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[julescollins]

Due Date: April 3rd 2023

Titles: 

Reading 1: ‘Does Disciplinary Literacy have a Place in Elementary School?’ By Shanahan & Shanahan

Reading 2: Chapter 12, ‘Reading and Writing in the Content Areas’ By Tompkins 

Reading 1:

Big takeaway: Disciplinary literacy, or teaching literacy skills in the context of specialized academic disciplines, can enrich and deepen elementary students’ understanding of a variety of text types and purposes whilst preparing them for the reading and writing they will encounter in middle and high school. 

Nugget: Having students read 1st person point of view and 3rd person point of view narrations side by side can help them see the differences and effects those two perspectives can have on the meaning and feel of the story.

Reading 2: 

Big Takeaway: There are a variety of ways in which teachers can implement reading and writing activities that incorporate different content areas and different literacy skills. 

Nugget: I thought the concept of double entry journals, which incorporate factual information as well as reader responses, would be a fun and interesting way to help students find information and reflect on it. 

For my readerly exploration, I chose to engage in the reading process to increase the likelihood of text comprehension by annotating any questions that arose for me in the margins. First, I wrote questions about each reading before I even read them, just based on the titles. I was definitely very off with my question about what the disciplinary literacy article would be about! Next, I read the disciplinary literacy article and wrote questions as I read. I wrote an after-reading question for this article to make note of a question I still had after finishing the article. With chapter 12 of the textbook, I again wrote my before reading question, then close read the article to develop a couple more questions. Many of my questions for both readings were answered as I continued reading on and finishing the text. I wrote an after-reading question for chapter 12 as well. I found it easy to come up with before reading and after reading questions, but it was difficult for me to come up with questions while reading, because they typically got answered soon after I wrote them or I could imply the answer. My before reading questions were easy because I didn’t know anything about the article yet; and my after reading questions were both about examples and ways in which the text could be practically implemented. I found it interesting to see the variety of writing ideas for students in chapter 12, from learning logs to KWL charts to diary entries. This readerly exploration helped me better comprehend what I read because it encouraged me to close read, annotate, and think deeply about what I know and don’t know about the text. This experience deepened my mastery of course content because it helped me to see the importance of multi genre writing and planning thematic units that integrate a variety of texts and content areas. 

Caption for multimedia: My picture shows my questions I wrote before, during, and after reading both texts. I left both readings wanting to know more about the step-by-step, practical plan for implementing both topics in the classroom; a block plan example of how to implement both of these would have been helpful. Overall, I did deepen my understanding of the importance of reading/writing across disciplines, content areas, and topics. 

[julescollins]

Entry 5 / Due Date: Week 10

Titles: ‘Four Practical Principles for Enhancing Vocabulary Instruction’ 

Big Takeaway: 

Through a 3 year research project studying the implementation of a multifaceted, comprehensive vocabulary instruction program, experts have found that effective vocabulary instruction is very necessary in the elementary grades and teachers should implement research-based vocabulary instruction with high quality activities. 

Nugget: (one new, interesting bit of information that stuck out to you as you read)

I liked the character trait writing activity, where they use one of their target words in relation to a character in a book the class read. 

I chose to engage in the reading process to increase the likelihood of text comprehension by skimming the reading for unfamiliar terms. Then, I looked up the definitions of those terms. The first thing I did was scan through all of the headlines and subtitles. I saw the words ‘MCVIP’, ‘Pragmatic’, and ‘anchor’. I knew what an anchor was, but in the context it was used in the headline (‘anchor experiences’) it looked unfamiliar. Then, I scanned through margin boxes, images, and captions. I saw ‘cloze assessment’ and ‘precis’ in those text features and wasn’t sure what they meant. ‘Precis’ could be a typo, meant to be ‘precise’? I made note of all of these in my document and then began close reading next. I was able to imply quickly in the first paragraph that MCVIP stood for Multi Faceted, Comprehensive Vocabulary Instruction Program. Later on, when stumbling on ‘pragmatic’ again, I couldn’t decipher a clear meaning just from the text, so I consulted an online dictionary. It was defined as ‘dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations’. In the text, pragmatic was used to communicate to the reader that vocabulary activities should be sensible and realistic for teachers.  ‘Anchor experiences’ were defined in the text after pragmatic. They were defined as ‘particularly clear, kid friendly definitions or examples of use’. I had to look up ‘precis’ next; it meant ‘a summary or abstract of a text or speech’. Finally, I understood ‘cloze assessment’ after some research and an image from the text. It is just a fancy term for a difficult fill in the blank vocabulary test, essentially. Throughout this readerly exploration, it was easy to understand the words once I searched them up, but I found it difficult to decipher them purely based on context clues. It was interesting for me to see that ‘precis’ really is a word! This readerly exploration helped me understand the reading better because I understood the words, abbreviations, and terms in the text. This deepened my mastery of the course content because we are learning about the importance of comprehension and vocabulary, and I got to see firsthand through this exploration that understanding the terms in a text really contributes to your ability to understand it. 

