Chapter 18: Effective Teachers, Effective Instruction

This chapter was all about how to teach effectively and ensure that you reach all students. This is not an easy task, but it is a must for teachers. To many times, teachers get caught up in the teaching of the curriculum and don't worry about reaching their students. This chapter had some great lessons teachers have done to make sure they are effective teachers. One strategy teachers used was to use multiple text. Teachers did not just teach from the textbooks that were given to them. Teachers looked for text that would interest the students which will help their literacy skills. Some teachers even gave students a choice of what book they read for a particular unit or lesson. Students become more interested and motivated to read! Effective teachers don't worry about getting their planned lesson taught. Sometimes a lesson doesn't go exactly how you planned and an effective teacher just goes with it. A lesson may lead to a great discussion that takes up the remainder of the class. Effective teachers know that is ok! Literate conversations is what every teacher should want. These conversations will help all students! Strong readers can be models for the struggling students. They can listen to how the strong reader is discussing text and be able to repeat what they do. This will essentially help struggling students comprehend the text read. Discussions also teaches students how to communicate with others. Students are not always going to agree, and they will learn how they respectively tell students they disagree. Effective teachers are essential in the learning of students. We need to be able to do whatever it takes to make sure our students succeed. We need effective instruction so are our students have the chance to grow!

Chapter 15: Making it Matter Through the Power of Inquiry

The opening to this chapter was not all that surprising. I always find that girls in my classroom were better readers than boys. Now that doesn't mean that none of my boys were great readers because I have had some very strong boy readers. It is essential to make sure that all students are motivated and engaged in literacy. Without that component, students are going to struggle in literacy. They don't have interest in it. The book says that student motivation is the primary challenge face teachers. I would agree with this. Sometimes I feel that no matter what I do my students are just not motivated in certain topics. I like the part in the book that discussed the lesson on the Plague. Many students would not be engaged in this topic, but the teacher allowed students to use their prior knowledge and become interested in the topic. The teacher used up-to-date information that students could relate to. When students can relate to a topic, their motivation increases. There are so many different resources out there that will help in student motivation. One thing that teachers can try is electronic texts. There is a big push towards electronic text, whether that is using iPads, iPods, kindle, nooks, etc, but one electronic text that many teachers don't think about is video games. Video games involve a lot of reading, involve characters, and are embedded in an overachieving narrative. They offer interesting and engaging experiences that always involve problem solving and offer real-life issues. Teachers can incorporate video games into the classroom to help motivate students in literacy. One part of the book that I found very interesting was the story about the girl who didn't think she was good at history because she got a B. It made me really think back to my class. I bet a lot of students feel this way that if they don't get an A then they are not good at that subject. I remember back when I was in college, I had the same situation with American History. I didn't like it because I wasn't good at it. I got A's  on all my other topics, but History. What does an A even mean? We are moving to standard based grading, which may help students not feel that they are as "not smart" as they thought. Children need to know they can succeed, but they also need to be motivated in learning.

Chapter 2: Creating a Comprehensive Structure for Learning

Comprehensive secondary literacy builds on a CAI foundation. It focuses on aligning literacy and content learning. I love the phrase in the book that says "Content area reading is no longer regarded by most experts as a matter of reading information from a single textbook. Instead students must seek, evaluate, and comprehend information from a variety of print and technology sources." I have seen this shift in reading, and I believe it is for the better. When I started my teaching career a short 5 years ago, the district I was in was just starting to get out of the basel textbooks and had a curriculum that allowed students to seek, evaluate, and comprehend information from a variety of sources. I loved it! Teachers were able to be creative. I know so many teachers that are attached to their basil textbooks. Teachers need to step away from teaching textbooks and worry more about how we are teaching are students to read. This is a lifelong skill! Every subject requires reading and content teachers should use reading techniques that will help their area of instruction. Literacy builds on a CAI foundation. C means curriculum. Educators use a standards-based curriculum as a guide to know what they want their students to know and be able to do. A good curriculum allows students to embrace the text and bring meaning to what they are reading. A means Assessment. "Reading assessment must have the primary consequence of helping students continue their development as readers." There should be a variety of assessments appropriate to their learning environments. Assessments need to determine students' knowledge base to inform instruction and to motivate and engage students. Assessment provides students with feedback. Students can learn how to make themselves better. I believe it is important for teachers to use a variety of assessments. Students do not all learn the same way; therefore, we need to use different types of assessments for the different types of learners. The last letter is I for instruction. Effective instruction is about "how" and "what." "How" to ensure that a wide mental grasp of the "what" (curriculum) is occurring with the learner. This can be done with meaningful teachings and use of different reading techniques. Also, it is essential to differentiate for all learners. I believe that effective instruction is not just teaching the content. It is responsible for the learners' needs. Being in an elementary setting, I have students with all kinds of needs. It is my job to address them to help my students grow! This requires me to use different techniques to ensure that I am reaching all my students. It is our job to support students to become responsible and strategic readers, critical thinkers, and effective communicators. We are not just teaching out of a textbook and hoping it reaches all students. We need to teach each individual students' needs! We want lifelong learners and readers!

