Read Aloud Strategy

The reading and writing strategy that I chose to discuss is read-alouds. A read aloud is a shared reading that is an effective way to hear fluent reading. Teachers should try and read to their class every day for at least five minutes. Teachers can read aloud while the students listen or they can read aloud while students follow along. By selecting other materials to read other than textbooks, teachers can provide students with interesting vocabulary words, ensure they are hearing fluent reading, and build background knowledge. During one of my observations, I experienced the teacher reading aloud a short book during morning meeting every day. These books had something to do with the content they were learning or something going on in the world such as a holiday or event. I found this really effective because it was engaging to the students and it prepared them for what was going on for that day. According to the scholarly article “Using Read Alouds in Today’s Classroom” by Reba M. Wadsworth, one component of a balanced reading curriculum—the time-honored practice of reading aloud—is considered good practice by both sides of the reading debate between phonics and whole language, but it is slowly getting lost in many classrooms. As instructional leaders, we must look at the long-range gains we want for students and continue to encourage the use of read alouds throughout the school day and in all content areas. I have attached a read-aloud lesson that is a great for students because it’s not only a good way to use a read-aloud but it is an activity were students will learn the effects of prejudice, ridicule, teasing and bullying.

Scholarly Article:

http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/oueini_bahous_nabhani/article.pdf

Lesson:

http://operationrespect.org/theme-4-celebrating-diversity/lesson-3-cross-line-belong-many-groups/

Week 9 Pink and Say

Candidate’s Name: Michael Ambrogio

Grade Level: 4

Title of the lesson: Pink and Say

Length of the lesson: 1 Hour

Central focus of the lesson: While reading the book Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco, students will identify words that are unfamiliar to them. While working collaboratively in small groups, students will discuss the meaning of these new words, using context clues from the text, prior knowledge, and both print and online resources. Students will apply their knowledge of the new vocabulary to further their understanding of the text.

Knowledge of students to inform teaching: As children approach the middle grades and become more proficient in decoding and recognizing known words, vocabulary acquisition focuses more on meaning than recognition. Direct instruction is an important aspect of vocabulary acquisition, and relates to reading comprehension in that children integrate new words with their prior knowledge. Prior to the lesson, read the text selection and make note of any words that may be unfamiliar or interesting to your students. Bookmark related websites for students to use during their group work. A list of sites is provided for Pink and Say; however, if you are using this lesson with another book or topic, make sure to research a list of appropriate websites in advance of the lesson. Arrange for students to have access to computers with Internet access.

Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.1 Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, in the grades 4-5 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.4.4 Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.8 Recall relevant information from experiences or gather relevant information from print and digital sources; take notes and categorize information, and provide a list of sources. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.4.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.4.6 Differentiate between contexts that call for formal English (e.g., presenting ideas) and situations where informal discourse is appropriate (e.g., small-group discussion); use formal English when appropriate to task and situation. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.3 Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.4 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 4 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.5 Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.6 Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being (e.g., quizzed, whined, stammered) and that are basic to a particular topic (e.g., wildlife, conservation, and endangered when discussing animal preservation).

Support literacy development through language: Have students keep a word log during Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) as a way to repeat this activity regularly on an independent level. The lesson Using a Word Journal to Create a Personal Dictionary, although intended for grades 6–8, can easily be adapted for younger students. Practice the strategy using words that students encounter during their other classes. After introducing a word, ask students to predict what they think the word means, refer to the dictionary to find the actual definition, engage in a group discussion relating the word to their prior knowledge, and use the word in a sentence of their own. Continued repetition and practice with the strategy is beneficial. Repeat this lesson with other trade books or basal assignments. Be sure to compile a list of age-appropriate resources related to the text selection to assist students in defining new words.

Learning objectives: Students will Develop new strategies to enhance reading comprehension Locate unfamiliar words in a story and determine their meaning using a variety of strategies (e.g., prior knowledge, context clues, group discussion, media sources) Acquire new vocabulary identified from the assigned text Enhance understanding of new vocabulary by making connections to related ideas and other words Aim to use new vocabulary in speaking and writing Aim to continually use the practiced strategies to enhance reading comprehension and acquire new vocabulary

Formal and informal assessment: Teacher observation Anecdotal records Student's written response Individual Performance and Group Participation Rubric