Caption for multimedia: This is just a funny picture of some student vocabulary writing in my 4th grade classroom. As you can see, they can easily get away with creating sentences that demonstrate no meaning or understanding, and it is quite funny sometimes! I think the students might benefit from some of the deep processing strategies described in the article. Another student just wrote ‘I crouch. I fetch. I’m cheerful. I choke. I accomplish. I search. I dispatch.’ And got away with it!

[julescollins]

Due Date: Week 6, Due Feb 13th

Title: Tompkins, Chapter 8, “Promoting Comprehension: Reader Factors”

Big Takeaway: Students should be able to comprehend and recognize a variety of genres, story structures, narrative devices, text factors, and text structures, as well as apply these in their own writing. 

Nugget: I learned that there are two types of alliteration - assonance and consonance. Assonance is when vowel sounds are repeated in nearby words, and consonance is when consonant sounds are repeated. 

For my readerly exploration, I chose to explore the world through reading by using texts to answer questions about the world or generating new questions about the world from texts that are read. To do this, I made a list of three or four questions about literacy classrooms that came up for me as I read and then did some preliminary research on one of them. Here are my questions: 

What categories of narrative genres correlate to which grade levels (ie. Do students read more folklore in K-1st, and then move into realistic fiction in higher grades?)

How can elementary writers be encouraged to understand and use narrative devices?

How can students reflect on their writing and reading growth as they learn about text factors and narrative devices? 

The first step I took to complete this exploration was to skim through and pre read the text. As I close read, I put stars in my book next to anything I was curious about. Finally, I skimmed back through, developing questions from each starred section that I was still curious about after reading the whole way through. The question I decided to focus on was the last one about reflecting on writing and reading growth and I found some helpful information on how to implement reflection strategies in the article ‘Goal Setting and Performance among Elementary School Students’ by Betty Punnett from the Journal of Educational Research. Students could approach this reflection by setting student-created goals, monitoring their own learning and comprehension, and doing a journal entry each week where they write about what they’re struggling with, what they’re finding easy, what they want to learn more about, their favorite examples of different text factors/devices that they encountered that week. It was easy to approach this task by using an annotation system, but I found it difficult to phrase some of my questions. One thing in this chapter that was particularly interesting to me was reading 2 fifth grade girls’ poetry they wrote about friendship during WW2 on page 316 - I thought it was really beautiful for having been written by kids so young! This readerly exploration helped me better comprehend what I read because it helped me to slow down and recognize where I was confused and needed more information, and it encouraged me to seek out those answers when necessary. My mastery of the course content was deepened because I have a better understanding of the different narrative devices and text factors and an understanding of activities I could use to teach them. 

Caption for multimedia: For my Zine project I am focusing on the overlooked value and meaning of everyday objects… and now I know what that is called! An ode :) and I plan to read a few before I start my zine.

[julescollins]

Due Date: Week 3 (January 23rd) 

Titles: Tompkins, Chapter 2, “The Reading and Writing Processes”

Tompkins, Chapter 6, “Developing Fluent Readers and Writers” 

Chapter 2

Big Takeaway: Teachers can integrate reading and writing processes simultaneously in the classroom to help students with meaning-making, comprehension, writers’ craft techniques, and varied types of reading. 