Chapter 13: Writing: Commonsense Matters

I love the opening story of this chapter. Those children of Haapsalu had a story to tell, but due to their customs they weren't allowed to express it! I absolutely love how the teacher gave them their voice to write. These students had something to say! This reminds me so much of the movie Freedom Writers. The teacher in this movie gave each child a journal. At first, the students were not so sure about the journals and didn't want to write. Then, they realized they had a voice, and someone cared about what they had to say. I watch this movie every summer to pump me up for the next school year. Writing is crucial in anyone's life! I believe this is an area that many schools lack in. Many schools are all about literacy and forget about writing. When students feel like someone cares about their writing or that they have a real audience they want to write. They want to voice their opinions. I love that in writing you can teach many of the craft and conventions in writing. Grammar and spelling go perfectly with writing. A teacher doesn't have to teach any of those conventions independently. Students need a place to write. All of my students have a writing binder that is full of notebook paper and resources to use to assist them in their writing.

One part of this book that I LOVE and will use in the classroom is the tellingboards. What a great idea!! Many of my students love to draw but hate to write. The solution is tellingboards! Students can tell their stories in pictures. If I was to use this in my classroom. I would do a lot of modeling. I would tell students this considering writing because writing is thinking and drawing is thinking. This is a great way to brainstorm. Students can do multiple drafts of their pictures adding more details to their second draft. Their third draft can be their actual writing. By the time they finish their second drawing drafts, they will have a great guideline to start their story. Students can't say anymore "I don't know what to write!"

I really hope that high-stake testing does not take the importance of authentic writing away. I couldn't believe the teachers that had to sign a clause in their contract that if they didn't raise their scores in their classroom that they could be fired. There is so many factors in students passing or failing a test. I know that in third grade we spend a lot of time teaching students the format for writing for ISAT. I am spending time teaching this when I should be teaching students writing skills that they will use in the future, not writing skills that will help them pass a test!

Chapter 12: Teach Writing Your Way

Wow...reading this chapter, I am completely guilty of having my students do an assignment that I have not done myself first. I am guilty of not writing myself. The only time I have really taken the time to journal was when I studied abroad in England. I kept a journal that I wrote in everyday. I wanted to remember every moment of my time there. I need to do better at writing in my spare time and learn to love it before I expect my students to want to write. I really like the index card writing. A lot of the time my students will stare at a piece of paper and say "I have nothing to write about." An index card is not as intimidating as a big, blank notebook paper. I am sure that if students continue to jot their story down and not worry about grammar, spellling, etc then they can come up with great writing pieces. The hard part is getting your idea. Once a student has an idea in mind then they can write more and more about that topic. I am sure the first card compared to the fourth card is very different. I love the part that says writers welcome surprise. They are the happiest when they write what they do not intend. A lot of the time your vision of your writing piece is different than your final copy. Writers need to be patient! They are not going to whip out a final draft in 20 minutes. It takes time! The one area my students don't understand about writing is rewriting. I always make them do a sloppy copy. They hate after revisions that I make them do it again. I have showed them famous authors that have to write several drafts before completing their final draft. Writing is work, and many of my students don't want to do it! This is partly my fault. I have not taught my students the love of writing. I hope in the future to teach my students that they have a voice within, and it is their right to express it!

Chapter 11: Teaching Writing from the Inside

Writing is such an essential habit for all people. Writing is a skill that one will use in every area of their life. Personally, I am not a big writer, but through my years of teaching I have learned to love it. I know how important it is to show your love for something if you want your students to love it just as much as you. Writing gives students a voice. Sadly, many of my students do not enjoy writing, unless it is narrative. Like the book say, story telling comes so naturally to everyone! Students should know how to write many different types of writing. In third grade, we work on narrative, persuasive, expository, and poetry. Our third grade team put writing binders together for each child. Our district does not have a strong writing program. This is something they are working on. I would like to see some type of curriculum that goes from K-12. I want a guideline of what I should be doing to make sure my students are ready when they get to the higher grades. My students cringe when I tell them they need to write at least three sentences. It is like pulling teeth! I worry about them as they get older. We just finished a poetry unit where students learned a variety of different types of poems. Several students really enjoyed this while other students dreaded it! Writing is not my strong area in teaching, but I am working on it. I have read a variety of books on writer's workshop and incorporating writing into the classroom. When I taught in San Antonio, we had a great writer's workshop program that lead to some great pieces of writing from my students. My hope for our district is that we adapt a strong writing curriculum. Students need to learn how to use their voice within. I think if student could do this then they would find a love for writing. My goal as a teacher is to create students who love to write! It is a goal that I am working on for awhile and learn something new every year!

