gordothekiddo

[gordothekiddo]

Readerly Exploration #4

18 September 2023

"Enriching and Assessing Young Children's Multimodal Storytelling."

"Why Children Need Play"

"Building Language and Literacy Through Play"

Takeaway: Play is needed to develop the fundamentals of language and literacy, so we should incorporate play in the literacy classroom.

Nugget: I found it very interesting that there were so many elements of literacy in play. I always looked immediately at the psychological things, but it also provides a lot for the literacy classroom.

In these articles, there was a common thread about play being important in learning. My first thought was, "wow, that's so cool," because at my old school, I actually had to make an assignment similar to the one in Wessell & Powell's (2016) writing. I had created what I deemed "A Script-tacular Assignment," and the whole idea was for students to use what they would learn about plot and the storyline mountain to create their own pieces! It felt validating to see that there was merit behind my idea.

Reading through the scholastic articles, I was actually really interested in how much play supplies students with a solid base for communication and literacy. By engaging in play, they are finding ways to practically engage with their learning in a way that is fun to them. That is incredibly important for the younger age groups because they tend to have shorter attention spans, so by them enjoying what they are doing, they may stay interested longer.

As I was reading through the articles, I began to wander to Taylor Swift. Granted, she is in her 30's, but her albums "folklore" and "evermore" are heavily story-based. There are also songs in other albums, like Speak Now (Taylor's Version) that included these storytelling elements. I began to listen through these albums, and I feel like the song Speak Now (Taylor's Version) really resonated with the idea of play in literacy.

[gordothekiddo]

Readerly exploration #3

28 August 2023

"Building a Literacy community: The Role of Literacy and Social Practice in Early Childhood Programs."

"Toward an educationally relevant theory of literacy learning: Twenty years of inquiry.

Takeaway: Literacy is a hands-on learning experience involving active engagement with both the curriculum and community.

Nugget: both of these articles explored literacy as an engaging experience. I did not think of literacy as a thought process, as Britsch and Meier suggested!

Through both of these articles, I was thinking a lot about psychology. I am such a psychology geek it isn't funny! Especially throughout Cambourne's (1995) article, I saw so many connections to psychology, and my notes over the article showcase that. The words that really did it for me in his article were "conditions," "stimulus," and "response/reaction." These are some very psychology-friendly terms. The conditions, for example, show whether or not this is correlational or causational. Because there are so many moving parts, it is very causational. All the conditions he mentioned need to be present in order for learning to take place.

With Cambourne's conditions, I linked some of them directly to psychological experiences (Cambourne, 1995). For example, his demonstration step was reminiscent of Bandura's bobo doll experience- we exhibit what we are exposed to. His engagement condition reminded me of how, at younger ages, Piaget suggests we must practice basic things like motor skills before they become concrete. Finally, employment provoked the thought of imitation, another psychology term, although I forget which theory it came from. The idea of copying what we see as learning how to function.

Continuing with Britsch and Meier's article, I remembered Erik Erikson when she began discussing the findings of her study, especially the thinking processes. The external thought processes shows active building of metacognition. Also, the autonomy vs. shame and doibt stage of Erikson's theory was shown through the inclusion finding. When Richie realized he wouldn't fit his dad's name on the paper, the teacher gave him a suggestion and asked his input (Britsch & Meier, 1999).

[gordothekiddo]

Readerly exploration #2

4 September 2023

"Reading with a Crayon: Pre-conventional Marginalia as Reader Response in Early Childhood

Takeaway: early readers' "scribbles" are more than just stray markings on books, but evidence of further understanding of the book.

Nugget: I was interested in the psychology behind the marginalia. I liked the comparison in the article of adult marginalia/note taking and child marginalia.

While I was reading this text, the psychology nerd in me really showed! I was so excited reading this, realizing that even something as little as scribble marks in a book is a showcase of the human brain. I was so tempted to get ahold of a family member to send me a picture of some of my own marginalia as a child, but decided not to; we have a large family and those books could be anywhere!

I was reading the article with two guys on my floor studying next to me, Turner and Richie. I love talking about what I learn, so I mentioned the idea that the scribbles could mean more than just the scribble, and that it could go deeper into meaning and comprehension of the text. My friend Turner said that it is a silly thing considering that we are encouraged to take so many notes in high school and college. Drawing graphs, making diagrams, and highlighting are all things we were told not to do as children!

A futher concept in the article was the idea the marginalia helps them to enter in the book world. It can help them think about the future of the story. This sparked a conversation with my friend Richie and I, where he suggested children are not as focused as the future of things, or alternate endings as we may be. I responded that some of the games we play are based on books, or characters in them. I have a picture of the 3 of us at the end of our conversation here.

Fischer, S. (2016). Reading with a crayon: pre-conventional marginalia as reader response in early childhood. Children’s Literature in Education, 48(2), 134–151. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-016-9292-4

[gordothekiddo]

Readerly exploration #1

21 August 23

"Assessment and Intervention in the Balanced Literacy Classroom: Noticing and Responding to Students' Needs." Fisher et. al.

Takeaway: This reading discussed the variety and importance of assessment in a literacy classroom.

Nugget: I was surprised at the amount of assessment styles and content to be assessed! It gave me a few ideas of things to do in my future classroom.

Through this reading, I gained a lot of information on types of assessments. One I plan on using in my future classroom after reading was the Maze Assessment. I liked how the teacher example in the article used it not only on a student-by-student basis, but also for the whole class. This approach capitalized on the idea and maximized the possible uses. I am sure, in my future teaching career, I will appreciate saving some time where I can, yet still getting effective results!

While reading, I thought a lot of my grandmother. She used to be an educator, and also has an interest in psychology. A lot of learning involves neuroplasticity, or the growing of the brain, as well as other things in the psychology field. I decided to call her, and we had a conversation over 20 minutes over the phone, where we discussed the results on page 208 (Fisher et. al., 2019). The conversation about response to intervention, or RTI, turned into an amazingly educational conversation about the current state of American education. She expressed her concerns for educational interventions, as well as socioemotional interventions. While the conversation strayed off the original topic, I appreciated her time to listen to me explaining the RTIs, and how important they are. She was shocked to hear that retention, or holding a student back, had an effect size of -0.32 (Fisher et. al., 2019)! The picture attached shows some of my book notes, as well as some notes from our conversation. My favorite quote from our conversation was, "you don't want to teach, you want to make a difference."

Citation: Fisher, D.; Frey, N., & Akhavan, N. (2019). This is balanced literacy, Grades K-6 (Vol. K-6). Corwin Press.