Nugget: I loved getting to see the list of online publication sites for kids to display their writing. I would’ve jumped on that in elementary! I wrote so much, and didn’t really feel like there was any way for me to share my writing without being in the spotlight - posting on the internet would offer the anonymity that the shy kids need! 

Chapter 6

Big Takeaway: Teachers can develop students’ reading and writing speed and automaticity through frequent reading and writing, high frequency word instruction, word identification strategies, and authentic activities. 

Nugget: I loved the idea of simulated journals - writing a diary from the perspective of a character in a book. I think it could be a great way to teach about character development.

For my readerly exploration, I chose to reflect on the contributions of reading experiences to reader identity in an effort to better articulate who I am as a reader, by writing a couple of goals for myself as a reader to apply in my next reading assignment. When reading chapter 2, the first thing I did was open to page 1 and start reading word for word. My focus dipped out less than 2 pages in. I decided to try something different in chapter 6 - I skimmed through it using pre-reading before I actually began verbatim reading. I looked at all the graphics, charts, bolded phrases, and the summary section at the end. Once I understood the big picture, it seemed easier for me to go back and read through - and I could also tell what areas didn’t necessarily need to be read verbatim for me to be able to understand and apply the gist of the chapter. The whole section of examples of middle school texts that help students sustain reading was not relevant to me because I am not going to teach middle school, so I was able to jump past those couple paragraphs. This encouraged me to write the reading goal of ‘practicing pre-reading by skimming through a chapters’ big features for a couple of minutes before reading more closely’. Another goal I set was to go back and reread anything in the summary section that I couldn’t recall more about. If a term like ‘prosody’ is mentioned in the chapter summary, and I can’t recall it, I can go back and reread the section about prosody. This will help me to better recall the information I read. Lastly, for my final goal, I consulted the internet for ideas. My search for ‘independent literacy goals’ provided me my last goal: Pausing during reading to check if you understand and remember what is going on. Instead of reading the whole way through, I intend to stop every couple of pages and check my comprehension and recollection. This is helpful to me because sometimes my brain checks out before my eyes do, and then all the sudden I realize I’ve read several pages with just my eyes - I wasn’t really seeing or even reading the text, my eyes just kept on moving. This goal will help limit that. Overall, my three goals were to pre read, reread what I couldn’t recall, and pause to check in with my attention and understanding during my reading. It was easy to develop my pre reading goal; that pattern stuck out to me quickly. My final goal, though, caused me to sit and think for a long time, and then eventually check Google for ideas. I knew my reading wasn’t perfect, but I couldn’t think up a specific goal. It was interesting to me to see the big difference in attention and understanding pre-reading created for me, from chapter 2 to chapter 6. This exploration helped me better comprehend what I read because it helped me to really focus on the text and be an active reader. My mastery of course content was deepened because I learned the importance of setting reading goals and the value of using text dependent analysis tools like pre-reading. 

This chart I found when searching for my final goal helped me identify that I needed to be stopping during reading to check if I can summarize. The ‘when to choose this goal’ section perfectly describes me - sometimes I close the book and then can’t even remember any details in the chapter! I think this would be a really helpful chart to have in my future classroom.

[julescollins]

Entry 2, Due Date: Week 4 (Jan 30th)

Titles: Tompkins, Chapter 1, ‘Becoming an Effective Literacy Teacher’ 

Big Takeaway: Effective teachers use learning theories and an understanding of how students learn to balance literacy instruction across all 4 domains, give opportunities for collaboration and differentiation, and create a healthy classroom environment. 

Nugget: It was really helpful to just see a list of all the learning theories! I finally have an academic ‘title’ for some of my favorite styles of instruction I experienced in school, such as situated learning theory, which was very beneficial to me as a student. 