Chapter 14: Unleashing Potential and Emerging Technology

Technology has come such a long way in the education field, and I believe it is a good thing! A problem that I see arising is that teachers are not getting the proper training on how to effectively use technology in the classroom. For example, there are many teachers, like the one in the book, who think using technology means students typing a paper in word and sending it to the teacher. Yes, that does save on paper, but there is so much more one can do with technology. Students are becoming the experts in technology and passing up their teachers. We need to use this power of theirs and use it to our advantage. Google is such an amazing resource to use in the classroom to help with collaboration. This year students in my class used google presentation for their big science fair presentation. We usually have boards that the students make to present their Scientific Method. Now, this usually ends up me doing a lot of the work because I am an organization freak and want it to look nice for the parents. This year I thought "enough is enough." This is the kid's work, not mine. It was like a light bulb went off and thought "google presentation" This worked out AMAZINGLY!! I brought the students to the computer lab about four times, and they were able to complete all their work in that time frame. I assigned each student their own individual slide they were responsible for. They were then able to go to the computer lab, pull up their presentations, and everyone could work at the same time. It was so cool to see students collaborating to make their science projects. They were able to incorporate videos and pictures. It took the work off my hands and put it in the hands of the students, which is ideally what all teachers want to happen in their classroom. Next year, third grade is getting their own chromebooks. I am so excited to research this summer on great ways to use the chromebook! There are an abundance of ideas to incorporate technology into the classroom that goes beyond turning a paper in on a word document. Many teachers are scared for this new shift in education, but as a young, very technology-oriented teacher I am beyond excited!

Chapter 5: Tom Sawyer, Teaching and Talking

In elementary school, it is not hard to get a third grade class to talk. The hard part comes when asking them to stay focus and keep it an effective discussion about the topic given. For example, let's say third grade is reading Charlotte's Web (great book!) and the discussion question could be something like "Let's talk about Wilbur and Charlotte's relationship. What was so unique about the relationship? How did their relationship grow throughout the book?" It may start off good saying that in the beginning of the story Wilbur thought he was going crazy hearing voices, and by the end of the story they were best friends. Students could even talk about how Charlotte saved Wilbur's life. Then another student can go off on a tangent about when they were on a farm and saw a spider and how they don't like spiders and how the spider was thiiiiiis big and there was a pig on that farm too, and it goes on and on and on. Now, of course I don't let it go that far, but elementary students LOVE to tell stories about their life no matter the topic. They have this magic power that no matter what they can come up with a personal connection and go on and on and on about it. Now flash forward to middle school, I imagine when a teacher ask a questions it's silent! Unless there is a really smart student or a brown-noser that answers everything. We all have those students. So how do we get elementary ages and middle school ages to carry on a deep discussion with each other? I really liked the part in the book where it had ice breakers. In order to have a great discussion, students have to feel comfortable in the class. If they think students are going to snicker at their responses then they are not going to answer any question! It is vital as a teacher to create an environment where all students feel comfortable and safe. This is easier said than done! Just like all teachers have brown-nosers, we also have those stinkers that can be mean to students know matter what! The poem activity was great! It got the students thinking about the topic before the topic was even given. I use this type of activity frequently when partnering up students. I give students cards where one has multiplication facts and one has the product. I love the idea to use this in reading as well with passages or poems. It gets the students talking with each other before it is time for the class discussion. Also, I LOVE the post it note ideas. I am obsessed with having the students use post it notes. This year we created reader's notebooks that students used when reading silently. They had a list of prompts to use, but throughout the book they would use their post it's for questions, connections, interesting parts, or confusing words. I could transfer this idea to help me with discussion of a class text. Having students think first of their questions will create a better discussion. The students don't have to think on their feet instead it is right in front of them. I totally understand what the book is saying when you will be frustrated with the questions your students are coming up with at first. I remember first starting the post its and wanted to rip my hair out. I expected more from my kids, but instead I got questions like "What was the boy's name?" and by the end of the year I had questions like "How did the character change throughout the story?" It is amazing to see that type of growth! In reality, students want to have discussions with each other. It just takes time to train students what a great discussion looks like. When you see students start getting it, it is a great feeling!

