#William Crandell

[current-words-publishing]

15 AND 5, AND WHY DO YOU CARE?

REVIEWS FOR 2023 SOLSTICE Fifteen written reviews (the kind that include words, not just clicking LIKE) and choosing five stars. That’s what we need if we want to be able to buy an advertisement for one of our books on Amazon. And why do you care? Well, if you have a story or poem in Solstice, and your name is on the book, what if you’re trying to publish your novel? Or your collection of…

[lwmessiah]

Readerly Exploration #4

November 13, 2023

Silverman & Crandell (2011), “Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms”

Williams, et. al. (2009), “Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom”

Big takeaways

Silverman & Crandell: Effective ways teachers can incorporate effective use of vocabulary in the classroom.

William, et. al.: Teachers effective ways of incorporating word work in the classroom.

Nugget

Silverman & Crandell: Word study done that has made a positive impact on children's learning and been proven effective in the classroom. Students should have direct contact and exposure to unfamiliar words.

William, et. al.: Children need to learn more than just words. Knowledge and concepts surrounding the related words is very important. Similar knowledge of patterns and sounds specific to words or letters makes it easy to apply later and build off the previous skills.

Exploration

This week for my exploration I was thinking of my field placement and the impact of families on children's development in literacy. As I was reading through these texts I thought of the parents of the students. In the articles, there was some vocabulary that stood out to me that would be a bit hard to comprehend if one was unfamiliar with the terms making this inaccessible to many with lower levels of education. Parents play a large role in the education of a child if topics are not being reaffirmed at home students are less likely to excel in that area. Repetition is an important part of learning and the process of remembering. A major theme that has stuck out to me in my placement is parental denial. By parent denial I mean families often believe their child does not need the extra instructional time. Lastly parental consent. Without consent from parents to pursue these types of reaffirming practices teachers are stuck on how to support students and are often subject to leaving them to fail.

[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.

[cb1617]

Williams et. al. & Silverman + Crandell - Due November 7, 2022. #5

Silverman , R., & Crandell , J. (2011). Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classroom.

Big Takeaway: It is important for teachers to know that there are lots of different strategies to teach vocabulary. There are five strategies to teach vocabulary to students: Speaking the words to children, asking students to pronounce the words, talking about graphophonemic or semantic properties of the words, defining the words, and explaining the words by adding details and children's experiences.

Nuggets: Some research suggests that the effectiveness of vocabulary instruction may depend on children’s initial level of vocabulary knowledge.

______________________________________________________________

Williams, C. et. al. (2009). Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom.

Big Takeaway: Word study is way different than the memorization of words which is much more beneficial to the students because it helps improve their literacy skills.

Nuggets: As a student in elementary school, I only remember being taught vocabulary through memorization. I would write down the vocab, and bring it home and practice until I remembered. I had no idea that there was so many different techniques to teaching vocabulary.

______________________________________________________________

Readerly Exploration: Choose an excerpt from your assigned(s) and share with a family member to get his or input on it.

I chose to share this article with my mother because she was the person who worked on vocabulary with me in elementary school. She had the same reaction as me when she read that there are 5 strategies to teach vocabulary. She says, had she had known she would've had tried to implement those methods more when helping me with the vocabulary. She said the most interesting methods is explaining the words by adding details and children's experiences and discusses that, had she had used that method, she thinks I would have understood the vocabulary faster because of my ability to connect school to my life.

[lainflan]

November 31 - Silverman and Crandell, Williams

Big Take Aways: 

Silverman and Crandell - Intentional work on vocabulary with students will widen their vocabulary. 

Williams- Word work with students allows for a gateway to vocabulary generalizations. 

Nugget: 

Silverman and Crandell- Defining words during word study has been proven to improve the data on interventions. 

Williams- Whole group word study is proven to be less effective than small group. 

Reflection: 

While reading the William’s text, I made a t-chart of the successes and struggles I encountered. I found many benefits of reading this texts especially for specific strategies while teaching word study. Throughout the reading, I found myself overwhelmed with all the strategies listed. I want to incorporate as many research based practices within my instruction, thus each of these are very important. I succeeded in understanding the importance of small group instruction when it comes to word work. Students need explicit instruction when learning to read and work with words. My chart attached shows both the struggles and successes I found while interacting with this texts and its content. 