A paragraph (between 200 and 300 words) narrating your Readerly Exploration that (1) 

For this readerly exploration, I chose to explore the world through reading by using texts to answer questions about the world. I made a list of three or four questions about literacy classrooms that came up for me as I read. Then, I did some preliminary research on one of them. My biggest question was about critical literacy. Critical literacy is explained in the textbook as ‘a literacy theory that is designed for students to examine fundamental questions about justice and equity’, and in which ‘language is a means of social action and change’. The book also states that ‘this theory has a political agenda’. In such a politically polarized time, this stood out to me. It made me curious if more politically conservative areas have tried to implement this in their district, and what the result of that could’ve been when conservative parents found out! Upon the implementation of critical literacy, have parents ever pushed back against their kids being taught this theory given its openly political (and therefore controversial) goals? The first thing I did to pursue an answer for this question was look up Pablo Freire, mentioned in the textbook as the man who called for this critical literacy movement. Google results on his name yielded articles saying Freire just wants students to ‘question everything’ and ‘explore new ideas’… and others that say critical literacy encourages teachers to regurgitate ‘woke oppressed narratives’ (which in my perspective, seems to imply that the oppression isn’t true, someone just feels oppressed). Then, I searched up ‘parent guide to critical pedagogy in school’. Tons upon tons of books have been written about how parents can fight back against critical pedagogies like CRT and critical literacy. So, I’ve found my answer - yes, parents are pushing back, and thousands of them! There are hundreds and hundreds of parent reviews for these books and online resources, some of them being: ‘ “Kids are very aggressive now in their views, and pushing kids to other views…if you’re not with us, you’re against us, and you’re the problem.”… “They are making my son feel like a racist because of the pigmentation of his skin”. In this exploration, it was easy to find my answer for sure! I struggled to find information that seemed neutral and unbiased. It was interesting to read parent reviews, and see tons of personal anecdotes of the effects of critical pedagogies in schools. This readerly exploration helped me understand critical literacy at a deeper level, and the ways in which it is actually playing out in implementation. My mastery of course content was deepened because I now grasp the controversies surrounding a very prevalent and current literacy learning theory. 

Caption for multimedia: Here are my other questions that I documented, but critical literacy controversies won my interest to research further, so these didn’t get explored. :) 

[julescollins]

Week 13 Readerly Exploration

Title: A Different Kind of Reading Instruction: Using Visualizing to Bridge Reading Comprehension and Critical Literacy by Park, Jie Y.

Big Takeaway: Visualization in literacy allows students to explore identity, social roles, and value systems, while fostering communication, perspective, and real-world connections regarding these difficult topics. 

Nugget: I thought it was interesting (and kind of sad/concerning) that these 7th and 8th grade girls were already able to sustain a conversation about the relationships between rape, victim blaming, modesty, and alcohol. That seems like a very adult topic for them to speak so fluently and casually on. I wonder if they are already encountering these issues in their personal lives at age 12 or 13. 

For my readerly exploration, I chose to engage in the reading process to increase the likelihood of text comprehension by highlighting excerpts from the chapter that reflect the author’s purpose. The first thing I did was select two different highlighting colors to signify different types of information I was emphasizing in the article. I used red when I found a section that was a broad ‘sum-it-up’ chunk of information that really helped me comprehend the big picture. Red emphasized that that particular section was crucial to my own understanding of the major points of the article. I used yellow to highlight other important details that were short in terms of length (a sentence or a phrase versus paragraphs bracketed in red). It was easy for me to highlight in red. One paragraph near the end really tied up loose ends and brought me a lot of understanding all at once. The smaller, here-and-there yellow highlights were a mix of things I just found interesting, things that were important, words I didn’t recognize, etc., so sometimes it was hard to refrain from yellow highlighting like half the page. It was particularly interesting to me to get to see the students’ verbatim dialogue - I feel like they spoke very maturely about topics I don’t think I was very familiar with at their age. They seemed to all have wisdom about things I don’t think kids need to have wisdom about yet, and held conversations I don’t think I could’ve held until 14 or 15. This readerly exploration helped me comprehend the reading better because it provided me with an easy visual system to pull out key points. Looking for ways to annotate also helps me to focus while I read. My mastery of course content was deepened because I learned the value of encouraging students to visualize as they read: visualization can foster conversations about different perspectives, difficult social issues, and create connections from the text to the world. 