Instructional procedure: Read the text selection Pink and Say aloud to the whole class, avoiding any interruptions from students who have questions. To introduce the lesson activity, choose a word to model the strategy that students will later use in their small-group work. Allow students the opportunity to comment on their ideas of what the word means. Share a media definition such as the one from dictionary.com. Other online sources can also be used to provide more information about the word's meaning. Using a thesaurus, identify synonyms for the word and then plug in each synonym to see if it makes sense within the context of the original sentence. Ask students if they have any questions or comments about how to use this strategy when determining the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Model a few more examples if students need further clarification, or allow a few students to lead whole-class demonstrations of a few more examples for further reinforcement. 3. Divide the class into small groups and provide one copy of the book to each group. 4. Assign students in each group a role, per your discretion (e.g., teacher assignment, student choice, peer vote). Roles include -Vocabulary Enricher–identifies interesting or unfamiliar words in the reading and leads a discussion about the new words -Literary Luminary–relates the new words back to the context of the passage, and provides supporting definitions by accessing a dictionary or other media sources -Connector–makes a connection between the meaning of words as used in the context of the text and prior knowledge or understanding -Discussion Director–facilitates the discussion among members of the group -Summarizer–records and reports the group's activities to the whole class; similar to a secretary or reporter Ask students to assume their assigned or chosen role in the group, and make sure that they understand their individual responsibilities. 5. Explain that the group's task is to locate and creatively define unfamiliar or interesting words from the text Pink and Say. When encountering new words, students should be encouraged to look at the context of the surrounding sentences, engage in a group discussion about the new words, draw upon their prior knowledge of the word or topic, and access print and online resources for supporting definitions. For the text Pink and Say, the following websites are recommended to assist students in defining unfamiliar words: -Dictionary.com. This website is an online version of the dictionary. -The Civil War for Kids. This website was created by students and provides information about the Civil War. -Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site: Pink and Say. This site provides a review of the book Pink and Say and a list of "Related Areas on the Internet." This exercise gives students the opportunity to practice using a new strategy when encountering unfamiliar words. It also helps them to realize that understanding new words will enable them to understand the story better. Thus, they will be developing their reading comprehension skills while also acquiring new vocabulary. 6. Rotate among the groups as students are working and keep anecdotal records describing the students' interactions with one another, participation in the discussion, and role behavior. 7.After the group work, which will assume the bulk of the time allotted, gather students as a whole class and ask the summarizer from each group to share the group's activities. 8.Create a chart to record each group's findings as the summarizer presents them. 9.Relate the new words that students identified back to the story Pink and Say. Engage in a whole-class discussion of the text, reinforcing the new vocabulary and students' understanding of the story. 10.To end the session, ask students to choose one word that they learned during this session. Have them write their understanding of the word's definition, copy the sentence from the text highlighting the specified word, rewrite the sentence substituting a synonym for the word that makes sense within the context of the sentence, and then provide an illustration of the word. The illustration does not have to be related to the story.

Instructional resources, materials, and technology: Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco (1 copy per group) Dictionary Thesaurus Paper and pencil Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site: Pink and Say The Civil War for Kids Dictionary.com

Reflection Did your instruction support learning for the whole class and the students who need great support or challenge? What changes would you make to support better student learning of the central focus? Why do you think these changes would improve student learning? Support your explanation from evidence of research and/or theory.

Week 8 Assignment 1

A hoatzin has a clever way of escaping from its enemies.
• After reading this sentence, I think that a Hoatzin is some kind of animal that is often prey for other animals.
It generally builds its home in a branch that extends over a swamp or stream.
• I think that a Hoatzin is some kind of animal that can climb a tree high enough to keep away from its predators.
If an enemy approaches, the hoatzin plunges into the water below.
• I now see that the Hoatzin is an animal that is smart and can also swim in the water.
Once the coast is clear, it uses its fingerlike claws to climb back up the tree.
• I now see that the Hoatzin is a smart animal and also has claws like a bear or big animal to climb trees from enemies.
Hoatzins are born with claws on their wings but lose the claws as they get older.
• I finally see that the Hoatzin is some kind of bird like animal that becomes big enough that they don't need their claws on their wings to get away from enemies.

I was really surprised to see what the actual bird looked like after reading about it. While reading each sentence separately, my imagination of the Hoatzin changed. After the first sentence, I knew it was some kind of animal. After the second sentence, I knew it was an animal that seems to live in a tree over some kind of water. When I finished the third sentence, I knew that the animal was able to spend some sort of time in the water. When I got to the fourth sentence, I realized that the animal had fingerlike claws to help them climb a tree. Here is where my imagination changed and I pictured a somewhat big animal climbing a tree. From this sentence, I was surprised to find that the Hoatzin was a bird because birds usually fly and I was thrown off with the climbing aspect of the animal. After the last sentence, I could see that the Hoatzin was a bird because it has wings. The picture I drew after all sentences resembled some sort of bat. I was picturing a bat like figure because it needed to be small and fast to swoop into the water.