[hayleemiller]

Readerly Exploration 5

Haylee Miller

Due November 7th, 2022

Silverman and Crandell: Non – read aloud language arts activities have great potential to help and support the development and improvement of children’s vocabulary

Williams, et. al: Word study is an approach to spelling instruction that is teacher directed and student created, and it should be implemented in the classroom because it has been found to support children’s literacy development. 

Nugget for Silverman and Crandell: “To make vocabulary instruction more effective it may be necessary to fine – tune comprehensive approaches to word learning, such as those that have been tested in the past, to include more or less emphasis on certain practices depending on the individual effectiveness of those practices.” 

Nugget for Williams, et. al: “Word study is an approach to spelling instruction that moves away from a focus on memorization.”

Reflection: For the activity this week, I chose to “track” down another resource from the list of resources at the end of one of the assigned readings for the week. Interestingly enough, the article I found is by the same author (Rebecca Silverman) as the assigned reading. The article I chose to read is “A Comparison of Three Methods of Vocabulary Instruction during Read-Alouds in Kindergarten” by Rebecca Silverman. Silverman speaks to three different approaches to teaching vocabulary during storybook reading in kindergarten. The three approaches mentioned are contextual instruction, which has to do with connecting words to their use in books and personal experiences, “analytical instruction which enhances contextual instruction with semantic analysis of words in contexts other than the books and children’s experience and anchored instruction which augments analytical instruction with attention to the spoken and written forms of words” (Silverman 97). I found the approaches that Silverman mentions in her article of teaching vocabulary very interesting, and I enjoyed learning about these approaches that I could implement in my future classroom. The results from the study showed that anchored instruction and analytical instruction were more effective than the first approach which is contextual instruction at improving a kindergartener’s learning of words targeted in instruction. 

Multimedia Documentation: For my multimedia documentation I decided to include a screen shot of a section of the article that I chose to read. 

[morganadams13]

Williams et. al. & Silverman + Crandell - 11/7/22

Silverman , R., & Crandell , J. (2011). Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classroom . Retrieved November 5, 2022, from https://web-p-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.messiah.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=6810adfa-30fa-4819-8607-c84f9a50e626%40redis 

Big Takeaways:

There are lots of different strategies to teach vocabulary such as labeling and verbal communication

5 strategies to teach vocabulary to children; saying the words to children, asking children to pronounce the words, talking about graphophonemic or semantic properties of the words, defining the words, and explaining the words by adding details and children's experiences

Word study activities are becoming more and more relevant in teaching not only phonics instruction but teaching vocabulary as well, according to research

Nuggets:

I was surprised to see how many studies were done and how much really goes into teaching vocabulary behind the scenes

I was also surprised about all of the results the data from the study showed from using a specific instructional strategy or other factors

I was also really interested to read more about the five instructional practices that were certified in the end to be helpful for vocabulary development in young children

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Williams, C. et. al. (2009). Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom. Retrieved November 5, 2022, from https://web-p-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.messiah.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=820f50ab-6de6-4485-9361-84345736f5c3%40redis 

Big Takeaways:

Word study instruction does not focus as much on memorization, and it focuses on hands-on activities

There are lots of tips for implementing word study instruction such as; assess students' word knowledge using multiple assessment tools, use a homogeneous small-group approach to instruction, carve out time to prepare for word study instruction, teach word knowledge and not just words, demonstrate how word study can be used during reading and writing, teach strategies that support students' use of word study instruction, make your word wall work, "word work" should work too, and engage students in extensive "real" reading and writing

Nuggets:

I was used to always learning to memorize my words in elementary school, so reading about this new way of thinking has me reflecting a lot on my past and how I can apply this to my future teaching

I was surprised how many different tips the article offers to teachers on how to implement word study instruction into their routine

The extensive reference list also surprised me because there were so many professional opinions and sources put into this, that it has to be trustworthy and worthwhile to read

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Readerly Exploration: Choose one resource in the citations of the assigned reading, track it down and read it. (Silverman and Crandell)

Here is where I got my article from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232474875_Increasing_Young_Low-Income_Children%27s_Oral_Vocabulary_Repertoires_through_Rich_and_Focused_Instruction\