(Referring to the image below) I used red highlight to emphasize that the whole section was an important, broad sum it up of major information. Yellow highlight pulled out the phrases and sentences within that section that gave further details. 

[julescollins]

Due date: December 5th 2022 

Title 1: Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms by Rebecca Silverman and Jennifer DiBara Crandell 

Title 2: Word Study Instruction in the K–2 Classroom by Cheri Williams with Colleen Phillips-Birdsong, Krissy Hufnagel, Diane Hungler, and Ruth P. Lundstrom

Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms by Rebecca Silverman and Jennifer DiBara Crandell 

Big Takeaway: Different vocabulary instruction practices produce different results and have different levels of effectiveness; certain practices are more beneficial to some students than others. 

Nugget: A blend of embedded, anchored, and rich instruction - Which involves things like active listening, physical demonstrations of word meaning, descriptive questions, and generating student examples of the word - can cause students to learn significantly more words. 

Word Study Instruction in the K–2 Classroom by Cheri Williams with Colleen Phillips-Birdsong, Krissy Hufnagel, Diane Hungler, and Ruth P. Lundstrom

Big Takeaway: Word studies, which are an approach to spelling instruction that helps students use strategies to uncover the ‘layers’ of words and aids them in finding consistencies in the English spelling system, supports childrens’ spelling and writing development. 

Nugget: The use of word families, word walls, and listening for sounds in a word are a few tools and skills to provide students as they engage in word studies. 

For my readerly exploration, I chose to engage in the reading process to increase the likelihood of text comprehension by highlighting excerpts from the chapter that reflect the author’s purpose as I read. In ‘Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom’, I identified that the authors’ purpose was informational. Williams and her colleagues intended to provide educators with an understanding of what seperated word study from spelling memorization, the ways in which word study benefited student spelling and writing growth, and the specific strategies that teachers could use to create productive small group word study instruction. A couple of quotes I pulled from ‘Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom’ include the following: ‘Word study is an approach to spelling instruction that moves away from a focus on memorization… (it’s) primary goal is to support students’ development of a working knowledge of orthography… that they can apply in reading and writing’ ; ‘linking word study to writing through interactive writing lessons supports childrens’ spelling, and ultimately, their writing development’ ; ‘homogenous small group instruction (and) guided practice is essential’ ; ‘Focus your word study lessons on the way English words work, so that students will form useful generalizations they can apply to words they want to read or spell’ ; and ‘students will need explicit demonstrations on how they can use word study’. All of these quotes communicated essential, foundational, and broad knowledge regarding word studies. In ‘Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms’, the purpose behind authors Silverman and Crandells’ writing was also informational. Silverman and Crandell intended to communicate to educators that there are a variety of vocabulary instruction methods, some methods work better for some students than others, and they sought to provide information on what the different methods looked like when implemented in the classroom. A couple of quotes I pulled from this article include the following: ‘there are particular practices that are generally associated with higher vocabulary performance’; ‘direct instruction of vocabulary words can be an effective method to support children’s word learning’; ‘combining vocabulary practices is more effective than using one alone’; ‘direct different practices towards children with more or less vocabulary knowledge’; ‘rich instruction (is when) teachers contextualized, defined, and provided examples of target words from the read aloud books… make judgements, and generate their own examples’; ‘children who received rich instruction learned significantly more of the words’; and ‘teachers demonstrate word meanings (visually, kinesthetically)…children in (these) intervention classrooms outperformed children in control classrooms’. These quotes communicate to the reader that there are multiple ways of teaching vocabulary and that different vocabulary practices suit different learners. A couple of these quotes explain what the vocabulary strategies look like and include. For example, rich instruction involves providing examples and helping students to generate their own examples. As I engaged in this task of highlighting excerpts that reflected the authors’ purpose, I first read through the article and highlighted using different tools to make the most essential information stand out for future reference. I found it easy to identify what information was essential; sometimes the vocabulary used in the text said words like ‘significant’ or ‘conclusion’. I struggled with developing an authors’ purpose statement for each of these articles that encompassed all of the major components. This readerly exploration helped me comprehend what I read because as I highlighted, I was able to go through a kinesthetic (physically highlighting the sentences) and visual (being able to go back through the text and see the highlighted sentences) process that aided me in taking away the most crucial information from each text and having it for future reference.

