The word analysis section reminded me of working with my own girls with their reading. One of my daughters uses context clues very heavily. Today when she came to the word “work” she tried a few sounds, but then kept looking at the illustration, then back to the word, then back to the page trying to figure it out. She doesn’t use the words in the sentence to help her as much as my other daughter. Then I got to the visual analysis paragraph of the same section and I recognized a strategy that I was already using. The textbook said that proficient readers automatically say the sound of the vowel or vowel cluster then add the beginning and ending consonants. I have been unknowingly teaching my children to do this. Like in the above example, I told my daughter that ‘or’ sounds like ‘er’ in that word (we haven’t learned r-controlled vowels yet), and then she was able to add on the beginning w and final k.
I do very much like the checklists that keep popping up, the ones that show how to keep track of who knows what in your classroom, like on p. 133. I am quite intimidated by the task of tracking student progress, and these checklists make the job seem simple, quick, and effortless.
In the guided reading section on p. 138 and 139, I noticed that the teacher did not read the book first to the students. In our tutoring sessions, I wonder if we have to read the book to the students first or if it is just optional.
Amy, I do not read the guided reading book to my students but we discuss it before we begin. For example, this week we will be reading two poems for our guided reading. One is called Homework and the other is Swap. They both have corresponding pictures so we will talk about what they think the poems might be able based upon the pictures and the titles of the poems. After they read them poems, I will read them the poems and they can follow along (I typically do not read it to them after wards, we just discuss the reading but this week we are talking about reading with expression and recording ourselves reading a short poem to increase our fluency so I thought this would help) I have a rubric for guided reading I use that I got from someone at FHSU that I find very helpful. I am not sure who wrote it as it does not say but here is is:
Guided Reading Groups • Choose multiple copies according to reading ability of groups • Choose grade level appropriate vocabulary for practice • Make a list of these words/and or word cards • Introduce with Mastery Word Learning • Do a picture walk if there are pictures • If no pictures/discuss title, cover picture, make predictions • Instructor read story to K-2 • Read story with group/use different techniques, NOT ROUND ROBIN • Stop and ask comprehension questions as you go • Next reading….partner read or assign a “radio read”
Objective for Guided Reading_ The student will master a new set of vocabulary and be able to independently read and comprehend material at their grade/instructional level.
I just looked via word and it says the author is FHSU for the guided reading guidelines posted above. I think I might have got it from Corrections or from Dr. BW in R&LA Methods. Sorry I don't know!
Amy, I read the GR book to my student who are 1st graders. First I do a picture walk, then I read the story, then we discuss what we liked in the story, and then we read the story together. I hate cold reads and Think that they get more out of the reading if they have had prior exposure to the story. I also am getting my GR books from A-Z reading.com and love how all of the leveled readers have a place for the student to add two illustrations and sections to the story. Last week we used this to make predictions after our picture walk and then to put what really happened after we read it. This week I am having my kids add to the story. In reading ":I Pick Up" one of my boys wrote the sentence "I pick up my video games" and drew a picture of his favorite video game. This really helped him make a connection.
I have to admit that reading this chapter I felt a little like Mr. Morris, the teacher who has severl groups of students with diverse needs. One of my students does exactly what the text describes, he will look at me when he does not know a word with out trying to sound it out. Both of my students do what Mr. Morris’ students are doing when they misread a word and do not realize it. They read the words, some of them correctly, but they do not realize that they have misread anything and they do not gain any (much) comprehension from the readings. After listing to this last weeks recordings and reading chapter 6 I think I might try and employ the student who is the stronger reader to be my intern and help his brother to break down the unknown words that he is having some difficulty with. While not all of his troubles are with compound words it might be an interesting experiment. My question about this chapter is if peer-teaching can word well with siblings. The twins that I am working with know very well the other siblings strengths and weaknesses and I don’t want them to feel as if they can use the other brother as a crutch when reading. The school had them placed in different sections so that they will learn independently. What are some ways that I can encourage peer tutoring but not make it a crutch? One thing that I did not know but learned after reading this chapter was some of the generalizations concerning words that aid in visual analysis on page 131. While I know them in that I use them in my readings, my spoken and my written language I could not have put them into words like this. Having this little ‘cheat sheet’ will be something for me to put to memory. I also had some thoughts about the different cueing systems that students use. My students have a pretty amazing site word bank they rely on for reading and are great conversationalists so they present as better readers then they are. Their new parents work with them daily on vocabulary to keep them abreast of their school work. However, the boys both have a hard time with fluency, comprehension, and phonics when the words are unknown to them. They have limited word attack skills and have a hard time with unknown words out of context. They both are reading below grade level but are quickly gaining ground. I believe (I obviously have not tested them for this, this is just my personal opinion after working with them) that they are both fiercely intelligent and are only where they are with reading due to years of neglect. We are working on using context clues this week in our time together but I wanted to know some ways to increase their cueing systems. If you were working with my students knowing the above and after reading this chapter what activities would you suggest?I’m drawn to the wordless book idea suggested on page 139 and I have already been adding pictures to the stories / vocab words we use to help give context and enrich their interest. We have personalized flash cards we use each week and have “flash Gordon cards” we review that are the words they are having difficulty with. They have, as part of the trifold, a personalized word wall. But I digress: my questions are as follows: 1. When working with 5th grade students with a 3rd grade reading level should I try to pick actives that are listed for 5th grades or can I go down a suggested grade level? 2. What other things might be helpful?
Jessica, I loved how you are questioning how to have twins/siblings help each other without it being a crutch. I have twins and I have to have one read to me without the other one in the room because one is a slightly stronger reader than the other and will give the right words. What happens with my girls is that the one who is not as strong realizes that she is not as good, so she will not even try to read in front of the other one. However, my stronger reader is really good at giving hints they way I do. For example, my lower reader was reading a word that had the EE phonogram and my higher reader told her to remember E, the double E! Based on that example, I might have the student who you want to use as an "intern" give one hint only, something related to a sound or phonogram. I think if you teach him to give hints and not words it may be less of a crutch.
When I pick my activities for my second grade students, I go down to at least first grade and sometimes kindergarten. Or sometimes I can just put easier words into the second grade activities, if appropriate.
It sounds like you are putting a lot of thought into your tutoring and activities. Great job!
Great idea of having the siblings work with each other. I feel that it could be very beneficial as long as they are nice to each other. They could work both in and out of school since they live together. I have some of the same questions as you. Mainly about activities and students levels. Like your students mine are two grade levels below their grade when it comes to reading. So far my activities have been pretty simple, more at their reading levels than grade level, but I do wonder if I'm doing it correctly. I think your students would benefit from breaking down unfamiliar words, as the book said. Maybe seeing familiar little words in harder words and blending them together would help them figure out how to attack unfamiliar words. Good post.
It's funny that you would ask that question about using peer-tutoring on the twins, but not wanting them to use eachother as crutches. I also tutor ESOL twins, and I see the same results when I use peer-tutoring with them. One usually end up speaking for the other one, or helping the other one complete an activity that we might be working on. I have three boys all together, so there are many times where I will have one twin work with the student that is not a sibling, and the other twin play a learning game while they are working together. Then I will have the student that is not a twin work in a peer-tutoring activity with the other twin and end up switching them around to where the twins are not working together. So far this has worked for me.
Looking at figure 6.2 & 6.3 I am once again reminded that it is a huge feat for any child to learn to read. There are so many rules and as readers we just “know” them without thinking about it. I bet half of the rules listed I could not have told you off the top of my head yet I am a fluent reader. Understanding how your readers are looking at the words and attaching them is the first step in helping them discover tools that may help them. As the chapter discussed sight word vocabulary should be taught is phases and assessed. You should also teach root words, prefixes, suffixes, rimes, blends, digraphs and units. All of these parts work together to help the reader quickly identify the words they are reading. If they struggle on each and every word they will be less likely to continue trying. This is why helping them understand some of these rules early on will help them. The wordless book on page 139 is one idea that I have used in the past. Struggling readers get scared by the sight of a page filled with letters that make no sense to them. For a long time I would print off wordless books and my dyslexic son would write the story. What was funny was that no matter how complex he made the story he could “read” it back to me because he had made a connection to it on a level outside of just the written word. I think that wordless books should be used in classrooms more because they also offer a creative outlet who knows maybe an author awaits the challenge. I also like the activity in figure 6.13 on compound words. Anytime you can get them looking at the smaller parts of a larger word you are going to help then not be as intimidated. Activities like this can make learning some of the more common compound words fun. I can see myself doing these activities in the years to come to help make lasting connections with the root words in these compound words so when they see them they will be able to recall it quickly.
When reading about looking at the smaller parts of a larger word, this made total sense to me to. I remember my teacher breaking up the words with her fingers as she helped me read. I was a struggling reader and this seemed to really help me. I do this now. I even do it to help students spell a word.
Breaking up the words into smaller parts is something I have done with my 5th grade students that has really helped them. Both of my students start to read the word and then just say a word that starts the same. For example, we were looking at the word superlative. They kept saying super-sation. First off, this isn't a word, and secondly, the ending of these two words are not even remotely close. After they broke the words into parts, they knew they could pronounce the word and stopped guessing (as much... ). I think the more we continue to do this, the more the students will be able to dissect on their own.
I think that you make a lot of great points in your blog. First of all I agree that there are alot of rules that are taught at an early age to help students become fluent readers with great comprehension skills. It amazes me how much is learned from kindergarten to 2nd grade in regards to phonics skills. Like you said, we just know these rules as readers, but when you have to sit and go through the processes that are taught to get to the point of 5th grade it really is crazy. I think it is key to start reading to your children as infants. I think that another great point that you make is in discussing the wordless book. As an educator, I would think it would be a lot of fun for students to be able to attack their creativity and imagination. I agree that the wordless book are a good way to let students express their creativity. Great thoughts :)
This chapter had some good activities to help aid with word identification. Most of what this chapter talked about I have read and learned about in previous classes. The 4 cueing systems was very informative to read over. It was nice to see that my tutoring students are using some of these cueing systems without me knowing what they were prior to reading this chapter. A couple of my students need a lot of work with word identification, mainly through blending words and breaking down words. I can tell they don't try to do this and just make up words not even close to the unfamiliar word and keep on reading. Some of the intervention activities would work great for these two students. I was doing digraphs today with my students and not even thinking about it showed them onset/rime to help them think of more words based on the diagraphs. One student thought it was the coolest thing ever to break it down like that and made it so easy. I was surprised to see this since they are 4th graders and weren't aware of this. I feel that next week I will be working more with onset/rime now because they found it extremely beneficial. I wish I would have known of the Checklist for word recognition, like on page 133 earlier. This would have been great to have with a the lower couple of my students at the beginning to help me pinpoint where they struggle the most. This chapter had some great informal assessments and activities that I could easily use in tutoring with my students.
Ryan- I can relate to students who need work with word identification. The two girls who I tutor sound out each sound when they come to a word they don't know. Now, this is o.k., but like Ms. Stoppel said in her Recording #2 this week...if a student is ever going to increase fluency and rate, they have to chunk the sounds in the word and pick out the "words within words" that they know to help them get that word recognized and move on. A great example of this is that Tuesday evening one of my girls came to the word "cannot" in our Guided Reading. She did not even try to figure it out or even see that it was two words, "can" and "not", put together. I think that both girls are struggling with word identification and this is what is hampering their fluency. The student who could not identify this compound word has rate, but is also my "word guesser". She comes to a word she doesn't know and guesses it without sounding it our or chunking any of its parts and keeps on going with her reading. I found this chapter and the recordings for the week to be very beneficial to my tutoring group.
