Week 3 Assignment 1

Week 3 Assignment #1

Looking Closer

Shared Reading: The essential components that are addressed during the first part of the shared reading activity include phonological awareness, word identification/phonics, and fluency/automaticity.

1. How does this activity engage students who are at different levels of literacy development? 
Every week the class does a new shared poem reading picked as something they might like that consists of high frequency words and sight words. Right off the bat the poem is engaging because it is about a hot dog and most kids like hot dogs and or know about hot dogs. After Ms. Perez read aloud with the class, she asked different students questions about the poem. This activity engages students at different levels of literacy because students that might find the poem difficult to read, can read along with the class and figure out words they might not get on their own.

2. During her explicit phonics lesson, how does Ms. Perez support students’ problem-solving skills? 
Ms. Perez supports students’ problem-solving skills during her phonics lesson on the short “o” by pointing out to them one of the high frequency words “hot”. She asks the students what would happen if she removed the “H” from hot. She then goes over “ot” by adding different letters in front of it such as g,d,l,and p. She then goes over how the word becomes another by adding a consonant blend before “ot”. Ms. Perez also took her time and let one student sound out the word “spot” until he was able to read it.

3. Based on what you saw in the video, what are the different ways that shared reading can be used to promote literacy?
Shared reading can be used to promote literacy  by picking poems/readings that engage the students interest and keep them interested in the topic. Ms. Perez said that “In order to achieve mastery of vowels, they need to have vowels to be introduced in a systematic way.” In her classroom, she had a building word wall where students learned short vowels and spelling patterns and rhymes. She taught students how they can  associate a  vowel sound with a specific word which will help them sound out a vowel. These specific words included “e escalator e” “a apple a” i itchy i” and “o octopus o”.

Guided Reading

1. Why does she think its important for students to verbalize their strategies? What else do you notice about how she helps students build meaning in text? 
Ms. Perez thinks it is important for students to verbalize their strategies because her overall goal of a guided reading is that students receive a balanced cuing system and they receive different strategies to rely on when reading a text. She wants students to develop more fluency, expand sight word vocabulary and comprehension on what they read. Students should be able to make connections with the text they are reading. Ms. Perez said that, “The more you verbalize, the more it gets internalized.” Students are grouped according to reading level, having the same needs, and needing to work on same skills. As students were reading, Ms. Perez would them cover part of a word to help the student sound it out. It is very important to pick the right text and know the childrens’ needs.

Differentiated Instruction

1. How does Ms. Perez organize her classroom to support a wide range of learners? 
Ms. Perez supports a wide range of learners by providing one-to-one help for students. She has a “Making Words” activity where her student teacher works with students on sound sequencing and high frequency words. This specific activity was on words with “i”.

2. How are reading and writing connected in classroom activities?   
How reading and writing is connected in the classroom activities is shown when very fluent independent readers read a third/fourth grade explicatory text and are shown how to take notes to share their knowledge through a poster or book. I like how Ms. Perez gives these fluent readers their choice of what they want to read about and what activity they want tousle to express what they learned.

Assessment 

1. How does Ms. Perez use ongoing individual assessment to guide her instruction? How can the class profile be used to help group students and differentiate instruction? 
Ms. Perez uses ongoing individual assessment data to inform her instructional decisions. She wants to know what she is going to teach and how she is going to teach it. In the first two weeks of the school year, she finds out where they are at, what they are doing, what they can do independently, and what they need to work on. She can differentiate activities to implement after assessments.

2. How can ongoing assessment be integrated into your own classroom practice?
When I have my own classroom, ongoing assessment should be integrated into my own classroom practice  because I will be able to see where my students currently are and where they should end up.