In my placement classroom, there is a lot of literacy that is included in the curriculum. The students do "Read to Self" time two or three times a day, for about 20-25 minutes each session. During read to self, each student has a set of books in a book bin, and they go to an assigned area in the classroom and read. While the students are doing Read to Self time, my CT works with groups of students on reading skills or she does testing.
My CT also reads picture books to the class quite frequently throughout the day. She uses read alouds as a segway between activities. Sometimes, she identifies themes or writing styles that were in the book, and asks the students to apply these aspects of writing to their own writing. Some examples of these themes and styles are using groups of three, stretching out big ideas, and using the picture to describe the details of your writing. During writing time, the students can write about whatever they want, but my CT tries to encourage them to use the skills and themes that they talked about. Once or twice a month, my CT does a writer's showcase, where the students can pick one of their stories and they share it with the class.
As far as integrating literacy into the curriculum, I don't think there is any problem with the amount of literacy that is taught in my classroom. When I am in the classroom, literacy is the only subject that is taught, besides math, which is taught for about 30-45 minutes per day. However, I have never seen my CT teach social studies or science, which I think could be done using literacy. I think my CT could integrate these subjects very easily using literacy, since literacy is taught throughout most of the day. Some ideas could be using a book about science as a read aloud book, and then talk about the science concepts that were brought up in that book. Or, she could take it one step further and have the students use their writing time to write a scientific journal, story, or an experiment. My CT could easily do the same thing for history, and have the students write about a specific event in history, or something that the student remembers in his or her own history. I think that these ideas could easily be implemented into my CT's curriculum, and she would be able to integrate other subjects, that she normally doesn't teach, by using literacy as a base.
Heather and I have the same CT, and I agree that there is no problem with the amount of literacy taught in our classroom. In fact, literacy may be taught entirely too much. While I do think that literacy is the subject that can most easily be integrated, I don't see any of this, which is sometimes frustrating. Like Heather said, our CT does a small amount of math, 30-45 minutes a day on Tuesday and Thursday, and 30-45 minutes of social studies and science on Monday and Wednesday. The rest of the time throughout the week is spent solely on literacy, whether that is reading to the students, having them write, or participate in "Read to Self" time, where she has them either reading to themselves, or doing reading testing. I do think that this is definitely beneficial, however, some students don't know how to read, so they spend their "Read to Self" time that occurs probably about 1-2 hours per day wandering around the room, getting in trouble because they aren't on task, staring off into space, or simply looking at the pictures in the same books over and over again. It is frustrating to see the students' time wasted, and I feel helpless because I am unsure how to "teach" them how to read. In addition, with writing tasks, some students simply scribble on the page or write letters all over their page because they have no idea how to write. A lot of time is also designated to writing, so the same thing happens with writing as does with reading. I think that more time needs to be spent teaching some of the students how to do these tasks, rather than simply asking them to and disciplining them when they aren't on task, simply because they are unable to. If reading and writing (which are important tasks), are so important to my CT, she should implement them into math, science, and social studies as Heather mentioned, instead of hardly focusing on those subjects throughout the week. It is clear that our CT prefers literacy over the rest of the subjects, but I am concerned that she is indirectly teaching her students that the rest of the subjects aren't important, as well as completely discouraging the students who aren't as strong in literacy as they could be in other subjects. Heather and I try reading with our students and focusing on writing with them when we can, and encourage them to sound out their letters instead of simply telling them what to do, however, it is really discouraging when that's all we want to do, especially when we know how frustrated they are.
ReplyDeleteI hope that we learn ways to teach younger students reading and writing skills, especially because I would like to help those students that struggle the most. It seems like their curriculum for the remainder of their first grade experience is going to focus on literacy, because it hasn't changed since the beginning of the year. Hopefully, we can help those struggling students back up to speed for the rest of the year, and encourage them to like literacy and learn that it doesn't always have to be so frustrating, and can be integrated into other subjects.
As in Heather’s placement classroom, the subject of literacy is what most time is spent on within my placement classroom. The students in my classroom don’t have specific time allotted for reading to self but when it is time for literacy the students get the choice between book box (where they can read a book or books that are in their book box, their own box that the teacher monitors that includes a selection of books that are appropriate for their reading level), literacy (reading from the language arts textbook) or writing (writing about whatever they would like in their writer’s notebook). It is also during this time that my CT, the same as Heathers works with students on literacy skills in small groups or does testing.
ReplyDeleteMy CT also reads a picture book to the student’s once a day. When reading a picture book she will frequently stop to ask students questions to check for comprehension or ask the students for their predictions. Unlike Heather’s CT mine doesn’t do a lot with the students writing, where her CT has writers showcase and asks her students to use the writing styles seen in books they are reading and apply that to their own writing my CT doesn’t have the students write a lot and when she does she doesn’t really do anything with their writing.
One thing that my CT does related to literacy that I believe is very beneficial to the students is have book club. Book club is where every student has a copy of the same book, they did James and the Giant Peach last semester and are currently doing Little House in the Big Woods. My CT reads aloud and the students follow along and everyone has a book club notebook. My CT will stop frequently while reading to point on important ideas and themes, ask students to make predictions and have them write these things, along with any connections or questions they have in their book club notebook. I think book club makes literacy important to the students and helps them develop their critical literacy skills. The only thing that I think she could do to better her literacy instruction is to use more diverse literature.
As in Heather’s classroom I don’t think that any more literacy instruction needs to be added as most of the time is already spent on literacy. My CT does already do the things that Heather suggests that her CT do to incorporate literature into the curriculum as the students have science journals to write in during science and they read and write a lot for social studies. However, I think that the type of literature used in the classroom could be more diverse. The class is very ethnically diverse and many of the students in the class are from low socioeconomic families but I have not seen my CT read books that relate to the topics of homelessness, racism, poverty, etc. I think it would be great for the students in my placement classroom to have the conversations that Kim’s students, from the Leland article had, because many of the students have no idea about these topics even though some of their peers are living lives where they don’t have a consistent home, don’t have a mom and a dad, or aren’t even being raised by their parents. Unlike Kim’s students, the students in my placement classroom see books as purely for enjoyment, they don’t look at books critically, nor look for hidden messages in a book because they are not exposed to critical or diverse literature. And, Kim teaches first grade and my students are third graders. I think that my CT could start adding some more diverse literature to her collection and read these types of stories to the students more often to help the students build their critical literacy skills and to see literature as an important part of life.
This is a really interesting set of responses. Thanks for being so thoughtful! Heather, I'm really glad to read that you CT is modeling how to use read aloud books to teach writing craft skills. That is great- make sure to observe this as much as you can! Kaitlin, you make an interesting point about how literacy can sometimes "drown out" the other subjects. I think that can happen- especially when the other subjects are not devoted sufficient time in the day. Hopefully, in your 401 class, you got some ideas on how to integrate literacy with science and s.s. so you will feel comfortable balancing all subjects in your classroom. Jennifer, I'm glad you mentioned how your CT uses read aloud books. Interesting observation, that you haven't seen some of the aspects of "critical literacy" included thus far. We'll have lots of examples of this to share tomorrow.
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