Ryan - I see my students also needing the knowledge to break down a word and decode it properly. I have one that guesses at words even when he knows it! This chapter gave me more ideas on what to do in future lessons! Hanna
I watched the recordings before reading the chapter so I felt that I already had background knowledge of the reading and seemed to take more interest in this. Chapter 6 is about word identification. The main components of word identification are word knowledge and word analysis skills. Next the chapter talks about teaching word identification with ESOL students. I loved this part. From what I have learned in the past, I have decided what works for ESOL students usually also works for all other students too. The section in the book that broke down how to teach affixes and syllables provided ideas of how to do this in the classroom with all of my future students, ESOL and English speaking. This chapter also goes over assessments, formal and informal. One assessment that I enjoyed was the prefix/suffix test on page 136. This could be turned into a game I think and then even used for an assessment.
The activities listed in the back of the chapter also provide many ideas on how to teach this content and provide practice to students. These could even be used in my tutoring. When it comes to creating lessons I always forget about this book. I think I will probably leave this book out and try to use the activities provided in the back of the chapters. My content focus is vocabulary, and word identification would be great practice.
Question, what is the difference between word identification and vocabulary? Or is vocabulary just part of word identification like it says in the book and there is no difference to compare?
Danielle,Yes, I agree that the activities in the end of this chapter were great resources to use to help us teach word identification. The one for kindergarten I was thinking of using in one of my lessons this semester! When it comes to your questions I think that word identification and vocabulary are different. Vocabulary are words you identify when you are reading, they tend to be in large chunks (words) which allow the brain to identify. Pg. 127 helps to also explain how the four cueing system will help with identifying letters and words more rapidly and help with the process of identifying the words. But, of course I’m learning and I may not have told you the exact answer.
Danielle, the activities in this book are awesome. I have used one almost every tutoring session so far! Your question about vocabulary and word identification is one I don't think I will probably answer correctly, but it is definitely a good one. What I took from the text is that vocabulary is one component of word identification, so when we work on vocabulary we are working on word knowledge which is a component of word identification skills. Like I said, I don't know if this is correct, but this is how it makes sense to me. I was using figure 6.1 to help me clarify this.
Chapter 6, was about word identification. Frankly I have been having some questions regarding this topic with the three girls that I am tutoring this semester. One of the girls is getting distracted and not staying focused during Guided Reading. Granted she has been diagnosed with an IEP so that could play a factor. The other two girls are starting to really “get it” and showing signs of many of the topics mentioned in this chapter. (I am not saying the student with an IEP, isn’t getting it, she has definitely started improving too). Such as receptive vocabulary; they are able to find and identify their new vocabulary words and sight words. Since they are just beginning to learn how to ready, they are somewhat showing signs of Tunnel Vision, which is the ability to read slowly and sound out each word while reading. I think maybe I can go about having the students work more on background knowledge and making sure the material is not too difficult, as DeVRies explains. However, my students are only Kindergarten and yet have the ability to concur the four cueing systems, but they ARE learning! My question would be: Would a student with an IEP or other learning disability show signs of “tunnel Vision” “lack of interest” “hard to stay focused” or would it be something more causing this to happen. Such as, ADD or Autism? How would you know? All the students are completely engaged and NOT bored with the material but this one student ‘comes and goes’ while doing the Guided Reading.
Jennifer- I guess my first question would be what does she have an IEP for? "Coming and going" in the lesson could depend on several factors. If your tutoring is later in the day, they could just be tired (depending on age/grade) and frankly just "done" for the day. I know one of my girls in tutoring is like that. Maybe the topic of the book is boring to that child. Having two boys of my own who are both ADHD, however gifted, sometimes they truly just get bored. Now, girls more often have ADD and not the "hyperactive" component, and will "zone out" because there is a deficit in their attention span. As a teacher, we constantly have to be on top of getting those student's attention and bring it back to the lesson. Personally, I would want to know what they IEP is for. If there is a reading disability, maybe the material is too hard for that individual. If there is a processing issue, maybe the lesson is going to fast and they can't keep up. There can be so much more than tunnel vision or lack of interest. I would see what the IEP is for and what they diagnosis is to better serve that child while tutoring.
I thought this was a pretty good chapter and appreciated the discussion of the four cueing systems, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and graphophonic, in relationship to word identification. I know all of these come automatically for advanced and proficient readers, but they are skills that we need to teach our students. I also really liked figure 6.1 on page 129, which outlined the main components of word identification. One of my tutoring students seems to have a really hard time with word identification and will shout out replacement words when she is reading. Most of the time they are nowhere close to the same word, but the onset of the word is the only similarity. Today, for guided reading I had the students read through the story silently and underline any word they had trouble with. We then went over these words, looked at the whole sentence, broke the words apart, and defined them. She seemed to understand and feel comfortable about the words, but when we did our second reading aloud she really struggled and was back to shouting random words. I stressed the importance of reading to the end of the sentence and then going back to the word, but I didn’t have any luck with that either. The other student in our group even started giving her the answer and more or less choral reading with her, then began taking over her passage. I am having a very hard time pinpointing exactly what I need to do to help her, but I think this chapter had some good ideas that I would like to try out. I haven’t tried sentence strips yet, but maybe that would help her look at individual words within sentences. I also need to find ways to use my higher student in advantageous ways. I know they want to help each other, but I don’t want my lower level student expecting to be given the answers all the time and I don’t want them to be given away either. I have thought about moving down in difficulty level, but she continues to tell me that the passages are “just right”, even though she seems to be struggling. I think I might also try out the fry phrases and see how she does with those. I really liked figure 6.5, which showed how to score or keep track of the fry phrases the students know. There were several other activities I thought would be good to use now and in the future, and I always love the additional websites and technology resources that the chapters provide. Every chapter I read just makes everything a little more complete and concrete. I am starting to see how exactly everything works together as a whole and how things should progress.
Abbie, I also have one that knows only the onset. She makes up words and is also an ELL. It was funny on the nonsense words that I tested her on. She was able to tell me the longest words perfectly. I am a little baffled. I am also going to try some of the suggestions from this chapter. We don't have a lot of time left, but I think we can still make a difference if we are consistent.
Once again I read a chapter in this text and wonder how I ever learned to read! Learning by simply memorizing lists of words does not make a student a proficient reader. I wish someone would have told my older sister that when she was teaching me to read at about 5 years old. Her way of teaching me was to put a book in front of me and when I didn't get something right she whacked me on top of the head and told me it wasn't right. Thank goodness this is not the way a real teacher teaches! For me, I was really excited to see and read about the checklists. I got to observe my Mentor from spring 2012 for RLA Methods do this. Each day when she did her anticipatory set, she went down her checklist to ensure students were competent in the standards she was teaching. This was her way of each day informally assessing each student’s growth. I was really excited to learn how to do this informal assessment, but didn’t realize until now the importance that a checklist has and how the teacher really can tailor instruction to meet the needs of her students. I enjoyed reading about Guided Reading; however, between the activity on page 138 and the “A Guided Reading Session” below, I see that my Guided Reading sessions are not exactly like this. I learned right away the first week that although I was thankful for the trial of the Reading a to z website, the books for my girls to read seemed to have no “meat” in them for us to really discuss. It was more of a variety of sentences using the key vocabulary words. I had to go to my Public Library to get some Easy Readers for them that had some sort of story to it to help keep them interested and to add more to my Guided Reading time. I have to say though that I loved the “Unscramble the Sentence” activity to emphasize sight vocabulary. So often I find my girls I tutor will read a sentence and guess at a word they don’t know, but they are not listening to what they are reading and thinking that the word they guessed doesn’t make sense in the sentence. There are definitely a lot of great activities in this chapter that I plan to use in my tutoring sessions.
LeAnn - I agree with you, students can not learn to read by memorizing words. I wish someone will tell teachers now days! I see this so much in classrooms and then they wonder why some many students struggle at reading. I also remember from last week that students are not going to become fluent by just reading a book, they need more. This is the problem that I see but the future looks bright because we know how to do it correctly!
This chapter discussed how students become proficient readers. Students cannot become proficient readers by mainly focusing on letter sound relationships and memorization. Students need to do the following three things; use visual information for print and graphics, put together the information to receive the meaning of the text, and thinking beyond the text. If students show these three techniques then they will become proficient readers. There are four cueing systems that also help each reader. Syntactic system is the system of grammar and sentence structure. This is done when a student reads the sentence and may not know a word but uncovers it by using other elements in the sentence to make sense of the unknown word. Semantic system is the meaning of words, sentences and phrases. This helps with unknown words that have many meanings, than the one they would recognize in a sight word list. Pragmatic system is the situational context of the word. Students rely on their past connections to make sense of the words. Students may have different ideas of the words since everyone has different connections. Graphophonic system is the relationship between letters and their sounds. Students should be encouraged to use these four cueing systems to become proficient readers. I don’t have any contradictions about this reading issue I just feel that it is important to note that each student would work on these cues instead of relying on sight word cards. Many students may know the words when they are on a card by itself but they struggle when it is among other words in a sentence. I also want to say that I have seen teachers teach letters and their sounds but don’t focus on all of the sounds that the letters make. I think this must be very important for a student to be able to decode a word. I have yet to see any teacher in my district explain the three vowel sounds of the three vowels that have them. This should be taught and not just acceptable for a student to know one sound of the letter. I look at this issue differently by now knowing how I can better help my students and my children with reading. I have seen a lot of focus on sight words and feel lost when they know them from a card but do not know them in a sentence. I will focus more on the four cues and also the components of word identification. Throughout this blog I have made connections to myself. I feel that in the future I will concentrate more on the components of word identification. My son does great in weekly spelling test, this includes word recognition, spelling, and use in a sentence. He does so well every week. But when we go to read he misses those words in the text. I feel now that he may need more word analysis skills. His oral expressive vocabulary is so large. He amazes me when he speaks because he uses such big words for a seven year old, and uses them in the correct context. I think he needs more visual analysis skills.
1. This chapter was about word identification and the importance of working in small groups to be most effective. Beginning readers need to learn both word knowledge and word analysis skills. This means that we need to help them build their vocabulary and help them learn sight words, and sight vocabulary. With word analysis skills, we have students examine the context clues, monosyllabic words, polysyllabic words and the structure by looking at the root words, prefixes and suffixes. This chapter gave a very good overview of how to assess once we have a classroom of our own with many students at different levels. 2. I do not have any questions right now. 3. I was so glad to find the website mentioned on page 134. It is a great resource for Fry Word Phrases. (http://np.harlan.k12ia.us/reading_center.htm) I think this would be a fun activity for the morning exercises as a class. If it is done as a group, it might help those who have difficulty. I think phrases are more interesting than just sight words. I like that they are ready-to-use Power Points. On page 138-139 there is a format suggested for guided reading. I am going to try this on Tuesday this week with my tutoring group. We have been doing picture walks and vocabulary, but this gave me the idea to use for an activity or for second day anticipatory set. I can ask them to find the mystery word on a page. I think I am going to play a mystery word game with them and see how they do with that after we read our book. I could use this as the formative assessment in some instances if I ask each student to find a particular word that makes the sound I'm looking for on a page. I can keep a checklist or tally to see how many they were able to locate correctly. 4. I have done some of these things with my students when I was a Paraeducator. We used starfall.com also and funbrain.com. The first grade teacher I was with always had the class play bingo to help them with word recognition, vocabulary and spelling words. They loved playing tic-tac-toe also.