Chapter 8: English Language Learners in the Classroom

This chapter was a real eye-opener for ELL students. I have had the privilege of having two ESL students in my classroom this year, but they are very fluent in English. They do get extra support everyday for about thirty minutes. I couldn't imagine walking into a classroom not knowing the main language. It has to be a very stressful time for the student. I just think back to all the situations I was in when English wasn't the main language. I felt very left out, like I couldn't participate if I wanted to. We need to make sure our students don't feel left out! I really like the idea of having the student write their idea first, then talk to a partner, then talk whole group. I think that gives the ELL student confidence in their answer. This is also a good exercise for struggling students. ELL students should be proud of their native language. I believe that ELL students should still have some of their readings in their native language. We don't want to take that away from them. I agree with the book when they said that when teaching content areas that ELL students should have text in their native language and to be partnered up in groups with students who speak their native language, if possible. Last year, we had a student come into third grade speaking no English. Her native language was Spanish. The teacher that had her labeled everything in the class. It was very neat to see the students help her and interact with her in her process of learning the English language. Technology has been such an asset in the education field. Students can do so much more now with technology. I really like the idea of the blog for ELL students. Like the book says, it gives the silent student a voice. Being the melting pot, teachers are going to find more ELL students in their classroom. It is our job to be prepared when they enter our classroom. We need to teach them the English language while incorporating their native language.

Chapter 6: Comprehension: Frontloading and Downloading

There are many strategies that students learn to help them with comprehension. To turn kids on to the love of reading, they need to be able to understand what they are reading! Frontloading and downloading will help students secure their background knowledge and clarify the purpose for reading. I use many of the strategies mentioned in this book. Before beginning a book, my class previews the text and make predictions. I believe this hooks the students before they even read the book. It also gives them some background knowledge about what the book will be about. Students are able to use pictures, title, table of contents, and vocabulary words to make a well thought out prediction. We also monitor our predictions. As we read, we ask ourselves if our prediction is accurate and change it if needed. I also use the skim and scan technique. I teach my students to scan for important words to help answer questions. This is useful for high-stake testing. When trying to answer questions, students can skim and scan the text for important words. I really like the "Read and Say" activity. It gives students an opportunity to work together and then make connections. During this activity, students can also ask questions and make predictions. Connections is a hard concept for students. Elementary students can make text-self connections all day long, but when asked to make text-text or text-world they can't do it! We have been working on making good connections all year long! If students can connect to a book they will comprehend the book better! Another way to help hook students is to do an anticipation guide. I use this frequently when introducing a new book. I like to do anticipation guides because it really gets the students thinking about what they are reading before they even read the book. It also helps keep them focus during their reading. They are on the lookout to see if they were right on their anticipation guide. To find the main idea, I tell my students they are to use ten words or less. Finding the main idea is finding the gist of the text. What was the story mainly about? Many students can get very wordy when figuring out the main idea. To help them understand the concept of finding the main idea, I tell them it is like a table. The tabletop is the main idea, and the legs of the table are the details that support the main idea. This visual aid really helps the students. To teach my students how to write a summary, I use the somebody, wanted, but, so, then. This really helps them break apart the story and only get the main parts of the story. A lot of the time students want to write every detail in the story that they remember. I tell my students it's about the quality not quantity when writing. Many of my students want to write the longest paper, but they aren't worrying about what the summary is. This chapter is going to be a great resource to refer back to when teaching different strategies. I am an avid reader, and my goal as a teacher is to create students that love reading like I do!

Chapter 5: Vocabulary: Making Meaningful Connections

Vocabulary in content areas is essential in understanding the text being read. It can definitely be a road block when comprehending content text. This chapter has a lot of wonderful ideas to use in the classroom to help students with vocabulary. In my classroom, we work with analogies daily. Every morning there is an analogy on the board. Some days it is just working on comparing and contrasting words, but many times it is in context area. Students really enjoy these! As the year goes on my students have even been making their own analogies for students to figure out! I love how students start to take ownership. Also, in my classroom, I have a word wall that students can refer to. This is something that is done by the students and posted when we go over certain concepts. For example, when going over math terms like perimeter. Students will make a sign with the word, definition, and picture to be posted for them to refer to later. Another way I help students with vocabulary words is using context clues. I tell my students they are detectives, and it is their job to figure out what the word means. Many times the clues around the words will guide them to the definition. This is a concept that can be challenging for third grade. I model this through think alouds and then work deeper on this concept through small group instruction. The four corners vocabulary reminds me a lot of my Marzano vocabulary I do with my students. My students have four boxes: 1. guess the definition 2. the actual definition 3. non-examples 4. examples. This works very well in all concept areas. I like the many online resources for definitions the book referred to. Dictionaries are becoming obsolete. It is something I still believe is important. Students should know parts of a word, pronunciations, and different meanings for the word. This book has many great graphic organizers to use in the classroom for vocabulary. I am exited to tweak them a little for the elementary classroom!

