Midterm: RE5100 October 30, 2002 Cathy Marlow

Midterm: RE5100 October 30, 2002 Cathy Marlow

Bob Schlagal

1. What is concept of word? How can you tell if a child has “got it” or not? And what is the importance of carefully modeling finger point reading and ensuring that beginning readers are doing it accurately? That is, why is it important that kids be guided in doing their own pointing and not just watching the teacher point.

Concept of word is the ability to conceive of words as individual, speakable, printable, and understandable units. It is knowing how spoken words match to written words in the act of reading and writing. Young children listen for the complete meaning of an utterance and don’t conceive of spoken language as a string of individual words or treat words as individual units of meaning. You can tell if a child has “got it” by having him/her echo read a passage touching each word as it is spoken. Then ask the child to point to a certain word in the sentence. Some children can find the word quickly and others will repeat the sentence to themselves, as they finger-touch each word, to find which word is the correct word showing they have the concept of word.

Modeling finger point reading is very important because young children benefit from models they can imitate. It is also teaching them concept of word as you say and touch each word. Ensuring that beginning readers do it accurately on their own is very important in teaching concept of word and learning sight words. If beginning readers have memorized a text and they can accurately go back and finger point as they read, they will be noticing letter-sound relationships in the words as they read and they will be learning high frequency sight words. I have also found that it helps young children stay focused on the words. Their eyes and their attention wonder and this helps them keep their place, therefore ensuring that they are staying focused on learning new words and letter-sound relationships. They are also exploring and contrasting word length as they finger point. They will realize that words that take longer to say have more letters. Children must do their own finger pointing to show that they are ready to develop the skills needed for reading.

1. What are word banks? What purposes can they serve for beginning readers? Why might they be important to incorporate into classes that use challenging literature-based basals?

Word banks are a group of words that certain students are working on at that time. These words are pulled, by the teacher or students, from stories that the children have read or dictated. Word banks allow students to work on these words in isolation and out of the context of a sentence. Each child has his/her words written on word cards on in lists that he/she keeps and can refer to. These words can then become sight words and can be used in future writings. Word banks also allow students to choose the words they want to learn. Motivation and self-esteem are very important to beginning readers and making reading personal helps greatly with this.

It is important to incorporate word banks into classes that use challenging literature-based basals to make sure students have words on their level. Literature-based basals don’t have the repetition that beginning readers need and they can have vocabulary beyond the struggling reader. By having individual word banks the slower readers can feel success reading their chosen words while the top students can choose more challenging words for their word bank.

1. Why is it important to have a broad variety of materials available to use with beginning readers? And why is it important to have these materials carefully graded by difficulty?

It is important to have a broad variety of materials available to use with beginning readers to ensure that children learn the necessary skills and are motivated to read. Children have different strengths and different weaknesses. You need reading materials that allow the students to practice their phonemic awareness. You need materials that allow the students to learn to predict words that make sense and look at context and picture clues. You also need materials that have words repeated multiple times and have a controlled vocabulary. Some slower children need to see a word 70-80 times in order for it to become a sight word. Some students struggle with phonics and need to learn sight words until they are developmentally ready to apply phonics. All children need lots of reading materials. Lots of teachers turn students off to reading because they require them to read the same book over and over again because they don’t have enough books at the same level.

Children need to be placed in carefully controlled text to help them build sight vocabulary and develop decoding skills. Trade books, each written by a different author in a different style—do not always provide sufficient word repetition and syntactic consistency across stories. The students need be taught at their instructional level and paced gradually through the curriculum. If they are taught above their level, they will be turned-off to reading because it will be difficult and they will not get the basic skills they are missing.

I leveled by supplemental reading books 15 years ago and placed them in colored tubs so that my students could freely choose books that they will feel successful reading. I use these books to send home each night so that my students have a book at home on their level. By having my books leveled, my students don’t have to read the same book over and over. They can read multiple books and still have a controlled vocabulary. I have found that leveling my books keeps them excited and self-motivated. Even my low students love to read. My higher-leveled students move on at their pace, and my lower-leveled students have more time to develop a sight word vocabulary and develop decoding skills at the simpler level. I totally agree with Darrell Morris! (Stop the schools from recycling all the old books and save them for the future teachers!)

1. Discuss some ways that Big Books and Language Experience dictations can be used to provide extra support for slow starting readers. How can you make sure that the books and dictations are at the child’s level? What things do you need to pay attention to? OPTION: Discuss the role that decodable books could play in early reading instruction. Why might they be valuable; what might their limitations be?

Big Books and Language Experience dictations teach concept of print. The children learn to get meaning and enjoyment from print early in their reading instruction. Slow starting readers can learn from their peers in a non-threatening environment. These students can also learn on their own level by choosing words for them to learn that are on their level. The group discussions will extend their oral vocabulary. As you model how to write their stories, the sounds are reinforced if you say the words and sounds as you write them. They can pick up sight words that are used over and over in these big books or in their stories. Young children benefit from models they can imitate . Both methods rely on memory and repetition and these are the skills used by most slow learners when phonics is difficult for them.

You can make sure that the books are on their level by making sure that the story is not too long and that the child can memorize it. The child should be able to successfully practice finger-point reading and word and letter location. You need to pay attention to the size of the print of the book or dictation and make sure it is large enough for everyone to see. The language patterns in big books need to be natural and rhythmic, featuring repetitive refrains.

Decodable books play an important role in early reading instruction by giving the students opportunities to apply phonics. They are very valuable because they provide material at the level the child needs. These decodable books are graded by difficulty. Students begin using phonics to read three letter words and then progress to blends, long vowels, etc. Many of our words are not decodable and other reading materials don’t provide decoding opportunities frequently enough for the skills to be mastered.

A limitation to decodable books is the simple, unnatural language used in these books. Students would become bored and have limited vocabulary if they were only exposed to this type of book. Also, there are many English words that can not be sounded out and need to be taught as sight words. Another limitation is that some children cannot break apart words into isolated sounds or put together isolated sounds to make a word, when they are 6 years old. These children are not developmentally ready to do this until they are older and they will miss out on reading if this is the only approach that is taught to them.

1. Explain the importance of encouraging inventive spelling during children’s writing in Kindergarten and 1st grade. What do children get from this? What do teachers get from this?

Some of the benefits of early inventive spelling for the students are it makes the students curious about print and they will have a higher motivation to learn print. Using inventive spelling will help them make better sense of reading and spelling instruction. It reinforces reading. By analyzing speech sounds they develop phoneme awareness. It also allows for self-expression. They can say what they want to say without worrying that they don’t know how to spell the words. It does not create bad spellers. It encourages them to use better word choices. When inventive spelling is encouraged, a student might try to spell fantastic, instead of using the word good because he knows how to spell good correctly.

By using inventive spelling, the teachers get an easy way to gauge growth. They can see when students add the middle sounds, or begin using consonant clusters, or vowel combinations, etc. Inventive spelling is developmental and will change over time and the teacher can see this change (growth). The teacher can use a student’s inventive spelling to plan what skills need to be taught next. She can see when a student is ready to move to the next step or needs more help at a certain level. Teachers also get to use writing, at an earlier age, as a way for students to express what they are learning in all subjects.

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