I enjoyed chapter 6 because my focus area is vocabulary. The students that I am working with both stated that they wanted to be able to pronounce and understand words better on their own. This chapter broke down the different skills a student has to master before they will be able to do this. We just finished focusing on synonyms and will move on to antonyms next week. We will then focus on homonyms. We have been working on strengthening our sight words, rhyming words, and vocabulary words as well. During the guided reading, we have been breaking down the vocabulary words or other words that they are struggling with. With the help of the vowel code rap, the students are learning the difference between the types of sounds. I am pleased that I can tell them that the a in palindrome is a short a and they automatically pronounce it!
Guided reading is something that I would like to know more about for 5th grade students. I am having a hard time finding stories that are relevant for the students but not chapter books. I was very disappointed with the A-Z reading selections for the older grades. The students began to hate guided reading time and would ask if they could do something else. I noticed that they would pay less attention and try less during this activity. Due to living in a small town (800 people), our library is able to get a variety of literature but it often has to be ordered and is usually only one copy. This is something I am focusing on trying to further understand and work through this weekend.
I liked the idea of using personalized flash cards during our sessions. Often, the students will figure out a word and then have to refigure it out for the next session. I feel these cards to help them remember them better. This is similar to the personalized dictionaries. I think I may go more towards putting a section in their binders that they will be able to add to each session and then show their parents at the end of tutoring. I am hoping to find some Smartboard activities involving vocabulary to really keep the students’ interests!
I also enjoyed the chapter as I do a great amount of vocabulary work prior to the students reading the guided reading section. My tutoring students also seem to be picking up the vowel sounds after working the last few weeks on the vowel sound flashcards and vowel code rap. You may try to obtain books from the school in your town, sometimes teachers will have more than one copy of a book in the classroom that they use for guided reading. Another thought would be to buy the books from Amazon; sometimes you can get used books for a really cheap price.
Chapter Six Blog Zoë Greenemeyer Students should not become proficient readers simply by memorizing lists of words or learning all the combinations of letter-sound relationships. This statement from this chapter is so important for teachers to remember. I have seen so many times where the teacher focuses on flash card memorization but does not put the words into context or in other material. The four cueing systems discussed in this chapter are the syntactic system, semantic system, pragmatic system, and graphophonic system. Proficient readers use these four cuing systems automatically. Through tutoring I can see how important the break-up of each skill is so that students can become familiar with it and store it to memory to use when reading material. Vocabulary is another important skill needed and students need to have good receptive and expressive vocabulary. At the present time my daughter is working on her familiarity with sight words needed for books she will read in class. When we review the sight words I always put the word in a sentence or give her an example of how the word is used to help trigger her memory when she comes in contact with the word. Through tutoring I present the vocabulary from the guided reading book so much that students are able to fluently read through the book with no issues. I thought the chapters idea to go through the standards and create checklists based off of these standards was a great idea. This can also be included in the progress report for parents to see what skills the students’ needs more assistance in and help the teacher gain knowledge about what material needs to be addressed. The section of the chapter that contains activities is always helpful, I especially liked the activity to unscramble a sentence, I think I may use this as an activity for my tutoring session.
I used the same quote from the chapter about memorization and how it will not solely help the students become good readers. I have seen the sight words approach to memorizing words used on a daily basis with my job, so reading this statement was an eye-opener for me. I think it's great that you help your daughter with her sight words by using them in a sentence. I remember Mrs. Stoppel saying at the beginning of the semester that using sight words in sentences is better than just reciting them from a list. Great post!
To me one of the best points in this chapter was made on page 127 when the author stated that students do not become proficient readers by memorizing lists of words or learning all of the combinations of letter-sound relationships. Instead, they use visual information for print and graphics; put together the information to gain the literal meaning of the text; remember it while reading, thinking beyond the text. This tells me that we don't need to only focus on teaching sight words and phonograms, but also many other decoding techniques. That being said, the chapter describes how to guide and grow students into word identification techniques so that they can become more fluent readers who will be able to comprehend what they are reading. The chapter discussed the main components of word identification as having a good receptive and expressive vocabulary, and a good bank of sight words and sight vocabulary. In addition, they need to be able to use context clues while reading, decoding monosyllabic and polysyllabic words, and decoding the structure of words. The chapter also shared some assessment procedures for testing sight vocabulary and other word recognition strategies, as well as activities for each of the areas of word recognition. One of the activities that I would like to try to incorporate in my classroom are personalized flash cards that are made for each student and contain words that they may find difficult.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue.
The only question that I have is about the personalized flash cards activity. While I love the idea of being able to help student with the words that they find difficult, I find myself wondering how teachers have time to develop these for each student. I feel like there is never enough time during the school day to be able to provide this kind of one-on-one assistance. My thought would be that the student circle words they are stuck on and write them down, then the teacher makes flash cards from that point.
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently?
This chapter provided me with the knowledge on how to establish the word recognition skills in students so that they are ready to move on to the next step to becoming a fluent reader. I primarily help out at the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade levels, so I do not get to see a lot of this lower foundation of reading. This chapter gave me a lot of useful information on sight words and receptive and expressive vocabulary that I will be able to use if I teach one of the younger grades.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience.
As stated above, I don't get to work a lot with younger students. However, we have some students on IEP's that are still working on their word recognition skills. This chapter gave me a good amount of ideas for activities that can help develop those skills for these students.
Carissa, I really liked your idea about the flash cards. There just isn't enough time to do everything is one day sometimes. IT would be beneficial to have the students help out by assessing them selves essentially. This might also be helpful as they would take stake in their own learning some as well Ricky
I like the idea about flash cards. I do agree that there is often not enough time. During my tutoring, I had students hightlight the words they did not know or know the meaning of. After the reading, students were asked to look back for those words. I added them to the following week's vocabulary. I realize that they will not always be able to highlight, but this week, I will also have them write down the words after the reading. This could be an alternative to the teacher making the flashcards. The students can make their own flashcards or 4-square vocabulary cards/pages.
As I read through this chapter I had to remind myself several times that word identification is more than just memorizing and looking at new words. It really has to do with how the brain can not only memorize, but use recall to remember, and how different aspects of reading are incorporated to help one recall words. I found a lot of cross over from past classes with ideas that I have seen before in regards to word identification. I really liked how the chapter included ideas about context clues to identify words and then the use of sight words. I think the use of using the students schema in regards to the context clues is always important. The more things that can be done to build that background and real life interactions can be ever helpful. I have found that with the students I am tutoring they appear to have a pretty vast background knowledge of a lot of things. Well at least the things that we have discussed during the tutoring sessions they have a good amount of knowledge. I think that it has shown greatly when using discussion to talk about books we have read and just their overall understanding of things that we have done. Once again a lot of good ideas with activities to help increase a students word identification. I think between this book and the Shanker book that was used in Dr. Walizers class I will always have a lot of information to use for activities.
I agree that using background knowledge and real life interactions can be so helpful when the students are learning new words. I have tried to incorporate activities and books that the students can relate to because it will help keep them focused and interested in the lesson.
Chapter 6 discusses word identification. Smith's research about the brain's role in the reading process was very interesting. The brain can identify only four to five random letters at once, but can process four times that many when they are grouped in sentences. Proficient readers use the following four cueing systems when reading: syntactic (grammar & sentence structure), semantic (meaning of words, sentences & passages in language), pragmatic (situational context of words, sentences) and graphophonic (relationship between letters and their sound). Automaticity is the ability to recognize words by sight and to quickly decode unfamiliar words. The high frequency word information on page 130 was very interesting. "One hundred words account for almost half of all the words we read and write. Ten words (the, of, and, a, to, in, is, you, that & it account for almost one-quarter of all the words we read and write."
In most of the this chapter it discusses individual sight words and sight vocabularies. I realize that readers need to know individual words by sight. However, the brain processes groupings of words faster than individual words. Ms. Stoppel has indicated that using sight phrases is better than just sight words. What would be some prime phrases that students should be able to recognize?
As I stated, the high frequency word information was interesting. To check it, I counted how many times I used the ten words in the first paragraph. I counted that I used the words 26 times in 148 words (36 times if counting the list); and that does not count where the words were listed. As I was reading this chapter, I paid attention to how I was reading. I happened to think back to when I first heard the term remembered back when I first heard the term "pedagogy". It was an unfamiliar term and I had difficulty even saying the word. Now having the term in my courses during the past three years, it is now a part of my regular vocabulary.
I remember first hearing the word pedagogy in class and was unfamiliar with it to! Maybe some prime phrases that would help students with sight words would be sentences that give a clue or help the student understand and associate that sight word. Cloze sentences are a great way for students to practice that!
Chapter 6 is all about Word Identification. I was very interested to read this chapter because one of my students that I tutor struggles with this a lot. The text lists the four cueing systems as: Syntatic, Semantic, Pragmatic and Graphophonic. These four systems help students relate words to eachother and recognize the word as a whole. There are different components of Word Identification such as Word Knowledge, Word Analysis Skills. Word Knowledge is receptive and expressive vocabularies, sight words, and sight vocabulary. Word Analysis is context clues, visual analysis and blending the words. I enjoyed reading over the components of Word Identification because I felt like it was a reminder of what I should be remembering as the teacher and not just what I think the student should know. The text says that the student will not become fluent readers by just memorizing the text. I think that is so important because so many kids just memorize the word and don’t use their skills to practice reading the word. I have worked with many different students in the past that will just read the first letter and then guess the word. I think that this chapter really explains what teachers should do in order to make it possible for the students to become successful. One of my favorite parts of the chapters is the section of suggested activities. Since one of my students struggles with word identification I was excited to see what activities I could implement into my sessions. One activity that stuck out to me and that I thought she would enjoy was the Personal Word Wall because it would be something that she put together and they are all words that she struggles with. One thing that I had a question about was when are kids able to unscramble words and it isn't a frustrating activity? I have always wanted to do activities like that but I work with 1st graders and I didn't know if that was a suitable activity to use or not.
Tammi, It appears I am not alone with having a student that does not use word attack skills. As I read through the responses I saw there were several other classmates of ours that are having the same issues during their tutoring groups. I found this chapter to be useful for my lesson plans and for future knowledge in the classroom. I too was excited to see the activities the text had to offer. I believe this is my favorite part of each chapter too. I maybe wrong but I think students at the first grade level would like to unscramble words. I do not think it would be frustrating if the words they were unscrambling were grade level appropriate.
Chapter 6 on word identification illustrates how complex reading can be. I personally like the short paragraph on page 127 that states what teachers should know. As a future educator we should know proficient readers do not just memorize the words but they use visual information from print and graphics and put the information together to find meaning of the text. I picture reading as a puzzle. All the pieces have to be present for the puzzle to be complete. All the areas of reading have to be mastered for the students to be fluent readers. I found figure 6.1 to be very helpful because of the definitions of the main components of word identification. Sight words are something I am familiar with because I teach them to my Pre K classroom. The children are so cute because they begin recognizing sight words in stories we read and they know learning sight words helps them read. I have also started use mastery word learning in my classroom with the sight words. This allows the children to stay focused and interested while learning the word. Another component of word identification was context clues. I know what context clues are because I still use them even as an adult. However I was not familiar with how I would go about assessing if students are able to use context clues. After reading chapter 6 I now know two ways to assess use of context clues such as cloze text and running record. As in the other chapters from the text I enjoyed reading the activities that assist with word identification provided. Making the lesson plans has only left me wanting more resources at my finger tips. I have also pulled activities and ideas for my lesson plans from past text books from previous courses. This book as I have stated before is a great text for my professional library. I would like to know if there are any other ways to assess usage of context clues aside from the assessments DeVries states.