This screenshot shows that I highlighted the components of the article that relayed the most essential and key information the author was aiming for their readers to understand.

[julescollins]

Due Date: Monday, October 31, 2022

Titles:

Hanford (2018), Hard Words: Why Aren’t Kids Being Taught to Read?

Wills Lloyd (2021), Smoke Signals in Reading Education

Chosen Reference: Hanford (2018), What to do if your child's school isn't teaching reading right?

Hanford (2018), Hard Words: Why Aren’t Kids Being Taught to Read?Big Take-away: Across America, many schools emphasize comprehension and a whole language approach to literacy instead of prioritizing explicit phonics instruction, which goes against strong evidence in brain science research that reading is a skill that must be explicitly taught; thus, schools that explicitly teach phonics will produce students who are better at reading. 

Nugget: In reading the part of this article that was focused on Mississippi and the changes the state made in regards to literacy education regulations, I found that the misunderstandings and lack of knowledge about literacy and reading science went back and back and back - not only did teachers not understand reading science, but neither did their principals, superintendents, reading specialists the professors that were teaching the teachers, or the government. Wow! The lack of knowledge was deeply widespread. 

Wills Lloyd (2021), Smoke Signals in Reading Education

Big Take-away: Schools must prioritize and teach explicit and systematic phonics instruction as the precedent for other literacy skills like comprehension and fluency. 

Nugget: I didn’t really know there was a big difference between the terms ‘systematic’ and ‘explicit’ prior to this article because they tend to be used simultaneously. Systematic means teaching skills in a specific order so that students move from easier to more difficult tasks as they master the content, whereas explicit instruction is giving clear directions, having the students perform the direction, and then providing distributed practice. 

For my readerly exploration, I chose to engage in the reading process to increase the likelihood of text comprehension by choosing another referenced source in one of the articles to read. After reading the Hanford article, I decided to read the follow-up article that Hanford wrote in response to several parents asking the question, “What should I do if my child’s school is not teaching reading right?” The first step I took was to preview the article. I read the background introduction about the many concerned parents reaching out for more information about how to take action. Then, there was a list of questions you could click on to link you to different parts of the article that answered specific questions. I appreciated how straightforward it was: the article provided clear, practical steps and actions to take to find out about your school’s literacy programs, what to do if those programs were not backed by any science, and how to help your child as a reader. It linked several other resources - from movies to curricula and books to online quizzes - that provide research-based reading tools for parents who want to help their child. Something I found interesting was that the authors said ‘everyone says what they’re doing is backed up by research’, however this is sometimes just jargon and not a reliable claim. It also mentioned some classroom features that could be red flags, like posters encouraging word meaning guessing or a word wall that is organized alphabetically instead of by letter-sound relationships. The article advised parents to support their child in a school that does not use science-backed reading programs by intervening early, hiring a tutor, getting help outside the school or starting an advocacy group. Reading books with patterns, rhymes, and alliteration or playing games that require the child to listen for sound patterns are beneficial. Engaging in this readerly exploration helped me to see the practical application of advocating for brain science-based reading programs. Reading this additional reference has given me a course of action to take as a future educator and parent if the school is not providing the explicit phonics instruction that is necessary. My understanding of course content has grown because we have been learning about and discussing the significance of early explicit phonics instruction. I can see the importance of this instruction reflected in the data and statistics the article provided. The stories of the several concerned parents from all over America, who are directly seeing and experiencing the effects of whole-language literacy programs on their children, also helps me see the value of learning about explicit phonics instruction in this course. 

Here is my multimedia documentation: a selfie I took in Cafe Diem while I wrote my readerly exploration. I did all of the work for this assignment still wearing my 70s disco Halloween outfit. :)

[julescollins]

September 12th 2022

‘Enriching and Assessing Young Childrens’ Multimodal Storytelling’ by Christy Wessel-Powell, Tolga Kargin, and Karen Wohlwend

‘Why Children Need Play’ by Deborah Leong and Elena Bodrova 

‘Building Language and Literacy Through Play’ by Scholastic

Enriching and Assessing Young Childrens’ Multimodal Storytelling

Big Takeaway: Literacy playshops and multimodal storytelling allow children to develop creativity, meaningful stories, collaboration, communication and provide opportunities to engage with crafts, scripts, movement, perspective and other literacy building experiences. 