Chapter 4: Fluency

There is a big connection between fluency and comprehension. If a student has trouble with fluency then they are going to struggle with comprehension. Students who are concentrating on what words they are reading are not comprehending the text. I always tell my students that reading is more than just words on a page. They need to be able to read and understand the words. When this connection happens, students find the love of reading. This chapter had some great ways to teach fluency in the classroom. I have personally used quite a few of them. Many of my fluency lessons are done in small groups since I have such a variety of reading levels.  With some of my groups, I am working on the basic fluency. We are working on reading smoothly and stopping at puncuation. In my other groups, we are working on expression. We do this by using a variety of text and even some reader's theaters. My students love performing in front of the class! Our district also monitors students reading through a program called Dibels. Students are asked to read as much as they can in a minute and do a retell. I have mixed feelings about this test. Some of my struggling readers who are in RTI work on improving in Dibels. Therefore, when they come to small group they are so worried about how much they read so they are reading really fast and not comprehending. We also use a program called Reading Plus to help students with their fluency. This is similar to the teacher putting a laser beam on a word to help students track themselves while they are reading. Reading Plus highlights words and moves while the student reads. As a teacher, I am able to determine how fast or slow the bar moves. It is our job to teach our students how to be successful readers. There are many lessons we can do in the classroom to help our students become fluent readers, which will help their comprehension. One activity I love to do in my class is the book pass. Each child has a book on their desk. This can be books about a certain topic or maybe to introduce some books that are in your library. Students then have a minute to preview the book. Throughout the year, I teach my students how to preview a book. They take these skills to examine the books on their desk. I love how interested my students become in the books. Many times they want more time to check out the book. Steven Layne's book Igniting a Passion for Reading  is a great book to teach you how to teach a student to preview a book. This is just an awesome book in general! Our district had the privilege to listen to him speak for our district. As an elementary teacher, I spend a lot of my reading instruction on fluency. I feel this is something that can't be passed up. If a student doesn't have a firm hold on fluency, they will never read! It will always just be a difficult task teachers make them do.

Chapter 7: Mastering the Art of Effective Vocabulary Instruction

Vocabulary is essential in reading comprehension that is why it is important to have effective vocabulary instruction. Students need to know what it means to know a word. Are they able to just tell the definition? Are they able to use that word in a sentence? Can they categorize the words? There has been many situations in my class where students know the definition of the word, but they are unable to use it in a sentence. To me, this means they don't really have a grasp of what the word means. I really liked the idea of the nonsense passage. It is crazy how our brains can use the context clues around these nonsense words to be able to understand the passage and words. I think my students would really enjoy the nonsense passages. Students learn new words in a variety of ways. They can learn through direct instruction, experiences, and reading are just a few ways students learn new words. The more students read the more words they will know. I remember seeing a chart of the comparison of students who read over the summer compared to students who don't read. The students who read over the summer had an abundance of vocabulary compared to the ones who didn't read. One area I struggle with is choosing appropriate vocabulary words that will benefit my students. Our district is creating units using commoncore.org. I am working with a team of teachers to create several reading units. One area we had a hard time with was vocabulary. How do we pick out words that will be meaningful and useful? Vocabulary is essential in every content area; science, social studies, math, etc. Science is an area where my students struggle so much with vocabulary. I like the lesson by using a fill-in-the blanks activity using passage from the book. This will give them enough background knowledge to get a deeper understanding of the word. My goal as an elementary teacher is to have students that are rich with vocabulary!

Chapter 3: Word Study: The Wonder of Words

I believe word study is essential in reading, but it is the first thing that gets overlooked. English language can be so difficult because there are so many rules that students need to know to understand the meaning of words. It is not an easy language to learn. Many letters make different sounds, "ea" can make a short sound and a long sound, and there are many, many more! I know when teaching my students the different phonics rules some of them get very confused, and I don't blame them! I was the type of reader that didn't know every phonics rule, but I was a very good reader. I owe that all to my parents who spent many days reading to me. Our district has taken the weekly spelling test out of the curriculum and has adopted the Words Their Way curriculum. This was a big change for many teachers. I believe this has been a good change. Even though I have had to re-teach myself phonics rules! Word study is a key component when reading. Many of my students who understand the phonics rules are my good readers. Those who struggle with phonics are my struggling readers. I believe that if my struggling readers were more familiar with their phonics and wordy study they would be better readers. I liked how the book gave several examples of what teachers can do word study in the middle school grades. I think that word study should not stop after the elementary years! To become a successful reader, students need to know the different meanings of roots, prefixes, suffixes, etc. In my classroom, I use a vocabulary chart from Marzano. They break apart the word to find the definitions. They also look for synonyms and antonyms. After going through this process, my students have a better understanding of the word. In the beginning of the year this was done whole group. Now that it is the end of the year, my students are able to do it on their own. They also take challenging words and dissect them to understand the meaning of the word. It makes me feel like I have done my job. I hope that the need of word study continues throughout education. Our 1st and 2nd grade classes use Fundations to teach phonics. When I talked to the teachers about this program, they all have seen a major difference in their students' phonics skills. I am excited to see the next group coming up because they have had two years of Fundations!