Jade, I like your analogy of a puzzle, "I picture reading as a puzzle. All the pieces have to be present for the puzzle to be complete." I agree! I think that is why I was a late bloomer in reading, my pieces took a long time to be put together because I didn't have the proper tools. I have enjoyed the activities as well that DeVries has to offer. Isn't it fun getting to actually implement them?
I like your analogy too! Reading is a puzzle with lots of pieces that have to fit together. Once a student does fit them together it is amazing to hear them read!
I agree with the text when it states that “…it is imperative that students have the automatic word recognition and word analysis skills to comprehend text” (page 127). Elementary teachers must not ignore students that struggle in reading and keep saying “I don’t know what to do with him/her”. I have heard that so many times in the past two weeks at my school I just want to give them this book and say read it and then you will know what to do with that struggling reader. You have to first get to know the reader to know what they are struggling with. Guided reading is the perfect way to do this. Too many of our teachers are not doing guided reading. They have to teach them sight words and how to recognize them automatically. While I’m on sight words, is there a difference between high-frequency words and sight words? A teacher I was observing had two different pocket charts, but I thought they were the same thing. I really like the way they suggest to introduce sight words by whole-part-whole by using a poem is and selecting 4 or 5 sight words in the poem and breaking it down into sentences and then into words. I am so glad that the text recommends checklists and gives examples how to assess. I really like the Fry phrase list. I wonder why no one uses them at Archie if research has shown phrases to be more effective. Ever since Dr. Walizer said to personalize spelling lists and tests I have been considering that for my future classroom, and I really like the personalized flash cards and word walls as well. All of the websites on page 148 are great and I am thankful to have them to integrate into my lesson plans.
Christine, I'd have to agree that teachers need to stop saying that they don't know what to do with certain students that are struggling to read. Nowadays I feel like they have all the resources needed in assisting these students and arent' using them to their full potential. I look at teaching as being a great way to be creative and find ways that help students connect to reading and make them want to read not discourage them and reinforce their hate for reading. I also really liked the checklists and examples for assessing.
Chapter 6 was about word identification and whether or not as a teacher we thought it was important for students to recognize simple words automatically. In my opinion I feel it is very important. Due to the fact that the English language is so hard to learn and has so many different variations to rules and so fourth children should rely on the skills of word identification to help them have a solid foundation to their reading. I was estatic to read about the four cuing systems as sometimes I feel like I maybe giving students the words when there are better alternatives for them to work through it themselves. The four cues are syntactic system which refers to the system of grammar and sentence structure. Second comes the semantic system which is the meaning of words, sentences, and longer passages in language. Third comes the pragmatic system which refers to the situational context of a word, sentencfe, or passage. And finally, the fourth cue is the fraphophonic system that refers to relationships between letters and their sounds. The chapter continues on discussing the components to word identification and touches base on high-frequency words. I really liked and learned a ton from the checklist that was given as an example on page 133. I think that this would be a great addition to the classroom to ensure that the students are learning yoru state's literacy standards including the ones that address word identification. As always the end of the chapter is one that I will revisit again and again for fresh ideas on activities for the classroom to get students engaged in different things. I really liked the unscrabling of sentences activity as well as the toss the cube activity. What a great chapter again that the DeVries book had to offer.
Chapter 6 was about word identification. Word identification is very important in the reading process. Students need to be able to identify words when they are reading to understand what they are reading. They must have the skills to decoded words to sound them out. I liked the list of components of word Identification. It included word knowledge, expressive vocabulary, sight words and sight vocabulary. Sight vocabulary is something I have never heard before. It is words that a student recognize in a half second or less. It listed how ELL students learn their sight word vocabulary by knowing and unknown words, simple to complex, and literal to metaphorical. I have never thought about the process of a student knowing one word, like run and then learning the unknown word running by focusing on the part of the word he/she does know. After reading this chapter I do remember one of my tutoring students knowing a word and then when the word appeared again they paused a little longer because it had a suffix at the ending. However, they were able to figure it out but it just took a couple of seconds.
This chapter was full of information that will help me in my tutoring sessions. For the past 6 years working as a Para educator I have been in many classrooms that are lower level where the teacher uses memorization as their main teaching tool in reading. There is nothing that frustrates me more than when I see day after day and lesson after lesson of memorization activities and no context used what so ever. The book reading stresses students cannot become proficient readers this way. It is not just about letter/sound relationship and memorization strategies. I really enjoyed reading and learning about the checklists that were discussed in this chapter. I think this is a great tool to create instruction that meets every one of your student’s needs. In my lessons that I do with my students that I tutor I really enjoy the guided reading. My students are reading “Freckle Juice” by Judy Blume. There are so many fun activities that I am doing with the reading to help the big 5 skills. There were also many fun activities that I would like to add to my guided reading that were discussed in the live session as well. I think my students will really like the tic tac toe with their vocabulary words. Another fun activity that was mentioned was the unscrambling a sentence. This would also be a great activity to do at the end of each chapter reading, or I could even scramble their vocabulary words too. Receptive and expressive vocabulary was another topic that was discussed in the reading and also at the live session. I think it is important to add vocabulary and vocabulary meaning into every reading, both guided and read aloud activities. Before I read this chapter I really did not comprehend the importance of word recognition skills in reading. I do not have any questions for this chapter, but did learn a lot of valuable information and some great activities to incorporate into my lessons.
I too thought that the checklists in this chapter to be very helpful. I loved reading Judy Blume books when I was in elementary school. I think it is so much fun to plan lessons when you really enjoy the stories you are reading as a group. I guess it is in the same idea as finding material that motivates your students to learn. When you are teaching something that excites you it is sure to have an effect on the students and motivate them to learn, as well as have fun doing it. I am also going to use some of the ideas that were discussed in the live session. I love that such simple ideas can help to make a big difference such as doing the Tic Tac Toe game or unscrambling the sentences.
Chapter 6 is about word recognition. I thought that the discussion on how the brain processes information to be very interesting. . The author states that the brain is only able to identify 4 or 5 random letters per second, but when the letters are organized into words, the brain approaches them as chunks of information, so then the reader can identify 2-3 words per second. When the words ware put into sentences the brain the brain is able to process it four times the amount it can when identifying individual letters. The author brought up the term “tunnel vision”, and after reading about it I think that may be an issue one of my students may be having when he is trying to read. He has to sound out most of the words in the text, with little success. It is imperative for struggling readers to build their bank of sight words so that they can automatically recognize words. I like the activities that are listed and I plan to use some of them this week in my tutoring sessions. I plan on doing a vocabulary Bingo game and unscrambling the sentence to help my students with word identification. I think that they will really enjoy these activities and I like that they are easy to prepare for. .
I like that you talked about how important it is for struggling readers to build their bank of sight words. Practicing sight words for students struggling to read helps them build a better word bank of words they recognize. This will help them to automatically recall words when reading. Also, I like that you are relating what you are leaning in the book to your tutoring sessions! I try to do the same thing because this book gives me a lot of ideas I can use now during my tutoring sessions and also when I become a teacher. I think that the students in your group will benefit from the activity you mentioned and they will enjoy it.
Chapter six was over word identification. The chapter offered a lot of important information about word identification and helping students become proficient readers. The first thing I want to mention are the four cueing systems. Students who are considered to be proficient readers are simultaneously using their knowledge of these four systems. The firs system is syntactic system. This is the system of grammar and sentence structure. The second is the semantic system. This deals with the meaning of words, sentences, and passages. The third system the book mentioned is the pragmatic system. This system focuses on the context of words, sentences, or passages. The last system mentioned in the book is the graphophonic system. This focuses on the relationship between letters and their sounds. I was semi-new to these cues. They are a great reference for me to look back on how students become proficient readers.
One thing I can relate to from the reading was the section over word knowledge. I have worked with sight words in many of classes that I have taken. For sight words, I like the use of a word wall. I have a word wall on my tri-fold for my tutoring group. Sight words are important because students can just recognize them instantly. This helps struggling readers, especially.
I do not have a lot of questions over the reading. However, I read the section about assessing sight words and it got me thinking. The book mentioned that there are many ways to informally assess readers’ sight words. It provided some of the different names of these assessments. I was wondering, how do these assessments differ? How do we determine what tests are the “best”?
This chapter was packed full of important information about students and word identification. It is because of chapters like this one I will keep this book in my personal library for when I am in the field.
1. Analysis of the reading/issue. The text discussed the four cueing systems: (1) Syntactic – grammar and sentence structure; (2) Semantic – meanings of words, sentences and longer passages; (3) Pragmatic – situational context of a word, sentence or passage; (4) Graphophonic – relationships between letters and sounds. The chapter broke down the word identification process discussing the two parts of a reader’s vocabulary: receptive and expressive vocabulary. The paragraph on sight words reminded us that sight words don’t require analysis. The chapter discussed using context words, polysyllabic words, and visual analysis. The text gave great examples of assessments and checklists. 2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue. No questions, concerns is that so many teachers are not educated to start at the beginning with word identification for those students who can’t read from the get go. 3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently? Every student will learn differently. It will be important for me to take some students back to the basics when they are struggling with reading as a whole. 4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience. In many of the upper level classes I have subbed in many of the students can’t decode. They were passed on as a great readers in the lower grades, but as they have gotten to bigger words they can’t decode the syllables!
Chapter six 1. Analysis of the reading/issue. Chapter six of the textbook Literacy Assessment & Intervention by B. Devries discusses how students identify words that they read. As discussed in this chapter of the textbook identifying words is not simply sounding out each letter in a word to try and pronounce that word. It is putting a sort of a relationship with the word so that they can remember it in the future without having to decode the word. Stated in the textbook there are four elements to word identification on page 109.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue. No questions
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently?
There were many activities in this chapter that seemed to be really fun for students to do. I really liked the “Morphology rummy” on page 146 of the text book. This is a game for older students which will not work since I am tutoring 4th grade. I also liked the technology resources that were given on page 148. 4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience. I remember when I was in school word identification was always difficult for me. I would always look up at my teachers and just wait for them to give me the answers. This was not good for my teachers to do because it was an easy way out for me. My resource teacher would always tell me that the word was not “on her forehead” and I have to learn to sound out the word for myself that way I could remember it next time. She was exactly right.
Michelle A. I think that you are right. Some people ar not aware that studnets must know words if they are going to comprehend the material. It is not just being able to decode the words to figure them out. The students must be fluent with the material before they can understand it.
The word analysis section reminded me of working with my own girls with their reading. One of my daughters uses context clues very heavily. Today when she came to the word “work” she tried a few sounds, but then kept looking at the illustration, then back to the word, then back to the page trying to figure it out. She doesn’t use the words in the sentence to help her as much as my other daughter. Then I got to the visual analysis paragraph of the same section and I recognized a strategy that I was already using. The textbook said that proficient readers automatically say the sound of the vowel or vowel cluster then add the beginning and ending consonants. I have been unknowingly teaching my children to do this. Like in the above example, I told my daughter that ‘or’ sounds like ‘er’ in that word (we haven’t learned r-controlled vowels yet), and then she was able to add on the beginning w and final k.