As I was looking through the very extensive reference list in the Silverman and Crandell article, I came across a lot of books, and book reviews. It was difficult to find one specific article, but I was able to find one by Isabel Beck and Margaret McKeown entitled, "Increasing Young Low-Income Children's Oral Vocabulary Repertoires through Rich and Focused Instruction." In this article, there is a study done with kindergarten and first grade children that come from a low achieving elementary school that provided vocabulary instruction by their general classroom teacher with advanced words. The first study compared the number of advanced words learned between 52 different students who were taught those words directly, and 46 children who did not receive any instruction. In the second study, 76 children were examined to determine their word learning under 2 different amounts of instruction, either 3 days or 6 days. In the beginning of the article, the authors talk a lot about how important vocabulary is to learning so many essential literacy skills, and many life skills in general. They emphasize how much it is needed in everyday life, and how crucial it is for your future. One thing that interested me that they noted was that there is evidence that vocabulary knowledge influences comprehension skills. After the studies were conducted, the results were outstanding. In just the first study alone, the students improved their word knowledge from start to finish by 16 and 20 percent with instruction, compared to 4 and 7 by the students who did not receive any instruction. Simply mind blowing. In the second study, there were two types of instruction assessed; picture and verbal. Here, the group that got more rich instruction (6 days of instruction), improved by 38 and 33 percent for kindergarten and first grade. For the students who only got 3 days of instruction, they improved by 14 percent each. On the other hand, verbal instruction looked pretty similar. The students who received more rich instruction improved by 39 and 33 percent, whereas the students with less rich instruction improved by 11 and 18 percent across kindergarten and first grade. This is absolutely mind blowing that a child could make that much improvement in less than a week on just vocabulary skills. I really enjoyed reading this article because it shined a light on how important vocabulary skills are for children to know across all ages, and a multitude of ways to teach it that are effective. All in all, this was really interesting for me to read, and I am so glad I chose to do this readerly habit as it gave me a whole new perspective on vocabulary instruction and the importance of it.

Evidence:

[current-words-publishing]

WANT SOMETHING TO READ, FREE, RIGHT NOW?

Do you have Kindle Unlimited? If you do, read SOLSTICE: A WINTER ANTHOLOGY free on Kindle Unlimited (KU). If you don’t have KU, it costs a whopping 99 cents to download this amazing book to your phone/tablet/computer right now! Like hardboiled? Get the novel that won the national awards: LET’S SAY JACK KENNEDY KILLED THE GIRL on KU for free! And look at all those 5-star reviews on Amazon!…

[benboykin]

Readerly Exploration Week 11

Readerly Exploration Week 11

November 6th: Silverman and Crandell and Williams

Silverman and Crandle Takeaway: The main takeaway from this article is that there are particular practices that are generally with higher vocabulary performance. 

Williams Takeaway- When integrated with a comprehensive literacy program, word study can help support young children’s literacy development

Silverman and Crandle Nugget: “Some research suggests that the effectiveness of vocabulary instruction may depend on children’s initial level of vocabulary knowledge”

Williams Nugget: 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.

Choose an excerpt from your assigned(s) and share with a family member to get his or

her insight and perspective on it.

Reflection Williams: This article is very interesting because it has a description of word study instruction, a summary of the theoretical framework and a brief description of the research. Then the remainder of the article is different tips for implementing word study in the classroom. I chose to discuss the article with my aunt(family friend technically but is essentially my aunt) who is a kindergarten teacher and discussed the different tips. We picked out three tips that we liked the best and talked about them and those are the three I will talk about in my reflection. My aunt said that Tip 3: Carve out Time to Prepare for Word Study Instruction was a really good tip. She was telling me about how much time you spend every day thinking about the schedule and lesson planning and preparing and then mixed with your personal life it can be really hard to have time to focus on specific activities. Setting aside specific time for an isolated skill, especially word study is a really valuable tip. Another tip I liked was teaching strategies that support students' use of word study instruction because if you implement that in other areas of your teaching that could be really helpful to almost passively teach it. The final tip me and my aunt discussed was Tip 7: Making your word wall work. She liked it because she is really big on her word wall and thinks it's an underrated teaching strategy and has a lot of benefits. Using your word wall more for word study is a really good strategy.