Nugget: I loved the system the teachers put in place in this experiment to help the students develop their stories. From the minilessons to the checklist to peer feedback, all of it fostered innovation, communication, reading, responsibility and other skills that will carry over into later school years and adulthood. 

Why Children Need Play

Big takeaway: Allowing children self directed, dramatic, and symbolic play has been linked to growth in linguistic, cognitive, social, emotional, self-regulatory and memory abilities, and thus will foster school readiness and academic accomplishment. 

Nugget: Play can be ‘unproductive’ when the children repeat the same familiar roles or argue during play, because they are not growing in their understanding of other roles or developing appropriate social skills. 

Building Language and Literacy Through Play

Big takeaway: Dramatic play is an important component of literacy skills, with symbolic representation, planned play, and open-ended, play rich environments/props being critical aspects of mature, high quality play. 

Nugget: I never considered that the arguing that occurs during pretend play could be because the children are unfamiliar with the variety of roles that can be played in pretend situations; they may be fighting over one role (ex. Store cashier) because they are simply unaware that there are others (shelf stockers, customers, cleaners, etc). 

Readerly Exploration: For my exploration, I chose to explore relationships with other people through reading by using the text to gain insight into another persons’ perspective. I shared an excerpt from ‘Building Language and Literacy Through Play’ with my friend who is a business major to get his perspective on the reading. I chose this exploration because I’ve found that letting kids learn through play is an almost controversial topic right now in parenting/teaching spaces, so I was curious to hear from a friend of mine who I knew wasn’t involved at all in either of those spaces’ opinions. We facetimed to discuss an excerpt from the article. I was surprised that, after reading the first page that gave a general overview of the article and mentioned a few of the ways play aids literacy and academic growth, he said it ‘went over his head’ and he had ‘no idea how advanced and difficult information in early education courses were’. To me, the article seemed very easy to comprehend, so to have someone so intelligent tell me it was hard for him to understand was surprising! I asked him to share any agreements, disagreements, points of confusion or things he was curious about. He mentioned that he agreed children nowadays do not have as much time for play because they are always on screens. After reading about how play develops delay of gratification, communication, and social skills, he said he had never thought of how valuable play could be in contributing to those areas, but he can definitely see how kids would grow in those areas through play. He said there wasn’t anything he could pinpoint that he disagreed with, but he was confused as to how toys could be used as symbolism, which I explained to him. He said something he was curious about was if there is some way that teachers could teach kids self regulation, communication, delay of gratification and role playing in an explicit way, rather than just letting them figure it out themselves. He said maybe if we figured out a way to teach those skills, the kids could develop them more quickly and efficiently. Although I understand where he is coming from, I countered that by saying the academic pressure on kids is getting larger and larger, and affecting kids younger and younger - plus, ‘teaching’ those skills might create social skills and communication that only stems from obedience to rules rather than authentic desire to communicate kindly and appropriately. He agreed that that was a possibility. considers how engaging in this readerly exploration helped you better comprehend what you read and deepen your mastery of course content. This readerly exploration helped me to consider perspectives and thoughts outside of the teaching space, and see how literacy, play, and childrens’ development might be seen through the eyes of someone with no experience in these areas. I found our conversation about ‘teaching’ those skills to be interesting. I viewed communication, delay of gratification, etc as something that couldn’t be explicitly taught; more so, just gained through life experience. On the other hand, he saw it as a potential academic topic. 