 There are so many great resources out there that can help students with word study. I have used several of the ones listed in this chapter. Another one I really like, which reminds me of educationalrap.com is flocabulary.com. This does cost some money, but my students really enjoy it. It can be used for all subject areas.

Chapter 4: The Essence of Understanding

Without comprehension there is no reading. Comprehension is the core of reading, and so many students struggle with it. How can students read if they can't comprehend? I feel like many teachers fall guilty of having students write summaries, ask basic questions, and give a test when assessing comprehension. I am guilty of it as well. This type of assessment for comprehension is not higher thinking, and it will not stick with the students. I loved the opening story of this chapter. How simple of an activity was that? Students were exploring photographs and having deep discussions with each other. This is every teacher's dream! I believe students want this kind of learning too. It is fun and engaging! It is not a drill and kill lecture. Students need to be challenged. They need to be able to discuss, explore, and create with their peers as while as individually. I feel that this can be a challenge because teachers are on a strict schedule. They don't have time to take two weeks on a given concept. They are told to move on to the next one. We are so use to teach the concept quick and move on. I wish I had more time to teach concepts to make sure my students really get it! I believe students want the same thing. They will get so much more out of school if they had a chance to fully understand what is being taught. This is a life skill. In the workforce, students are going to be required to concentrate intensively, dwell on ideas, struggle for insight, manipulate their ideas, explore, discuss, and create. Why not get a head start and begin teaching students how to do these things? When doing this, we will teach students to understand fully! There have been so many times in my teaching career where I know I didn't do my best at teaching a concept, but I know it is time to move on. I feel that teachers have this stress because of the high-stake testing. There are so many concepts that need to be taught before the dreaded high-stake testing at the end of the year. What would happen if we didn't worry so much about the testing and really worried about the success of our students in the real world?

Chapter 16: Creating Academic Success

I was shocked to hear that seven thousand students drop out of school daily in the United States! That is such a large number, and it is so sad! This is why I became a teacher. I wanted to make a difference in students lives, especially in the underachieving, low-income students. I have had the privelege to work in a low-income school for five years. I have been able to touch many students' lives and hopefully bridge the gap for some of them. Every August before school starts, I watch Freedom Writers. This movie always motivates me to do everything in my power to make sure my students are loved and feel smart. Even in third grade, my students know who the smart kids are and who the "dumb" kids are. I hate that! I want everyone of my students to feel smart because they are! They all have different skills in life which makes all of them smart! Some of my students do struggle and have to work harder in school, and they are the students that are already done with school. When I take a step back, I don't blame them. Who would want to spend seven hours everyday feeling like a failure? In my classroom, I try to create an environment where everyone feels smart. I work on making sure my students know their strengths and how to use them to help them in life. It is important to me that my students can talk to me on a personal level. I want them to feel comfortable to talk to me about anything, even the bad. I try to make it out to my students' sports games to show that I care about them even outside of school. When a teacher creates that personal relationship with a student, they can then relate to them on the academic level. I believe that if a teacher shows an interest in a students' life, then the student will take an interest in what the teacher is teaching. Many of my students come from a rough home life which does affect their learning. Several of my students are below grade level in reading and math. I push my struggling students. I set high expectations because I believe they can reach them. In small group, I work with my students to teach them skills that they will need in reading. My small group reading level is at an instructional level, but it is not as challenging as our textbooks. Through small group, my students learn strategies to use when they are reading on-level text and struggling. I believe that it is essential that struggling readers still are pushed to read on-level text, but they have strategies to help them along the way. With my struggling readers, it is important to go over background knowledge and make connections throughout the reading. A teacher needs to make it real for the student. This will aide in their comprehension. When a student feels confident, they are motivated to complete the given task. Teachers can also use the Thinking Maps to help students in their learning. I am going to try to incorporate some of the Thinking Maps in my future classes to help organize information. As a teacher, it is my job to make sure my students feel smart, and I will do everything to make sure that every child that walks through my door knows that they are smart, and they can do anything they put their mind to. If every teacher had this mindset, I believe we could change education!