ReplyDeleteI do very much like the checklists that keep popping up, the ones that show how to keep track of who knows what in your classroom, like on p. 133. I am quite intimidated by the task of tracking student progress, and these checklists make the job seem simple, quick, and effortless.
In the guided reading section on p. 138 and 139, I noticed that the teacher did not read the book first to the students. In our tutoring sessions, I wonder if we have to read the book to the students first or if it is just optional.
Amy, I do not read the guided reading book to my students but we discuss it before we begin. For example, this week we will be reading two poems for our guided reading. One is called Homework and the other is Swap. They both have corresponding pictures so we will talk about what they think the poems might be able based upon the pictures and the titles of the poems. After they read them poems, I will read them the poems and they can follow along (I typically do not read it to them after wards, we just discuss the reading but this week we are talking about reading with expression and recording ourselves reading a short poem to increase our fluency so I thought this would help)
DeleteI have a rubric for guided reading I use that I got from someone at FHSU that I find very helpful. I am not sure who wrote it as it does not say but here is is:
Guided Reading Groups
• Choose multiple copies according to reading ability of groups
• Choose grade level appropriate vocabulary for practice
• Make a list of these words/and or word cards
• Introduce with Mastery Word Learning
• Do a picture walk if there are pictures
• If no pictures/discuss title, cover picture, make predictions
• Instructor read story to K-2
• Read story with group/use different techniques, NOT ROUND ROBIN
• Stop and ask comprehension questions as you go
• Next reading….partner read or assign a “radio read”
Objective for Guided Reading_ The student will master a new set of vocabulary and be able to independently read and comprehend material at their grade/instructional level.
I just looked via word and it says the author is FHSU for the guided reading guidelines posted above. I think I might have got it from Corrections or from Dr. BW in R&LA Methods. Sorry I don't know!
DeleteAmy, I read the GR book to my student who are 1st graders. First I do a picture walk, then I read the story, then we discuss what we liked in the story, and then we read the story together. I hate cold reads and Think that they get more out of the reading if they have had prior exposure to the story. I also am getting my GR books from A-Z reading.com and love how all of the leveled readers have a place for the student to add two illustrations and sections to the story. Last week we used this to make predictions after our picture walk and then to put what really happened after we read it. This week I am having my kids add to the story. In reading ":I Pick Up" one of my boys wrote the sentence "I pick up my video games" and drew a picture of his favorite video game. This really helped him make a connection.
DeleteI have to admit that reading this chapter I felt a little like Mr. Morris, the teacher who has severl groups of students with diverse needs. One of my students does exactly what the text describes, he will look at me when he does not know a word with out trying to sound it out. Both of my students do what Mr. Morris’ students are doing when they misread a word and do not realize it. They read the words, some of them correctly, but they do not realize that they have misread anything and they do not gain any (much) comprehension from the readings. After listing to this last weeks recordings and reading chapter 6 I think I might try and employ the student who is the stronger reader to be my intern and help his brother to break down the unknown words that he is having some difficulty with. While not all of his troubles are with compound words it might be an interesting experiment.
ReplyDeleteMy question about this chapter is if peer-teaching can word well with siblings. The twins that I am working with know very well the other siblings strengths and weaknesses and I don’t want them to feel as if they can use the other brother as a crutch when reading. The school had them placed in different sections so that they will learn independently. What are some ways that I can encourage peer tutoring but not make it a crutch?
One thing that I did not know but learned after reading this chapter was some of the generalizations concerning words that aid in visual analysis on page 131. While I know them in that I use them in my readings, my spoken and my written language I could not have put them into words like this. Having this little ‘cheat sheet’ will be something for me to put to memory.
I also had some thoughts about the different cueing systems that students use. My students have a pretty amazing site word bank they rely on for reading and are great conversationalists so they present as better readers then they are. Their new parents work with them daily on vocabulary to keep them abreast of their school work. However, the boys both have a hard time with fluency, comprehension, and phonics when the words are unknown to them. They have limited word attack skills and have a hard time with unknown words out of context. They both are reading below grade level but are quickly gaining ground. I believe (I obviously have not tested them for this, this is just my personal opinion after working with them) that they are both fiercely intelligent and are only where they are with reading due to years of neglect.
We are working on using context clues this week in our time together but I wanted to know some ways to increase their cueing systems. If you were working with my students knowing the above and after reading this chapter what activities would you suggest?I’m drawn to the wordless book idea suggested on page 139 and I have already been adding pictures to the stories / vocab words we use to help give context and enrich their interest. We have personalized flash cards we use each week and have “flash Gordon cards” we review that are the words they are having difficulty with. They have, as part of the trifold, a personalized word wall. But I digress: my questions are as follows:
1. When working with 5th grade students with a 3rd grade reading level should I try to pick actives that are listed for 5th grades or can I go down a suggested grade level?
2. What other things might be helpful?
Jessica,
DeleteI loved how you are questioning how to have twins/siblings help each other without it being a crutch. I have twins and I have to have one read to me without the other one in the room because one is a slightly stronger reader than the other and will give the right words. What happens with my girls is that the one who is not as strong realizes that she is not as good, so she will not even try to read in front of the other one. However, my stronger reader is really good at giving hints they way I do. For example, my lower reader was reading a word that had the EE phonogram and my higher reader told her to remember E, the double E! Based on that example, I might have the student who you want to use as an "intern" give one hint only, something related to a sound or phonogram. I think if you teach him to give hints and not words it may be less of a crutch.
When I pick my activities for my second grade students, I go down to at least first grade and sometimes kindergarten. Or sometimes I can just put easier words into the second grade activities, if appropriate.
It sounds like you are putting a lot of thought into your tutoring and activities. Great job!
Amy
Great idea of having the siblings work with each other. I feel that it could be very beneficial as long as they are nice to each other. They could work both in and out of school since they live together. I have some of the same questions as you. Mainly about activities and students levels. Like your students mine are two grade levels below their grade when it comes to reading. So far my activities have been pretty simple, more at their reading levels than grade level, but I do wonder if I'm doing it correctly. I think your students would benefit from breaking down unfamiliar words, as the book said. Maybe seeing familiar little words in harder words and blending them together would help them figure out how to attack unfamiliar words. Good post.
DeleteJessica,
DeleteIt's funny that you would ask that question about using peer-tutoring on the twins, but not wanting them to use eachother as crutches. I also tutor ESOL twins, and I see the same results when I use peer-tutoring with them. One usually end up speaking for the other one, or helping the other one complete an activity that we might be working on. I have three boys all together, so there are many times where I will have one twin work with the student that is not a sibling, and the other twin play a learning game while they are working together. Then I will have the student that is not a twin work in a peer-tutoring activity with the other twin and end up switching them around to where the twins are not working together. So far this has worked for me.
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ReplyDeleteLooking at figure 6.2 & 6.3 I am once again reminded that it is a huge feat for any child to learn to read. There are so many rules and as readers we just “know” them without thinking about it. I bet half of the rules listed I could not have told you off the top of my head yet I am a fluent reader. Understanding how your readers are looking at the words and attaching them is the first step in helping them discover tools that may help them. As the chapter discussed sight word vocabulary should be taught is phases and assessed. You should also teach root words, prefixes, suffixes, rimes, blends, digraphs and units. All of these parts work together to help the reader quickly identify the words they are reading. If they struggle on each and every word they will be less likely to continue trying. This is why helping them understand some of these rules early on will help them.
ReplyDeleteThe wordless book on page 139 is one idea that I have used in the past. Struggling readers get scared by the sight of a page filled with letters that make no sense to them. For a long time I would print off wordless books and my dyslexic son would write the story. What was funny was that no matter how complex he made the story he could “read” it back to me because he had made a connection to it on a level outside of just the written word. I think that wordless books should be used in classrooms more because they also offer a creative outlet who knows maybe an author awaits the challenge.
I also like the activity in figure 6.13 on compound words. Anytime you can get them looking at the smaller parts of a larger word you are going to help then not be as intimidated. Activities like this can make learning some of the more common compound words fun. I can see myself doing these activities in the years to come to help make lasting connections with the root words in these compound words so when they see them they will be able to recall it quickly.
When reading about looking at the smaller parts of a larger word, this made total sense to me to. I remember my teacher breaking up the words with her fingers as she helped me read. I was a struggling reader and this seemed to really help me. I do this now. I even do it to help students spell a word.
DeleteBreaking up the words into smaller parts is something I have done with my 5th grade students that has really helped them. Both of my students start to read the word and then just say a word that starts the same. For example, we were looking at the word superlative. They kept saying super-sation. First off, this isn't a word, and secondly, the ending of these two words are not even remotely close. After they broke the words into parts, they knew they could pronounce the word and stopped guessing (as much... ). I think the more we continue to do this, the more the students will be able to dissect on their own.
DeleteCathryn,
DeleteI think that you make a lot of great points in your blog. First of all I agree that there are alot of rules that are taught at an early age to help students become fluent readers with great comprehension skills. It amazes me how much is learned from kindergarten to 2nd grade in regards to phonics skills. Like you said, we just know these rules as readers, but when you have to sit and go through the processes that are taught to get to the point of 5th grade it really is crazy. I think it is key to start reading to your children as infants. I think that another great point that you make is in discussing the wordless book. As an educator, I would think it would be a lot of fun for students to be able to attack their creativity and imagination. I agree that the wordless book are a good way to let students express their creativity. Great thoughts :)
This chapter had some good activities to help aid with word identification. Most of what this chapter talked about I have read and learned about in previous classes. The 4 cueing systems was very informative to read over. It was nice to see that my tutoring students are using some of these cueing systems without me knowing what they were prior to reading this chapter. A couple of my students need a lot of work with word identification, mainly through blending words and breaking down words. I can tell they don't try to do this and just make up words not even close to the unfamiliar word and keep on reading. Some of the intervention activities would work great for these two students.
ReplyDeleteI was doing digraphs today with my students and not even thinking about it showed them onset/rime to help them think of more words based on the diagraphs. One student thought it was the coolest thing ever to break it down like that and made it so easy. I was surprised to see this since they are 4th graders and weren't aware of this. I feel that next week I will be working more with onset/rime now because they found it extremely beneficial. I wish I would have known of the Checklist for word recognition, like on page 133 earlier. This would have been great to have with a the lower couple of my students at the beginning to help me pinpoint where they struggle the most. This chapter had some great informal assessments and activities that I could easily use in tutoring with my students.
Ryan- I can relate to students who need work with word identification. The two girls who I tutor sound out each sound when they come to a word they don't know. Now, this is o.k., but like Ms. Stoppel said in her Recording #2 this week...if a student is ever going to increase fluency and rate, they have to chunk the sounds in the word and pick out the "words within words" that they know to help them get that word recognized and move on. A great example of this is that Tuesday evening one of my girls came to the word "cannot" in our Guided Reading. She did not even try to figure it out or even see that it was two words, "can" and "not", put together. I think that both girls are struggling with word identification and this is what is hampering their fluency. The student who could not identify this compound word has rate, but is also my "word guesser". She comes to a word she doesn't know and guesses it without sounding it our or chunking any of its parts and keeps on going with her reading. I found this chapter and the recordings for the week to be very beneficial to my tutoring group.