Cole & I facetimed to have our conversation because he is currently travelling. He said he had to read the article excerpt twice because he wasn’t used to all of ‘this hard psychology stuff’! :)

[julescollins]

Due Date: Wednesday, August 31st, 2022 

Titles: Toward an Educationally Relevant Theory of Literacy Learning: Twenty Years of Inquiry; Brian Cambourne

Building a Literacy Community: The Role of Literacy and Social Practice in Early Childhood Programs; Susan J. Britsch and Daniel R. Meier

Cambourne Text

Big Takeaway: The author talks about the conditions of learning and how they form a continuous cycle of engagement, immersion, demonstration, reflection and other components which ultimately create a pro learning, pro reading, and pro writing literacy community. 

Nugget: Reading that learners who like their teacher and are free from anxiety learn literacy better is a truth I have lived! I was moved into the ‘advanced’ reading class in early elementary school after having had an ‘average’ reading class teacher who I felt valued me, encouraged me and assumed the best of me. When I moved into the advanced reading class, my teacher felt like she always assumed the worst and was always angry or frustrated with me. My performance ended up suffering and they moved me back down, because I was too anxious to participate!

Britsch & Meier Text 

Big Takeaway: Early childhood programs that teach literacy skills in an inclusive, self-directed, and parent-involved community will strengthen the students’ literacy and set them up for future literacy success. 

Nugget: I found the documentation of the students’ conversations to be very helpful in understanding how the literacy programs were directly affecting the childrens’ growth. Reading specific statements or questions the teachers used to prompt ownership and problem solving in the students made the article more applicable. 

Readerly Exploration

For my readerly exploration, I made a list of three or four questions about literacy classrooms that came up for me as I read, and then chose one question to research. My readerly habit was to use the texts to answer questions about the world and come up with new questions inspired by the text. The first step I took to explore the reading was to read over my annotations and highlights and write down any curiosities I had about the program, students, or literacy. 

How can a teacher approach creating an environment of parent-involved  ‘literacy as community’, when some students’ parents may not be willing or available to provide that involvement? 

In which situations could ‘student guided learning’, as shown on page 213 in the left column in the discourse between Philip and the teacher, be more harmful than helpful (i.e. too time consuming, confusing for the child, etc.)?

What is the boundary between including childrens’ sociocultural perspectives and encouraging them to see connections between literacy and their ‘real lives’, and getting off topic/distracting them/creating confusions?

Next, I selected which one I was most curious about and thought would be most helpful for me as a soon-to-be pre student teacher: Question #3! I chose this because I find that many of my students raise their hand and go on a 5 minute story tangent that ultimately just creates more distraction rather than ‘literacy inclusion’. I think finding a balance of creating a space where students can share their own personal connections to literacy, while maintaining an academic focus, would be helpful. As I looked for answers for this question, I used the IDEA organization website, which had a ton of other resources under the ‘Notes on Instruction’ section. The article on “Related Course Material to Real-Life Situations” provided me these tips: content and ‘real life’ personal connections makes the course context more comprehensible and accessible; instructors who demonstrate use of logic and assessment tools can identify misconceptions; discussions in learner groups should be mostly focused on definitions, descriptions, ideas, or explanations. As for the other component of my readerly habit, I also looked at the text to answer this question. Although I did not find an explicit answer, I noticed that peer-culture building and conversation was not directly ‘academic’ in the example discourse between students who were sharing their sociocultural resources. Nonverbal responses were mentioned as valuable, and experience-sharing seemed to be prioritized more so than strictly educational conversation. At least for preschool students, ‘getting off topic’ from the text was not presented as an issue in the article. The linguistic and social growth that developed from seeing connections between text and real life, and building peer community and social skills from that, was valuable inherently. This readerly exploration helped me to think deeper about how the article could be relevant and applicable to my pre-student teaching experience, as I was asked to formulate questions and research further. It helped me to find a teaching resource, the IDEA website, that I definitely intend to use in the future. Finally, it encouraged me to annotate, preview-read and pull key components from the text that guided me to form a more complete and thorough understanding of the whole article and study. 

Multimedia Documentation:

I really hope this is what is meant by multimedia documentation, or else it is very awkward I just posted this selfie! This is me writing in a google doc my readerly exploration. My reading experience actually took place this weekend, and my writing about my reading experience took place Tuesday at midnight, so I have definitely learned that it is most helpful to at least write down your nuggets and takeaways straight after you read rather than days later. :)