Chapter 10: Teaching English Language Arts in a Flat World

Friedman's eight roles that will create the "new Middle class" is very interesting to me. I never thought of it that way. Students need to know not only academic subjects; but also, need to know roles and responsibilities. Students in the 21st century need to be great collaborators, synthesizers, explainers, leverages, adapters, green people, personalizes, and localizers. If a student is able to learn how to be great at these skills, they will succeed in any job they do. I like how the chapter had different ways teachers can incorporate these skills within their academic subjects. Many of these roles and responsibilities can be incorporated into the classroom very easily. When teaching students how to collaborate, teachers can group students to work together, assign different roles, create deep discussions, and rotate the seating arrangement. Doing these simple tasks in the classroom will teach students to work together and how to generate ideas with other people. When teaching students how to synthesis teachers can teach students to consider multiple perspectives, read a variety of text and genres with different perspectives, and produce a presentation with multiple sources. When looking at different perspectives, students learn that their idea might not always be the best, or they can combine their idea with another peer to make it even better. When teaching students to be explainers, teachers need to teach their students to be personable and to be able to tell a story. It is essential to be able to relate to others in the workforce. Teachers can help students become leveragers by using reflections and self assessment of their abilities. Teach them how to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses. Students will be aware of the process of a task and how to solve it so they can do better the next time. To help students become adapters, teachers can have students work within different areas that challenge them in productive ways. It is also essential to bring in speakers from the outside that can talk about their work. Teachers can also have students complete an assignment in different ways with different tools. Teachers can help students become green people by incorporating readings that have to do with the environment  and create awareness of our world. When teaching students how to be peronalizers, teachers can have students create a document or presentation that is for someone else's needs, redesign the workplace to improve their effect on customers, and have them do work within the community. The last role is the localizers. Teachers can have their students generate useful research questions about a wide range of subjects across disciplines, research a topic from multiplee angles with alternative solutions, and use various persuasive strategies to create advertisements or brochure for a real or imaginary business. While I was reading this portion of the book, I kept thinking "I do that" "Oh, I do that too!" I think it is simple to incorporate these eight skills in the classroom. Teachers just need to be aware of the way they are teaching and how it will help their students in the future. If a student is successful in these eight skills, I believe they will succeed in the workforce.

Chapter 3: Multiliterate Youth

Technology has come such a long way in the past five years. People depend on it so much more than they ever have. Now you can sit on the couch and surf the internet all through a tablet. If you don't know an answer to a question just google it. With this drastic change in technology, comes a drastic change in schools. I believe this can be a hard change for some teachers. Students now a days know more than I do about technology, and I am only twenty-seven! I think for some teachers this change in technology is a hard change. Teachers are attached to their basil textbooks, their weekly spelling test, and making sure they get their weekly grades in time. Students are capable of so much more than doing pencil/paper assignments for everything. Now, I do believe it is important to teach these skills because it is a life skills. Students should be able to write sentences and create paragraphs, but there are so many other options for students to show what they know than just paper/pencil tasks. My students use Edmodo, which I believe is a great tool for teachers and students. Edmodo is basically a Facebook for students. Students are able to communicate with each other and their teachers with given assignments or tasks. This is something students do outside of school. They are constantly communicating with each other whether it is through a blog, Facebook, texting, or Twitter. The 21st century is changing our country, and I believe it is for the good!

Many of my students are all about video games! I hear daily about Minecraft. I don't necessarily think video games are all that bad. Yes, some are very violent which I don't think is very age appropriate, but many of them have great aspects to them. I even had a mom tell me that she uses Minecraft with her son who struggles in reading and math. When playing Minecraft, she has her son read out loud the directions, but then there is a lot of inferring in the game. He is able to explain the game and what he needs to do and why. He is able to comprehend the game just as if it were a book. In my classroom, I use technology daily. My students play multiplication games where they can actually compete with each other. I have lower students who don't know their multiplication facts, but they love to compete with other students which helps them improve! I think there is a right time for video games and a right time for pencil/paper. I believe with the times changing that we will see more technology and less paper/pencil. As long as we are doing it right, I believe technology is a great tool to use in the classroom and is a necessity!

Chapter 1: The Measure of Our Success

This chapter reminded me a lot of why I am a teacher! The story of Derek almost brought me to tears. Those types of students need teachers to love them and care for them. I have worked in a title 1 school for five years. I see many students that have similar stories to Derek’s, and my heart just goes out to them. I use to teach in Texas and had to give the TAKS test. This was a very stressful part of teaching. I remember in the first month of school, they were already diagnosing children who would potentially fail the TAKS test. Sometime this would happen before I would even meet the children. I hated when teachers would come to me and tell me about my “bad” future students!