[peakes24]

November 7 – Silverman & Crandell, Vocabulary Practices in Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten Classroom, Williams, Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom

November 7 – Silverman & Crandell, Vocabulary Practices in Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten Classroom, Williams, Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom

Big take away: Word study, an approach to spelling, should be implemented within classrooms so that students are not spelling from memory, but from an understanding of the complex layers of English orthography.

Nuggets:

“In a word study program, however, students learn about words.”

“Reinforcing vocabulary learning through attention to letters and sounds has also been found to be effective in supporting early vocabulary growth.”

Reflection/Readerly Habit:

I found this week’s course readings to be interesting as they discussed different ideas around vocabulary and the instruction in the early education classrooms. However, the thing that I found most interesting was the encouragement to implement word study instruction within classrooms, especially kindergarten to second grade classrooms. From an early age, I struggled to spell and understand vocabulary concepts because of my speech impediment. While my speech impediment was corrected, my abilities to sound words out and advance in my vocabulary were not completely transformed. I still get nervous that I will misuse vocabulary rules or mess up the various letter sounds, so I frequently spell things from memory. I have tried my best to grow in my vocabulary, but I still memorize the way the words are spelled. In my mind, it is just easier that way and it has become habit. However, after conversing with my classmate, Lainey, about this week’s readings, I learned that memorization is not how most students spell, which was further evidenced by the course readings. Lainey sounds out words and breaks them down if she needs to when spelling. She agreed that some words have become memorization, but that it is not a common practice for her. I think this is something that is also evidenced in our teachings. Lainey is very good at expanding vocabulary concepts and breaking things down for her students. However, for me, that brings great anxiety and while I love literacy, teaching math comes much more natural for me. I greatly enjoy discussing different teaching methods for literacy with Lainey as it grows my “teacher toolbox” and helps calm my nerves around teaching literacy.

[jennaryan7312]

Readerly Exploration #5

Due Date: November 7, 2022

The assigned course readings were Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms by Rebecca Silverman and Jennifer DiBara Crandell and Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom by Cheri Williams, et. al.

The main idea of the article by Silverman and Crandell is that early vocabulary predicts children's later literacy achievement.

A nugget from the article by Silverman and Crandell is, "Results suggest that there are particular practices that are generally associated with higher vocabulary performance. In addition, there are some practices that appear associated with greater growth in vocabulary for children with higher initial vocabulary knowledge than for children with lower initial vocabulary knowledge" (p. 318). This is important because many studies were conducted over a multitude of strategies showing the effectiveness of certain strategies in the classroom and why/how teachers should implement them.

The main idea of the article by Williams, et. al. covers the concept of a word study and how it helps to bolster young children's literacy development.

A nugget from the article by Williams, et. al. is, "Word study is an approach to spelling instruction that moves away from a focus on memorization" (p. 570). This is important because word studies frequently involve word work. The purpose of word work is to examine the relationship between letters and sounds.

Based on your successes and struggles reading this text, write down two or three goals for yourself as a reader for your next reading assignment.

[daimonclub]

Yoga teaching

Video yoga teaching with Sjana Elise Earp Yoga teaching, the importance of a good body fitness and a great mental form through great quotes, videos, links and tips about yoga, health, fitness, news and physical exercises. Yoga is not a work-out, it is a work-in. And this is the point of spiritual practice; to make us teachable; to open up our hearts and focus our awareness so that we can know what we already know and be who we already are. Rolf Gates Yoga is not a religion. It is a science, science of well-being, science of youthfulness, science of integrating body, mind and soul. Amit Ray Yoga is a way of life. Yoga is the way we think, move, eat, breathe, speak, act and live. Sjana Elise Earp In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice they are not. Yogi Berra http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgSymYi6p1M Before you've practiced, the theory is useless. After you've practiced, the theory is obvious. David Williams The most important pieces of equipment you need for doing yoga are your body and your mind. Rodney Yee The nature of yoga is to shine the light of awareness into the darkest corners of the body. Jason Crandell Yoga is a mirror to look at ourselves from within. B.K.S. Iyengar REAL Peace is always unshakable... Bliss is unchanged by gain or loss. Yogi Bhajan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP8sfHC5MyE Yoga is a light, which once lit, will never dim. The better your practice, the brighter the flame. B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self. The Bhagavad Gita The yoga mat is a good place to turn when talk therapy and antidepressants aren't enough. Amy Weintraub What we see in the world around us is just a reflection of what is inside of us. Sharon Gannon Anyone who practices can obtain success in yoga but not one who is lazy. Constant practice alone is the secret of success. Svatmarama http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4501xFXn15k Yoga is the practice of quieting the mind. Patanjali Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are. Jason Crandell Yoga exists in the world because everything is linked. Desikashar The rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul create the symphony of life. B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga is the fountain of youth. You’re only as young as your spine is flexible. Bob Harper Meditation is a way for nourishing and blossoming the divinity within you. Amit Ray https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMbol8JYe3M To keep fit and in a good mood you can also visit: The laws of wellness Wellness best quotes Wellness in Italy Cancer World News Hiv world News Health and fitness Yoga teaching Sports News Read the full article