Week 7 Assignment 1

Week 7 Assignment 3

The three levels of words include familiar words, words that appear often, and highly technical words. Familiar words are words like bad, look, and run that don't need to be taught. Words that appear often enough include words that are seen daily in print or on tv and could include words like freeway, hurricane, or democracy. These words are mostly words that need to be taught. The highly technical words like legislatures and unicameral are words that are often taught during science or social studies lessons. It is easy to develop 5-7 words in two 10 minute lessons a week. Students absorb more from words that are taken from materials that they are dealing with. By students finding words in their reading material, they improve the comprehension of the overall material at hand.
It is found to be ineffective to teach letter by letter and to increase the volume of reading for more exposures. Students will learn to use other words to learn new words. By “chunking” a word into individual “chunks” students can pronounce what they know to frighten out whole word. Students can be told to tear off the front, tear off the back, and pronounce the middle. There are times students might have to tear a word in half so help understand the meaning.
It is important in the classroom to keep a visual track of what words the students are learning. A highly effective practice is using a word chart. Students are instructed to figure out the meanings of new words by using context clues from their readings. Effective teaching isn't highly replicable and the one size fits all instruction is literally anti-scientific. We as teachers need to adopt needs for the students sitting right in front of us.

Week 7 Assignment 2

It is very important that students are given the proper materials to support fluency. The classroom should supply students with the appropriate texts, the opportunities to practice reading, and an effective non-interruptive reading strategy. The texts should math the appropriate grade level of reading especially in science and social studies. Students should read a lot because practice maters. It is proven that students with little practice are low level readers and students with a lot of practice are at a high success level reader. In Caroline Cockman’s third grade class, she had her students rate their books on three categories, too challenging, just right, and too easy. The just right books were chosen to meet the needs of each child. Struggling readers read about 20-30 minutes a day where as advanced readers read 1.5-2 hours per day. The goal of reading is comprehension but you want your students to receive goosebumps, giggles, or tears from what they grasp. As a teacher, I want to model what a good reader does and enforce that they should be self monitors and self regulating. I do not want to create word by word readers and make sure that I am expressive and use the appropriate innovation to reflect emotion.

Week 6 Assignment 3

Candidate’s Name: Michael Ambrogio

Grade Level: 1

Title of the lesson: The ir, er, and ur Girls

Length of the lesson: 40-60 minutes

Central focus of the lesson:            This phonics lesson will introduce the ir, er, and ur girls, but will focus on the /er/ sound. Students will learn that when found together the letters e and r make the /er/ sound instead of two separate sounds. Students will have the opportunity to make words with "er" on the smart board and will reinforce the lesson on the Internet.

Knowledge of students to inform teaching: I will purchase 3 baby dolls for $1 each at the dollar store or possibly parents can donate dolls. Make little nametags and pin them on each doll. (ir, er, ur) Locate any available text that children can decode which uses "er" in the text.

Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2 ·         Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.A ·         Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.B ·         Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.C ·         Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.D ·         Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).

Support literacy development through language: ·         Phonemic Awareness ·         Blending and Spelling Words

Learning objectives: Students will recognize and read words with "er." Students will segment, spell, and write words with "er."

Formal and informal assessment: The teacher should observe students' responses and check for application when students write the sounds correctly on the smart board.

Instructional procedure: 1.    Phonemic Awareness Warm-Up: Tell students the following story: This is a story about a mama who was so thrilled that she was going to have a baby. She like the name /er/ and planned to name her baby this name. But, much to her surprise, she didn't have one baby, she had three babies! She didn't like any other name but /er/, so she called them all /er/, but spelled them ir, ur, and er. Introduce the dolls. 2.    Explain to students that they will be learning about "er" today. Blending and Spelling Words: Explain that when er comes at the end of a word it should sound like a plain r /er/. Demonstrate by writing on the board: better, darker, over, thunder, and her. Ask students to think of other words they might use? (other, slower, faster, wetter, louder, softer, etc. Point out that the words all have er at the end. Demonstrate that there are words that have er in the middle. (Examples: fern and germ) Have students add to the list. 3.    Connected Writing Activity 1: Direct students to take out their dry erase boards, markers, and erasers. Dictate a word with the /er/ sound. Allow students time to sound the word out and write it on their boards. Have students display their written word so it may be checked for accuracy. 4.    Connected Writing Activity 2: Next have students list words that have er in them. The teacher should write this list on the board so all students can see it. Then have students write a sentence using some of the listed words. Students should circle the /er/ words in the sentence. Students should write their sentences on their boards. The teacher should remind students to check for capital letter and end mark. Students will display their completed sentence, and the teacher should check for accuracy. 5.    Reading: Allow students to read a decodable text that uses many er words. Have students make a list of all the er words they find in the text. 6.    Internet Practice: Once students understand the concept of er words, have them practice what they learned by completing the r-controlled game on the Internet. Students must chose the r-controlled game once they enter this site. (i know that .com) Students will play different games using r - controlled words. These games will reinforce the information learned during the lesson.

Instructional resources and materials used: ·         Three dolls labeled ir, er, and ur ·         ir, er, ur chart (1 poster listing several ir, ur, er words) ·         Dry erase boards ·         markers ·         erasers(one for each student and teacher) ·         Any available decodable text using "er" ·         Computer with Internet access

Reflection ●     Did your instruction support learning for the whole class and the students who need great support or challenge? ●     What changes would you make to support better student learning of the central focus? ●     Why do you think these changes would improve student learning? Support your explanation from evidence of research and/or theory.