LITERACY FOCUS
When thinking
about the literacy instruction and assessment in my current third grade
classroom, I automatically start to compare what I’m seeing to my most recent
clinical last semester at a parochial
school in a first grade classroom in
Bloomington, Illinois. The reason I compare
the two is because, in my opinion, what I’m currently seeing in LeRoy is of
great quality. To elaborate, I feel as though my class now
parallels that of what we’ve been learning in our classes based on the topic of
literacy instruction.
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In LeRoy,
they practice a two hour literacy block.
This includes language workshop, literacy workshop, and reading
workshop. This all happens in the morning
after arrival and check-in. During the
first part of the literacy block, the teacher starts with reading a story to
the whole group at the rug. Here, she
encompasses the language workshop part. Questions
are asked by the teacher along with students commenting on the story. Next, students work on reading independently,
besides the guided reading group, who sits at the kidney table with the
teacher. I enjoy sitting with this group
and watching what the teacher does and says.
She’ll have students reread based on punctuation, define unknown words,
and retell events in the story to build comprehension. The guided reading groups seem to enjoy
working with the teacher. So far, the
students in these groups have also seemed to enjoy the chapter books they were
reading.
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After reading
workshop, the students do writing, social studies, or science, which are all
included under the writing workshop title.
LeRoy Elementary School’s literacy program is interesting and unique because
it integrates science and social studies.
While I have not had the opportunity of seeing science taught yet, I have
seen a social studies lesson implemented.
Every quarter, the class switches from science instruction to social
studies instruction or vice versa. Science
does not begin again until the second week of March. The literacy program LeRoy offers is one the
district has been working on for a while now.
The approach is one of a comprehensive literacy model in which the
administration and faculty have gone through professional development upon the
recent development of this model. Here, is a video from the LeRoy school district website regarding the recent adoption of this program. My CT is featured in this :)
I love
the way my CT conducts her literacy block.
I have taken notes, and I am planning on implementing a model like hers
when I become a practicing teacher. At first,
I was overwhelmed when I found out it was a whole 120 minutes. Because it is broken down into different
components, I don’t feel as though it is lengthy, and I don’t get that
impression from the children either. On the
other hand, I think that while the teacher is working on the other side of the
room with individual guided reading groups, the other students working
independently got off task a little. I wouldn’t
consider this a huge issue; however, the students proceeded to be chatty with
one another because the teacher either didn’t notice or didn’t feel it necessary
to intervene. I think with a little
redirection, the students would have gotten back to work right away.
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In comparison
to my last semester’s clinical, this semester I am seeing more of what I like
in the literacy block. While last
semester my CT considered what they did as “reading workshop”, I soon found out
that it did not have the real components that reading workshop should have. There was never any sort of mini lesson being
taught, and the teacher rarely read with students. The only type of assessment I saw was the Dolch
Sight words, which I implemented myself with all of the students on two
different occasions. So far at LeRoy, I know that my CT runs running records on her students. This semester, I’ve
so far had the opposite experiences when observing reading workshop. From what I’ve learned in my literacy assessment
class, my CT this semester seems to be on point with her instruction.
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At this
point, the only thing I am wondering about is how my CT implements writing workshop
because I have not yet seen the true “writing workshop”. This is due to the large amount of snow days
the district has experienced, causing a lot of catchup work throughout the day.
Danielle,
ReplyDeleteIt seems like you have spent a lot of time getting to know the literacy processes are your clinical placement. The video about their new literacy program throughout the school was very insightful. This process definitely seems like something I would like to look into more before I plan the literacy process in my own classroom. When you stated, “On the other hand, I think that while the teacher is working on the other side of the room with individual guided reading groups, the other students working independently got off task a little. I wouldn’t consider this a huge issue; however, the students proceeded to be chatty with one another because the teacher either didn’t notice or didn’t feel it necessary to intervene.” I was wondering if you were the main teacher in the classroom how you would handle this? Is there a certain classroom management tool you would use to keep your students on task?
In my last clinical placement having a list of tasks for the students to do seemed to make a small improvement. The students like to complete the entire list so they generally stayed on task. Another idea I had was maybe using a digital timer showing the students that they have to stay on task for so many minutes. There are many classroom management tools that may help with this to make the literacy process run smooth. I’m looking forward to hearing how your CT runs writers workshop!
Danielle,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that this semester's clinical classroom is providing you with models that more closely match what you have been learning about in coursework! I am also glad that you are able to critically compare the different settings you've been in to glean what will work best for you as a teacher. You mention wanting to learn more about the writing instruction specifically. After reading your post, I am wondering about it as well. Let me know what you find out as it relates to more specifics about how the writing instruction is laid out. Also, I appreciated you noting the behaviors during the reading instruction. How will you plan to keep a guided group going and redirect off-task students doing other kinds of reading? This might be something to talk through with your CT.
What a neat video about the literacy practices as LeRoy! And I loved seeing your CT so prominently. She spoke eloquently about her practice, and I am proud that she is your mentor this semester!
Danielle,
ReplyDeleteI think it's great that your seeing science and social studies integrated in your literacy instruction. I know that in my classroom at Hoose, my teacher tries to integrate literacy into her Social Studies lessons by using a lesson format she has used when teaching in Texas, called Mind Missions. These mind mission lessons require students to read a short story and then apply what they have read to engage in and create models or do a certain activity based on the text. It requires students to integrate what they have read into what they are creating and requires them to explain in detail the connections they made from the text to their activity. I watched the video and thought it was very interesting how your teacher implements literacy instruction in her classroom and it is very helpful to students when teachers are well trained to teach this kind of instruction. I have never been to Leroy but it sounds like a very interesting class to observe. In knowing you haven't seen true writing workshop time in your class, how do you think you would implement this time into your classroom if you chose to use your teacher's teaching style and literacy instruction time? Do you think you would need to cut down time for literacy instruction to incorporate writing workshop or how do you believe you would plan time for writing? I know that one thing my teacher is struggling with these past few weeks in her writing workshop time is getting all the way from drafting to publishing and actually forming a summative assessment of students writing. It is difficult for teachers to plan time to start and finish all the necessary steps of writing in the workshop and my teacher has lately been struggling with planning and organizing in order to finish their writing. I think I really like how my teacher incorporates writing and reading into literacy instruction because she is able to use both instruction time to build on strategies and topics that she is teaching in literacy and writing. I hope you get time to see true writing workshop time throughout the semester. Do you see any other kinds of writing time during instruction? Like do students make notes in discussions or are required to write during lessons or is there a specific time for their writing during the day?
Danielle,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog entry on your clinical classroom’s literacy focus. I am also placed in a third grade classroom so it was very interesting to see the differences and similarities that the two have. I really like that your classroom has two-hour literacy blocks consisting of a language workshop, literacy workshop, and reading workshop every morning. When I first read that it was two hours long, my eyes suddenly widened. You said, “At first, I was overwhelmed when I found out it was a whole 120 minutes. Because it is broken down into different components, I don’t feel as though it is lengthy, and I don’t get that impression from the children either.” I am glad and relieved to hear that the students don’t feel as though it is lengthy! You also mentioned that when your CT is on the opposite side of the room, other students tend to become chatty. I wonder what could be done to help those students stay on track and not become so distracted and chatty? Are the students sitting close to each other? Is there a classroom management tool that would help the students? I am glad that you are having the opportunity to see such great literacy instruction this semester since you did were not really able to see literacy instruction that parallels with what we are learning and have learned in pas clinical placements.