DeleteRyan -
DeleteI see my students also needing the knowledge to break down a word and decode it properly. I have one that guesses at words even when he knows it! This chapter gave me more ideas on what to do in future lessons!
Hanna
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ReplyDeleteI watched the recordings before reading the chapter so I felt that I already had background knowledge of the reading and seemed to take more interest in this. Chapter 6 is about word identification. The main components of word identification are word knowledge and word analysis skills. Next the chapter talks about teaching word identification with ESOL students. I loved this part. From what I have learned in the past, I have decided what works for ESOL students usually also works for all other students too. The section in the book that broke down how to teach affixes and syllables provided ideas of how to do this in the classroom with all of my future students, ESOL and English speaking. This chapter also goes over assessments, formal and informal. One assessment that I enjoyed was the prefix/suffix test on page 136. This could be turned into a game I think and then even used for an assessment.
ReplyDeleteThe activities listed in the back of the chapter also provide many ideas on how to teach this content and provide practice to students. These could even be used in my tutoring. When it comes to creating lessons I always forget about this book. I think I will probably leave this book out and try to use the activities provided in the back of the chapters. My content focus is vocabulary, and word identification would be great practice.
Question, what is the difference between word identification and vocabulary? Or is vocabulary just part of word identification like it says in the book and there is no difference to compare?
Danielle,Yes, I agree that the activities in the end of this chapter were great resources to use to help us teach word identification. The one for kindergarten I was thinking of using in one of my lessons this semester! When it comes to your questions I think that word identification and vocabulary are different. Vocabulary are words you identify when you are reading, they tend to be in large chunks (words) which allow the brain to identify. Pg. 127 helps to also explain how the four cueing system will help with identifying letters and words more rapidly and help with the process of identifying the words. But, of course I’m learning and I may not have told you the exact answer.
DeleteDanielle, the activities in this book are awesome. I have used one almost every tutoring session so far! Your question about vocabulary and word identification is one I don't think I will probably answer correctly, but it is definitely a good one. What I took from the text is that vocabulary is one component of word identification, so when we work on vocabulary we are working on word knowledge which is a component of word identification skills. Like I said, I don't know if this is correct, but this is how it makes sense to me. I was using figure 6.1 to help me clarify this.
DeleteChapter 6, was about word identification. Frankly I have been having some questions regarding this topic with the three girls that I am tutoring this semester. One of the girls is getting distracted and not staying focused during Guided Reading. Granted she has been diagnosed with an IEP so that could play a factor. The other two girls are starting to really “get it” and showing signs of many of the topics mentioned in this chapter. (I am not saying the student with an IEP, isn’t getting it, she has definitely started improving too). Such as receptive vocabulary; they are able to find and identify their new vocabulary words and sight words. Since they are just beginning to learn how to ready, they are somewhat showing signs of Tunnel Vision, which is the ability to read slowly and sound out each word while reading. I think maybe I can go about having the students work more on background knowledge and making sure the material is not too difficult, as DeVRies explains. However, my students are only Kindergarten and yet have the ability to concur the four cueing systems, but they ARE learning! My question would be: Would a student with an IEP or other learning disability show signs of “tunnel Vision” “lack of interest” “hard to stay focused” or would it be something more causing this to happen. Such as, ADD or Autism? How would you know? All the students are completely engaged and NOT bored with the material but this one student ‘comes and goes’ while doing the Guided Reading.
ReplyDeleteJennifer- I guess my first question would be what does she have an IEP for? "Coming and going" in the lesson could depend on several factors. If your tutoring is later in the day, they could just be tired (depending on age/grade) and frankly just "done" for the day. I know one of my girls in tutoring is like that. Maybe the topic of the book is boring to that child. Having two boys of my own who are both ADHD, however gifted, sometimes they truly just get bored. Now, girls more often have ADD and not the "hyperactive" component, and will "zone out" because there is a deficit in their attention span. As a teacher, we constantly have to be on top of getting those student's attention and bring it back to the lesson. Personally, I would want to know what they IEP is for. If there is a reading disability, maybe the material is too hard for that individual. If there is a processing issue, maybe the lesson is going to fast and they can't keep up. There can be so much more than tunnel vision or lack of interest. I would see what the IEP is for and what they diagnosis is to better serve that child while tutoring.
DeleteI thought this was a pretty good chapter and appreciated the discussion of the four cueing systems, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and graphophonic, in relationship to word identification. I know all of these come automatically for advanced and proficient readers, but they are skills that we need to teach our students. I also really liked figure 6.1 on page 129, which outlined the main components of word identification. One of my tutoring students seems to have a really hard time with word identification and will shout out replacement words when she is reading. Most of the time they are nowhere close to the same word, but the onset of the word is the only similarity. Today, for guided reading I had the students read through the story silently and underline any word they had trouble with. We then went over these words, looked at the whole sentence, broke the words apart, and defined them. She seemed to understand and feel comfortable about the words, but when we did our second reading aloud she really struggled and was back to shouting random words. I stressed the importance of reading to the end of the sentence and then going back to the word, but I didn’t have any luck with that either. The other student in our group even started giving her the answer and more or less choral reading with her, then began taking over her passage. I am having a very hard time pinpointing exactly what I need to do to help her, but I think this chapter had some good ideas that I would like to try out. I haven’t tried sentence strips yet, but maybe that would help her look at individual words within sentences. I also need to find ways to use my higher student in advantageous ways. I know they want to help each other, but I don’t want my lower level student expecting to be given the answers all the time and I don’t want them to be given away either. I have thought about moving down in difficulty level, but she continues to tell me that the passages are “just right”, even though she seems to be struggling. I think I might also try out the fry phrases and see how she does with those. I really liked figure 6.5, which showed how to score or keep track of the fry phrases the students know. There were several other activities I thought would be good to use now and in the future, and I always love the additional websites and technology resources that the chapters provide. Every chapter I read just makes everything a little more complete and concrete. I am starting to see how exactly everything works together as a whole and how things should progress.
ReplyDeleteAbbie, I also have one that knows only the onset. She makes up words and is also an ELL. It was funny on the nonsense words that I tested her on. She was able to tell me the longest words perfectly. I am a little baffled. I am also going to try some of the suggestions from this chapter. We don't have a lot of time left, but I think we can still make a difference if we are consistent.
DeleteOnce again I read a chapter in this text and wonder how I ever learned to read! Learning by simply memorizing lists of words does not make a student a proficient reader. I wish someone would have told my older sister that when she was teaching me to read at about 5 years old. Her way of teaching me was to put a book in front of me and when I didn't get something right she whacked me on top of the head and told me it wasn't right. Thank goodness this is not the way a real teacher teaches! For me, I was really excited to see and read about the checklists. I got to observe my Mentor from spring 2012 for RLA Methods do this. Each day when she did her anticipatory set, she went down her checklist to ensure students were competent in the standards she was teaching. This was her way of each day informally assessing each student’s growth. I was really excited to learn how to do this informal assessment, but didn’t realize until now the importance that a checklist has and how the teacher really can tailor instruction to meet the needs of her students. I enjoyed reading about Guided Reading; however, between the activity on page 138 and the “A Guided Reading Session” below, I see that my Guided Reading sessions are not exactly like this. I learned right away the first week that although I was thankful for the trial of the Reading a to z website, the books for my girls to read seemed to have no “meat” in them for us to really discuss. It was more of a variety of sentences using the key vocabulary words. I had to go to my Public Library to get some Easy Readers for them that had some sort of story to it to help keep them interested and to add more to my Guided Reading time. I have to say though that I loved the “Unscramble the Sentence” activity to emphasize sight vocabulary. So often I find my girls I tutor will read a sentence and guess at a word they don’t know, but they are not listening to what they are reading and thinking that the word they guessed doesn’t make sense in the sentence. There are definitely a lot of great activities in this chapter that I plan to use in my tutoring sessions.
ReplyDeleteLeAnn - I agree with you, students can not learn to read by memorizing words. I wish someone will tell teachers now days! I see this so much in classrooms and then they wonder why some many students struggle at reading. I also remember from last week that students are not going to become fluent by just reading a book, they need more. This is the problem that I see but the future looks bright because we know how to do it correctly!
DeleteThis chapter discussed how students become proficient readers. Students cannot become proficient readers by mainly focusing on letter sound relationships and memorization. Students need to do the following three things; use visual information for print and graphics, put together the information to receive the meaning of the text, and thinking beyond the text. If students show these three techniques then they will become proficient readers. There are four cueing systems that also help each reader. Syntactic system is the system of grammar and sentence structure. This is done when a student reads the sentence and may not know a word but uncovers it by using other elements in the sentence to make sense of the unknown word. Semantic system is the meaning of words, sentences and phrases. This helps with unknown words that have many meanings, than the one they would recognize in a sight word list. Pragmatic system is the situational context of the word. Students rely on their past connections to make sense of the words. Students may have different ideas of the words since everyone has different connections. Graphophonic system is the relationship between letters and their sounds.
ReplyDeleteStudents should be encouraged to use these four cueing systems to become proficient readers. I don’t have any contradictions about this reading issue I just feel that it is important to note that each student would work on these cues instead of relying on sight word cards. Many students may know the words when they are on a card by itself but they struggle when it is among other words in a sentence. I also want to say that I have seen teachers teach letters and their sounds but don’t focus on all of the sounds that the letters make. I think this must be very important for a student to be able to decode a word. I have yet to see any teacher in my district explain the three vowel sounds of the three vowels that have them. This should be taught and not just acceptable for a student to know one sound of the letter.
I look at this issue differently by now knowing how I can better help my students and my children with reading. I have seen a lot of focus on sight words and feel lost when they know them from a card but do not know them in a sentence. I will focus more on the four cues and also the components of word identification.
Throughout this blog I have made connections to myself. I feel that in the future I will concentrate more on the components of word identification. My son does great in weekly spelling test, this includes word recognition, spelling, and use in a sentence. He does so well every week. But when we go to read he misses those words in the text. I feel now that he may need more word analysis skills. His oral expressive vocabulary is so large. He amazes me when he speaks because he uses such big words for a seven year old, and uses them in the correct context. I think he needs more visual analysis skills.
1. This chapter was about word identification and the importance of working in small groups to be most effective. Beginning readers need to learn both word knowledge and word analysis skills. This means that we need to help them build their vocabulary and help them learn sight words, and sight vocabulary. With word analysis skills, we have students examine the context clues, monosyllabic words, polysyllabic words and the structure by looking at the root words, prefixes and suffixes. This chapter gave a very good overview of how to assess once we have a classroom of our own with many students at different levels.
ReplyDelete2. I do not have any questions right now.
3. I was so glad to find the website mentioned on page 134. It is a great resource for Fry Word Phrases. (http://np.harlan.k12ia.us/reading_center.htm) I think this would be a fun activity for the morning exercises as a class. If it is done as a group, it might help those who have difficulty. I think phrases are more interesting than just sight words. I like that they are ready-to-use Power Points. On page 138-139 there is a format suggested for guided reading. I am going to try this on Tuesday this week with my tutoring group. We have been doing picture walks and vocabulary, but this gave me the idea to use for an activity or for second day anticipatory set. I can ask them to find the mystery word on a page. I think I am going to play a mystery word game with them and see how they do with that after we read our book. I could use this as the formative assessment in some instances if I ask each student to find a particular word that makes the sound I'm looking for on a page. I can keep a checklist or tally to see how many they were able to locate correctly.