[awinfield1589]

November 13, 2023

November 13, 2023

Vocabulary Practice in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms

Silverman & Crandell (2011)

Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom

Williams et al. (2009)

Silverman & Crandell Big Takeaway: Although there are many practices for teaching vocabulary in kindergarten and prekindergarten classrooms, some strategies are more effective than others depending on students’ initial vocabulary level, when during a literacy block vocabulary instruction is taking place, and how vocabulary is assessed.

Williams et al. Big Takeaway: Word study is an approach to bring students to meaningful understanding of the layers of English orthography through explicit small group instruction with application to extensive authentic reading and writing experiences. 

Silverman & Crandell Nugget: One thing I found particularly interesting in this article is that the most universally recommended strategy for vocabulary instruction is explicit instruction. What was most interesting about the discussion of explicit instruction is that when not used during read alouds, it was most beneficial for students who already had a higher vocabulary knowledge. For students who had lower vocabulary knowledge, they benefited from more scaffolding since they did not have the context of a story to understand the word being taught. 

For my readerly exploration, I chose to make a concept map of my comprehension from when I started reading to when I finished. I made this concept map as I read, and made a culminating map at the end of my reading. Doing this really helped me see the development of my understanding of word studies, going from my basic knowledge at the beginning of the reading to a much more robust understanding by the end. I moved my concept map through the different sections of the article and color coded it to see the breakdown visually, and doing so helps me see the progression of my understanding. As I read, I was better able to make connections to things said earlier in the article, likely because I had taken the time to write it down and think about it before reading further. I think what was most influential to my learning was how I was able to see the progression of my understanding as I made connections between the sections within the article. Sometimes I lack patience when reading scholarly articles, but giving myself the task of making a content map of my understanding helped me to stay focused and ultimately better comprehend the article.

[anna-jowanowitch]

Silverman and Crandell (2011) & Williams, et. al. (2009)

Big Takeaways: In the first reading, Silverman and Crandell (2011), they talk about the benefits or lack of benefits to vocabulary practice during read-aloud time. They say that non-read-aloud activities are very beneficial for vocabulary support and students' growth in vocabulary skills. In the second reading, it gives tips on how to implement a word study program in the classroom that works for all students. They come to the conclusion that implementing these tips will help students with hands-on activities that promote inquiry.

Nuggets: Growing up, I learned best with hands-on or artistic styles of assignments. I did not even know there was a way to incorporate illustration into vocabulary learning. As a kid, I was always told to make flashcards and memorize them. I would have learned more effectively if I had been able to draw and interact with the vocabulary words. For the second reading, I didn't know that there were so many different ways to incorporate word study. It was interesting to see the methods that they presented and think about how I would have responded to them when I was younger.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Reflect on the contributions of reading experiences to reader identity in an effort to better articulate who he or she is as a reader.

Based on your successes and struggles reading this text, write down two or three goals for yourself as a reader for your next reading assignment.

I was successful at comprehending what the readings were about and applying them to myself as a student. I had some difficulty focusing while reading these, especially the one that was 24 pages long. I think I had a lot of trouble because of the length and the amount of data that was throughout the reading that was difficult for me to comprehend.

Here are my goals:

To get less discouraged by large amounts of reading to do.

To stay engaged in the reading even when there are a lot of numbers.

