spell words and reported correlations ranging from .68 to .86. In other studies, spelling measures have accounted for as much as 40% to 60% of the variance in oral reading measures. Some studies have found that students who receive additional spelling instruction perform better on reading tasks such as oral reading, silent reading comprehension, and other reading-related measures in addition to spelling. Notably, Perfetti (1997) observed that practice at spelling helps reading more than practice at reading helps spelling. Ellis and Cataldo (1992) reported spelling to be the most consistent predictor of reading achievement.

The hypothesis being tested is whether children learn the pronunciations and meanings of words better with or without bonding it with learning the spellings of those certain words during the lesson.  

2. Who were the subjects?

The subjects were 2^nd and 5^th graders.

3. What were the experimental conditions?

The 2^nd and 5^th graders were given a set of low frequency nouns to learn. All the trials tested whether or not the students could recall certain words given to them. When each attempt was finished, the right answers were given to the students. Meanings of words were taught through various ways to make sure that students knew their meaning and why they were being used.  These various ways included pictures, definitions, and usage of words in a sentence to introduce to students.

4. What did the treatment involve?

The treatment involved students learning the spoken words while also learning the spelling of those words. There was a control group that had to learn the words without learning the spellings. At first the students were measured on how quickly they learned the words given to them then that changed to how well the words were memorized the following day.

5. Which group (spelling-present vs. spelling-absent) gained more in vocabulary learning?  How were the groups’ recall of pronunciations affected by the treatment?

Both groups experienced changes during this experiment but the group that was exposed to the spellings of the words had a greater knowledge of vocabulary when compared to the control group who did not receive the spellings. Both groups had pronunciation problems, but ultimately there was a better pronunciation from those who had been shown the spellings of the words.

6. Why do you think that fifth graders who were high on a word reading task benefited more from the spelling aids than their peers with less orthographic experience and knowledge, even though the two groups did not differ on receptive vocabulary knowledge?

I think the 5^th graders benefited more because they had more background knowledge than the 2^nd graders did to begin with. Also when adding the visual aids along with the orthographic experience things could only get better for the 5^th graders because it just opened their eyes more.  

 7. What general conclusions were derived from the study findings by the authors? What implications were offered for vocabulary learning and instruction?

The 5^th graders learned the meanings and pronunciations better when they were also being exposed to the spellings of words rather than when they were just being read the words.  Grapho-phonemic connections are activated when students are shown the spellings of new words; this also helps them with the pronunciations and memorization of words.  This all provides a stronger base for learning meanings.  Showing the spellings of words overall helped both the 2^nd and the 5^th graders, indicating that the effect of spellings is not limited developmentally to the period of beginning reading or to more advanced levels but extends to all levels of reading.  When teachers are able to encounter, pronounce and explain new words to students they should also take the time to show the spellings of words, especially when reading aloud.