4. I have done some of these things with my students when I was a Paraeducator. We used starfall.com also and funbrain.com. The first grade teacher I was with always had the class play bingo to help them with word recognition, vocabulary and spelling words. They loved playing tic-tac-toe also.
I enjoyed chapter 6 because my focus area is vocabulary. The students that I am working with both stated that they wanted to be able to pronounce and understand words better on their own. This chapter broke down the different skills a student has to master before they will be able to do this. We just finished focusing on synonyms and will move on to antonyms next week. We will then focus on homonyms. We have been working on strengthening our sight words, rhyming words, and vocabulary words as well. During the guided reading, we have been breaking down the vocabulary words or other words that they are struggling with. With the help of the vowel code rap, the students are learning the difference between the types of sounds. I am pleased that I can tell them that the a in palindrome is a short a and they automatically pronounce it!
ReplyDeleteGuided reading is something that I would like to know more about for 5th grade students. I am having a hard time finding stories that are relevant for the students but not chapter books. I was very disappointed with the A-Z reading selections for the older grades. The students began to hate guided reading time and would ask if they could do something else. I noticed that they would pay less attention and try less during this activity. Due to living in a small town (800 people), our library is able to get a variety of literature but it often has to be ordered and is usually only one copy. This is something I am focusing on trying to further understand and work through this weekend.
I liked the idea of using personalized flash cards during our sessions. Often, the students will figure out a word and then have to refigure it out for the next session. I feel these cards to help them remember them better. This is similar to the personalized dictionaries. I think I may go more towards putting a section in their binders that they will be able to add to each session and then show their parents at the end of tutoring. I am hoping to find some Smartboard activities involving vocabulary to really keep the students’ interests!
I also enjoyed the chapter as I do a great amount of vocabulary work prior to the students reading the guided reading section. My tutoring students also seem to be picking up the vowel sounds after working the last few weeks on the vowel sound flashcards and vowel code rap. You may try to obtain books from the school in your town, sometimes teachers will have more than one copy of a book in the classroom that they use for guided reading. Another thought would be to buy the books from Amazon; sometimes you can get used books for a really cheap price.
DeleteChapter Six Blog
ReplyDeleteZoë Greenemeyer
Students should not become proficient readers simply by memorizing lists of words or learning all the combinations of letter-sound relationships. This statement from this chapter is so important for teachers to remember. I have seen so many times where the teacher focuses on flash card memorization but does not put the words into context or in other material. The four cueing systems discussed in this chapter are the syntactic system, semantic system, pragmatic system, and graphophonic system. Proficient readers use these four cuing systems automatically. Through tutoring I can see how important the break-up of each skill is so that students can become familiar with it and store it to memory to use when reading material. Vocabulary is another important skill needed and students need to have good receptive and expressive vocabulary. At the present time my daughter is working on her familiarity with sight words needed for books she will read in class. When we review the sight words I always put the word in a sentence or give her an example of how the word is used to help trigger her memory when she comes in contact with the word. Through tutoring I present the vocabulary from the guided reading book so much that students are able to fluently read through the book with no issues. I thought the chapters idea to go through the standards and create checklists based off of these standards was a great idea. This can also be included in the progress report for parents to see what skills the students’ needs more assistance in and help the teacher gain knowledge about what material needs to be addressed. The section of the chapter that contains activities is always helpful, I especially liked the activity to unscramble a sentence, I think I may use this as an activity for my tutoring session.
Zoe,
DeleteI used the same quote from the chapter about memorization and how it will not solely help the students become good readers. I have seen the sight words approach to memorizing words used on a daily basis with my job, so reading this statement was an eye-opener for me. I think it's great that you help your daughter with her sight words by using them in a sentence. I remember Mrs. Stoppel saying at the beginning of the semester that using sight words in sentences is better than just reciting them from a list. Great post!
Carissa
1. Analysis of the reading/issue.
ReplyDeleteTo me one of the best points in this chapter was made on page 127 when the author stated that students do not become proficient readers by memorizing lists of words or learning all of the combinations of letter-sound relationships. Instead, they use visual information for print and graphics; put together the information to gain the literal meaning of the text; remember it while reading, thinking beyond the text. This tells me that we don't need to only focus on teaching sight words and phonograms, but also many other decoding techniques. That being said, the chapter describes how to guide and grow students into word identification techniques so that they can become more fluent readers who will be able to comprehend what they are reading. The chapter discussed the main components of word identification as having a good receptive and expressive vocabulary, and a good bank of sight words and sight vocabulary. In addition, they need to be able to use context clues while reading, decoding monosyllabic and polysyllabic words, and decoding the structure of words. The chapter also shared some assessment procedures for testing sight vocabulary and other word recognition strategies, as well as activities for each of the areas of word recognition. One of the activities that I would like to try to incorporate in my classroom are personalized flash cards that are made for each student and contain words that they may find difficult.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue.
The only question that I have is about the personalized flash cards activity. While I love the idea of being able to help student with the words that they find difficult, I find myself wondering how teachers have time to develop these for each student. I feel like there is never enough time during the school day to be able to provide this kind of one-on-one assistance. My thought would be that the student circle words they are stuck on and write them down, then the teacher makes flash cards from that point.
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently?
This chapter provided me with the knowledge on how to establish the word recognition skills in students so that they are ready to move on to the next step to becoming a fluent reader. I primarily help out at the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade levels, so I do not get to see a lot of this lower foundation of reading. This chapter gave me a lot of useful information on sight words and receptive and expressive vocabulary that I will be able to use if I teach one of the younger grades.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience.
As stated above, I don't get to work a lot with younger students. However, we have some students on IEP's that are still working on their word recognition skills. This chapter gave me a good amount of ideas for activities that can help develop those skills for these students.
Carissa, I really liked your idea about the flash cards. There just isn't enough time to do everything is one day sometimes. IT would be beneficial to have the students help out by assessing them selves essentially. This might also be helpful as they would take stake in their own learning some as well
DeleteRicky
I like the idea about flash cards. I do agree that there is often not enough time. During my tutoring, I had students hightlight the words they did not know or know the meaning of. After the reading, students were asked to look back for those words. I added them to the following week's vocabulary. I realize that they will not always be able to highlight, but this week, I will also have them write down the words after the reading. This could be an alternative to the teacher making the flashcards. The students can make their own flashcards or 4-square vocabulary cards/pages.
DeleteLiteracy
ReplyDeleteChapter 6
As I read through this chapter I had to remind myself several times that word identification is more than just memorizing and looking at new words. It really has to do with how the brain can not only memorize, but use recall to remember, and how different aspects of reading are incorporated to help one recall words. I found a lot of cross over from past classes with ideas that I have seen before in regards to word identification. I really liked how the chapter included ideas about context clues to identify words and then the use of sight words. I think the use of using the students schema in regards to the context clues is always important. The more things that can be done to build that background and real life interactions can be ever helpful. I have found that with the students I am tutoring they appear to have a pretty vast background knowledge of a lot of things. Well at least the things that we have discussed during the tutoring sessions they have a good amount of knowledge. I think that it has shown greatly when using discussion to talk about books we have read and just their overall understanding of things that we have done. Once again a lot of good ideas with activities to help increase a students word identification. I think between this book and the Shanker book that was used in Dr. Walizers class I will always have a lot of information to use for activities.
I agree that using background knowledge and real life interactions can be so helpful when the students are learning new words. I have tried to incorporate activities and books that the students can relate to because it will help keep them focused and interested in the lesson.
DeleteChapter 6 discusses word identification. Smith's research about the brain's role in the reading process was very interesting. The brain can identify only four to five random letters at once, but can process four times that many when they are grouped in sentences. Proficient readers use the following four cueing systems when reading: syntactic (grammar & sentence structure), semantic (meaning of words, sentences & passages in language), pragmatic (situational context of words, sentences) and graphophonic (relationship between letters and their sound). Automaticity is the ability to recognize words by sight and to quickly decode unfamiliar words. The high frequency word information on page 130 was very interesting. "One hundred words account for almost half of all the words we read and write. Ten words (the, of, and, a, to, in, is, you, that & it account for almost one-quarter of all the words we read and write."
ReplyDeleteIn most of the this chapter it discusses individual sight words and sight vocabularies. I realize that readers need to know individual words by sight. However, the brain processes groupings of words faster than individual words. Ms. Stoppel has indicated that using sight phrases is better than just sight words. What would be some prime phrases that students should be able to recognize?
As I stated, the high frequency word information was interesting. To check it, I counted how many times I used the ten words in the first paragraph. I counted that I used the words 26 times in 148 words (36 times if counting the list); and that does not count where the words were listed. As I was reading this chapter, I paid attention to how I was reading. I happened to think back to when I first heard the term remembered back when I first heard the term "pedagogy". It was an unfamiliar term and I had difficulty even saying the word. Now having the term in my courses during the past three years, it is now a part of my regular vocabulary.
I remember first hearing the word pedagogy in class and was unfamiliar with it to! Maybe some prime phrases that would help students with sight words would be sentences that give a clue or help the student understand and associate that sight word. Cloze sentences are a great way for students to practice that!
DeleteChapter 6 is all about Word Identification. I was very interested to read this chapter because one of my students that I tutor struggles with this a lot. The text lists the four cueing systems as: Syntatic, Semantic, Pragmatic and Graphophonic. These four systems help students relate words to eachother and recognize the word as a whole. There are different components of Word Identification such as Word Knowledge, Word Analysis Skills. Word Knowledge is receptive and expressive vocabularies, sight words, and sight vocabulary. Word Analysis is context clues, visual analysis and blending the words. I enjoyed reading over the components of Word Identification because I felt like it was a reminder of what I should be remembering as the teacher and not just what I think the student should know. The text says that the student will not become fluent readers by just memorizing the text. I think that is so important because so many kids just memorize the word and don’t use their skills to practice reading the word. I have worked with many different students in the past that will just read the first letter and then guess the word. I think that this chapter really explains what teachers should do in order to make it possible for the students to become successful. One of my favorite parts of the chapters is the section of suggested activities. Since one of my students struggles with word identification I was excited to see what activities I could implement into my sessions. One activity that stuck out to me and that I thought she would enjoy was the Personal Word Wall because it would be something that she put together and they are all words that she struggles with. One thing that I had a question about was when are kids able to unscramble words and it isn't a frustrating activity? I have always wanted to do activities like that but I work with 1st graders and I didn't know if that was a suitable activity to use or not.
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DeleteTammi,
DeleteIt appears I am not alone with having a student that does not use word attack skills. As I read through the responses I saw there were several other classmates of ours that are having the same issues during their tutoring groups. I found this chapter to be useful for my lesson plans and for future knowledge in the classroom. I too was excited to see the activities the text had to offer. I believe this is my favorite part of each chapter too. I maybe wrong but I think students at the first grade level would like to unscramble words. I do not think it would be frustrating if the words they were unscrambling were grade level appropriate.
Chapter 6 on word identification illustrates how complex reading can be. I personally like the short paragraph on page 127 that states what teachers should know. As a future educator we should know proficient readers do not just memorize the words but they use visual information from print and graphics and put the information together to find meaning of the text. I picture reading as a puzzle. All the pieces have to be present for the puzzle to be complete. All the areas of reading have to be mastered for the students to be fluent readers. I found figure 6.1 to be very helpful because of the definitions of the main components of word identification. Sight words are something I am familiar with because I teach them to my Pre K classroom. The children are so cute because they begin recognizing sight words in stories we read and they know learning sight words helps them read. I have also started use mastery word learning in my classroom with the sight words. This allows the children to stay focused and interested while learning the word.