I completely understand what the author was talking with NCLB and testing. I understand we have to test our students to see if they are making progress, but are we doing it the most effective way? I struggle with this. I don’t believe it is right to teach to a test, but when so much is riding on that one test one time a year it’s hard to not teach with the test in mind. I remember specifically a student who was struggling with math and reading, and I busted my butt to make sure he passed his test. He had before and after tutoring that I personally did (for free). I felt like I was giving him a disservice because we did a lot of test prep. Was that what he needed for the real world? He did end up passing both of his tests (math and reading). I think the federal and state government put too much on this high-stake test. We are held at such a high standard to make sure these students pass. At my school in Texas, our principal would post our student’s benchmark test scores in the office throughout the year for the entire school to see. Talk about pressure! I have seriously considered quitting teaching because of this testing. I feel like I can’t teach to benefit my students!

In the next few years, our school is planning on going away from the letter grades and going to standard grading. I agree when the author said that parents do not understand letter grades, and frankly, neither do students. I think the standard grading will a lot of work but worth it. It will let students, parents, and other teachers know exactly what that student does and does not know. Conferences will be a lot easier to explain to parents where exactly their child is academically.

            This chapter was a real eye opener when it comes to NCLB and high-stake testing. I really hope our state and federal government get their act together when dealing with education. I think if the government worried about all of our other gaps like the author says, we can change the education field. So many students are up against so much in life that school is just not their top priority. I hope to see a change for more twenty-first century teaching instead of high-stake testing teaching.

Chapter 1: Focusing on the Secondary 'Whole' Learner

            I found this chapter very interesting because this is exactly what our district has been working on all year. We are working on creating higher-level thinking for all types of learners. I feel that it can be a challenging task to make sure you teach for all the different types of learners in the classroom. Many teachers are so use to doing the simple question/answer type format when it comes to assessment or homework. I sat through a meeting this year with people from commoncore.org (an organization that we are adopting for our common core literacy curriculum) they gave us wonderful advice to choose fabulous books full of treasure. It made me really think about how I pick out my books I use in my classroom. Why do I choose the books I do? Are they making my students think? Are they full of treasure that my students will carry with them in the future years? This concept of making higher thinking assignments takes a lot of work, but it is so rewarding.  
           Many people don't realize when they walk into the classroom that there will be many different types of learners as well as many different levels in your classroom. It is essential to make sure you reach every child in your class. This can be extremely challenging. Especially when you have students, like in my case, that are first grade reading levels all the way to sixth grade reading levels. I am constantly differentiating for my students. With all this said, I don't believe high-stake testing is the best way to assess students. Many students are not good at the paper/pencil, which now is turning in to a computer based test when PARCC comes out. I feel it is very ineffective to give students who are below level an on-level test. You are just asking them to fail. (I could go on and on about that topic)
           This chapter talks a lot about interest and motivation. I believe that if students are interested in a topic they will do better when it comes to comprehension and relating to a text. It may even motivate them to create outstanding work! I would love to have a library full of high interest books. I have spent a lot of money to create the library I have, and I try to keep it up-to-date with books the children enjoy. We have told our district several times that it is essential to get high interest, low level books for our struggling students. Many of our books that we have are from A-Z readers. Now, this is a great resource to have, but many of my students are not interested in a paper book I printed from the computer. The questions are very low level questions and don't challenge the students. The sad part is we can't afford to get those high interest books for struggling students. I have found great resources on the computer to help interest them. My students really enjoy tumblebooks and RAZ kids, but there is something about having a book in your hand that I feel like my students are missing. Hopefully in the future years, we will find that high interest books are a must for all levels and should be put in the budget. I believe that a school that has high interest materials will have higher test scores. 
         

About Me

My name is Beth Langlois, and I am currently a third grade teacher. This is my 5th year teaching third grade. I am very blessed to have had some wonderful opportunities in my teaching career. I did my student teaching in Kindergarten in San Antonio, TX. I absolutely loved it there. Who wouldn't like year round warmth? I decided I was going to stay. I ended up having a full time subbing position in a special needs classroom. This quickly turned into a full time third grade position. I taught in Texas for two and half years and decided it was time for me to come home to Illinois. I am very family oriented. To be away from my family was very hard for me. I found myself making a trip home once a month so it got very pricey. I have three siblings; two brothers and a sister. Along with that I have 5 nephews and a niece. I found myself missing out on a lot, and the year round warmth wasn't worth it. As of right now, I am early childhood certified. I decided last year that I would make myself more marketable and get my elementary certification. It has been an adventure, but I am excited to be finishing it up this year!