ReplyDeleteAnother component of word identification was context clues. I know what context clues are because I still use them even as an adult. However I was not familiar with how I would go about assessing if students are able to use context clues. After reading chapter 6 I now know two ways to assess use of context clues such as cloze text and running record. As in the other chapters from the text I enjoyed reading the activities that assist with word identification provided. Making the lesson plans has only left me wanting more resources at my finger tips. I have also pulled activities and ideas for my lesson plans from past text books from previous courses. This book as I have stated before is a great text for my professional library. I would like to know if there are any other ways to assess usage of context clues aside from the assessments DeVries states.
Jade, I like your analogy of a puzzle, "I picture reading as a puzzle. All the pieces have to be present for the puzzle to be complete." I agree! I think that is why I was a late bloomer in reading, my pieces took a long time to be put together because I didn't have the proper tools. I have enjoyed the activities as well that DeVries has to offer. Isn't it fun getting to actually implement them?
DeleteI like your analogy too! Reading is a puzzle with lots of pieces that have to fit together. Once a student does fit them together it is amazing to hear them read!
DeleteI agree with the text when it states that “…it is imperative that students have the automatic word recognition and word analysis skills to comprehend text” (page 127). Elementary teachers must not ignore students that struggle in reading and keep saying “I don’t know what to do with him/her”. I have heard that so many times in the past two weeks at my school I just want to give them this book and say read it and then you will know what to do with that struggling reader. You have to first get to know the reader to know what they are struggling with. Guided reading is the perfect way to do this. Too many of our teachers are not doing guided reading. They have to teach them sight words and how to recognize them automatically. While I’m on sight words, is there a difference between high-frequency words and sight words? A teacher I was observing had two different pocket charts, but I thought they were the same thing. I really like the way they suggest to introduce sight words by whole-part-whole by using a poem is and selecting 4 or 5 sight words in the poem and breaking it down into sentences and then into words.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that the text recommends checklists and gives examples how to assess. I really like the Fry phrase list. I wonder why no one uses them at Archie if research has shown phrases to be more effective. Ever since Dr. Walizer said to personalize spelling lists and tests I have been considering that for my future classroom, and I really like the personalized flash cards and word walls as well. All of the websites on page 148 are great and I am thankful to have them to integrate into my lesson plans.
Christine, I'd have to agree that teachers need to stop saying that they don't know what to do with certain students that are struggling to read. Nowadays I feel like they have all the resources needed in assisting these students and arent' using them to their full potential. I look at teaching as being a great way to be creative and find ways that help students connect to reading and make them want to read not discourage them and reinforce their hate for reading. I also really liked the checklists and examples for assessing.
DeleteChapter 6 was about word identification and whether or not as a teacher we thought it was important for students to recognize simple words automatically. In my opinion I feel it is very important. Due to the fact that the English language is so hard to learn and has so many different variations to rules and so fourth children should rely on the skills of word identification to help them have a solid foundation to their reading. I was estatic to read about the four cuing systems as sometimes I feel like I maybe giving students the words when there are better alternatives for them to work through it themselves. The four cues are syntactic system which refers to the system of grammar and sentence structure. Second comes the semantic system which is the meaning of words, sentences, and longer passages in language. Third comes the pragmatic system which refers to the situational context of a word, sentencfe, or passage. And finally, the fourth cue is the fraphophonic system that refers to relationships between letters and their sounds. The chapter continues on discussing the components to word identification and touches base on high-frequency words. I really liked and learned a ton from the checklist that was given as an example on page 133. I think that this would be a great addition to the classroom to ensure that the students are learning yoru state's literacy standards including the ones that address word identification. As always the end of the chapter is one that I will revisit again and again for fresh ideas on activities for the classroom to get students engaged in different things. I really liked the unscrabling of sentences activity as well as the toss the cube activity. What a great chapter again that the DeVries book had to offer.
ReplyDeleteChapter 6 was about word identification. Word identification is very important in the reading process. Students need to be able to identify words when they are reading to understand what they are reading. They must have the skills to decoded words to sound them out. I liked the list of components of word Identification. It included word knowledge, expressive vocabulary, sight words and sight vocabulary. Sight vocabulary is something I have never heard before. It is words that a student recognize in a half second or less. It listed how ELL students learn their sight word vocabulary by knowing and unknown words, simple to complex, and literal to metaphorical. I have never thought about the process of a student knowing one word, like run and then learning the unknown word running by focusing on the part of the word he/she does know. After reading this chapter I do remember one of my tutoring students knowing a word and then when the word appeared again they paused a little longer because it had a suffix at the ending. However, they were able to figure it out but it just took a couple of seconds.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was full of information that will help me in my tutoring sessions. For the past 6 years working as a Para educator I have been in many classrooms that are lower level where the teacher uses memorization as their main teaching tool in reading. There is nothing that frustrates me more than when I see day after day and lesson after lesson of memorization activities and no context used what so ever. The book reading stresses students cannot become proficient readers this way. It is not just about letter/sound relationship and memorization strategies. I really enjoyed reading and learning about the checklists that were discussed in this chapter. I think this is a great tool to create instruction that meets every one of your student’s needs. In my lessons that I do with my students that I tutor I really enjoy the guided reading. My students are reading “Freckle Juice” by Judy Blume. There are so many fun activities that I am doing with the reading to help the big 5 skills. There were also many fun activities that I would like to add to my guided reading that were discussed in the live session as well. I think my students will really like the tic tac toe with their vocabulary words. Another fun activity that was mentioned was the unscrambling a sentence. This would also be a great activity to do at the end of each chapter reading, or I could even scramble their vocabulary words too. Receptive and expressive vocabulary was another topic that was discussed in the reading and also at the live session. I think it is important to add vocabulary and vocabulary meaning into every reading, both guided and read aloud activities. Before I read this chapter I really did not comprehend the importance of word recognition skills in reading. I do not have any questions for this chapter, but did learn a lot of valuable information and some great activities to incorporate into my lessons.
ReplyDeleteI too thought that the checklists in this chapter to be very helpful. I loved reading Judy Blume books when I was in elementary school. I think it is so much fun to plan lessons when you really enjoy the stories you are reading as a group. I guess it is in the same idea as finding material that motivates your students to learn. When you are teaching something that excites you it is sure to have an effect on the students and motivate them to learn, as well as have fun doing it. I am also going to use some of the ideas that were discussed in the live session. I love that such simple ideas can help to make a big difference such as doing the Tic Tac Toe game or unscrambling the sentences.
DeleteThe memorization thing will kick their booties later on. We have to teach them to decode!! Great post!
DeleteChapter 6 is about word recognition. I thought that the discussion on how the brain processes information to be very interesting. . The author states that the brain is only able to identify 4 or 5 random letters per second, but when the letters are organized into words, the brain approaches them as chunks of information, so then the reader can identify 2-3 words per second. When the words ware put into sentences the brain the brain is able to process it four times the amount it can when identifying individual letters.
ReplyDeleteThe author brought up the term “tunnel vision”, and after reading about it I think that may be an issue one of my students may be having when he is trying to read. He has to sound out most of the words in the text, with little success.
It is imperative for struggling readers to build their bank of sight words so that they can automatically recognize words. I like the activities that are listed and I plan to use some of them this week in my tutoring sessions. I plan on doing a vocabulary Bingo game and unscrambling the sentence to help my students with word identification. I think that they will really enjoy these activities and I like that they are easy to prepare for. .
I like that you talked about how important it is for struggling readers to build their bank of sight words. Practicing sight words for students struggling to read helps them build a better word bank of words they recognize. This will help them to automatically recall words when reading.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like that you are relating what you are leaning in the book to your tutoring sessions! I try to do the same thing because this book gives me a lot of ideas I can use now during my tutoring sessions and also when I become a teacher. I think that the students in your group will benefit from the activity you mentioned and they will enjoy it.
Chapter six was over word identification. The chapter offered a lot of important information about word identification and helping students become proficient readers. The first thing I want to mention are the four cueing systems. Students who are considered to be proficient readers are simultaneously using their knowledge of these four systems. The firs system is syntactic system. This is the system of grammar and sentence structure. The second is the semantic system. This deals with the meaning of words, sentences, and passages. The third system the book mentioned is the pragmatic system. This system focuses on the context of words, sentences, or passages. The last system mentioned in the book is the graphophonic system. This focuses on the relationship between letters and their sounds. I was semi-new to these cues. They are a great reference for me to look back on how students become proficient readers.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I can relate to from the reading was the section over word knowledge. I have worked with sight words in many of classes that I have taken. For sight words, I like the use of a word wall. I have a word wall on my tri-fold for my tutoring group. Sight words are important because students can just recognize them instantly. This helps struggling readers, especially.
I do not have a lot of questions over the reading. However, I read the section about assessing sight words and it got me thinking. The book mentioned that there are many ways to informally assess readers’ sight words. It provided some of the different names of these assessments. I was wondering, how do these assessments differ? How do we determine what tests are the “best”?
This chapter was packed full of important information about students and word identification. It is because of chapters like this one I will keep this book in my personal library for when I am in the field.
Word walls are so helpful. I have also witnessed teachers posting words on the door frame and reviewing them each time before the left the room!!
Delete1. Analysis of the reading/issue. The text discussed the four cueing systems: (1) Syntactic – grammar and sentence structure; (2) Semantic – meanings of words, sentences and longer passages; (3) Pragmatic – situational context of a word, sentence or passage; (4) Graphophonic – relationships between letters and sounds. The chapter broke down the word identification process discussing the two parts of a reader’s vocabulary: receptive and expressive vocabulary. The paragraph on sight words reminded us that sight words don’t require analysis. The chapter discussed using context words, polysyllabic words, and visual analysis. The text gave great examples of assessments and checklists.
ReplyDelete2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue. No questions, concerns is that so many teachers are not educated to start at the beginning with word identification for those students who can’t read from the get go.
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently? Every student will learn differently. It will be important for me to take some students back to the basics when they are struggling with reading as a whole.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience. In many of the upper level classes I have subbed in many of the students can’t decode. They were passed on as a great readers in the lower grades, but as they have gotten to bigger words they can’t decode the syllables!
Chapter six
ReplyDelete1. Analysis of the reading/issue.
Chapter six of the textbook Literacy Assessment & Intervention by B. Devries discusses how students identify words that they read. As discussed in this chapter of the textbook identifying words is not simply sounding out each letter in a word to try and pronounce that word. It is putting a sort of a relationship with the word so that they can remember it in the future without having to decode the word. Stated in the textbook there are four elements to word identification on page 109.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue.
No questions
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently?
There were many activities in this chapter that seemed to be really fun for students to do. I really liked the “Morphology rummy” on page 146 of the text book. This is a game for older students which will not work since I am tutoring 4th grade. I also liked the technology resources that were given on page 148.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience.
I remember when I was in school word identification was always difficult for me. I would always look up at my teachers and just wait for them to give me the answers. This was not good for my teachers to do because it was an easy way out for me. My resource teacher would always tell me that the word was not “on her forehead” and I have to learn to sound out the word for myself that way I could remember it next time. She was exactly right.
Michelle A.
ReplyDeleteI think that you are right. Some people ar not aware that studnets must know words if they are going to comprehend the material. It is not just being able to decode the words to figure them out. The students must be fluent with the material before they can understand it.