[kb112212]

week 12: Silverman & Crandell and Williams (due Dec 4th)

 Big Takeaway Williams : Word study activities resulted in improved spelling ability by students and revealed limitations to whole-group teaching approaches.

Teaching Literacy in the classroom can be a challenge and sometimes hard to get students to fully learn what they need too, especially with words. This article talks about how using word study improves students ability to learn literacy. With word studies it helps students learn the alphabet, patterns within letters, as well as decoding. Throughout this article it discusses how whole group instruction has limitations because you cannot do as many things with a class whole group as you can small groups, such as ensuring that the students are speaking the right sounds, and pronouncing words correctly. 

Big Takeaway Silverman and Crandell: Results suggest that there are particular practices that are generally associated with higher vocabulary performance.

This article shows that there are practices that help to make vocab performances become higher within the classroom. Increasing the practice of vocabulary and utilizing different practices such as drills can help students to learn quicker. Along with this, it shows how practice is super important in order to help students understand the material especially in literacy. 

 Nugget Silverman and Crandell: Reading to your students is super important because it not only allows them to have a story to listen to but allows them to learn about vocabulary and the use of the vocabulary in sentences, as well as related to pictures 

 Nugget Williams : While working with literacy in the classroom we have to make sure that we are using both whole group and small group instruction to make sure that the students are learning what they need to. Along with this, word studies should be used in the classroom to make sure that the students are learning all that they can. 

Activity: Choose an excerpt from your assigned course reading(s) and reach out to a former teacher to get his or her insight and perspective on it. 

After allowing my past teacher to read this article she was able to give me a couple of tips as well as just agree with things the article said. She said that especially in kindergarten it is important to do auditory drills where students are repeating and hearing what you say so that they are able to understand the correct pronunciation of letters and words. Along with that she said that when reading, being able to pause and talk about the words that the book is saying with the students is also important. 

[mu1167]

November 13

Title: 

Silverman & Crandell (2011),

“Vocabulary Practices in

Prekindergarten and

Kindergarten Classrooms”

Williams, et. al. (2009),

“Word Study Instruction in

the K-2 Classroom”

(Used reading rockets version because it wouldn’t open for me for some reason)

Takeaway of Author: 

Silverman & Crandell: The key takeaway of the authors is that there is a lot of research being done  on pre-kindergarten and kindergarten age vocabulary. But even though there is a lot of research and a lot of good effective strategies and teaching curricula, that there still needs to be more research done. The authors say that it is on the teachers to decide what is best for their students. 

Williams: The key takeaway of the author is that based on the research, educators need to focus on the 9 tips when utilizing word study in their classrooms. This author also believes that educators should use word study other than traditional teaching of spelling  and sight words, instead we should teach the rules for transfer.

Nugget: 

Research on vocabulary has shown that young children learn words from interactions with adults, just talking to them, hearing them talk and explain what words mean, and through being read to. Children also learn words through direct instruction, meaning as a teacher you’re explicitly explaining what words mean and how we use them. They also learn through combining vocab instruction practices, not one size fits all but having multiple opportunities. 

The 9 tips that came out of the study are, assessing students word knowledge using multiple assessments, using homogenous small group instruction and differentiated these, making sure to make time to prepare these lessons especially when differentiating them for different levels of students, teaching word knowledge not just words so that they can transfer, demonstrate how word study can be used in reading and writing, teach strategies that are helpful, make word wall work and accessible, and word work should work and be Hands-on. 

Activity:  The activity I decided to do for this assignment was to take a field trip off campus, specifically to my field placement. Here I utilized one of the strategies mentioned in the Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom. I decided to do this because after reading this I wanted to get more hands on experience and try out  the strategies. One of the tips listed was to demonstrate how word study can be used in reading and writing. In their ELA time, science is sometimes combined in our kindergarten class. I read aloud a non-fiction book about isopods because we had isopods in our classroom for our science unit. After the book, which talked about the isopods body parts, I made a giant sticky of the different parts. To make it more interactive and fun for the students instead of them telling me the part and me writing the words, I allowed them to do it. We spelled it out and each student got to come up and write what sounds they heard and have been working on. This shows that the students were engaging in learning how word study can be used in reading and writing. I said the word, we read the word and then they wrote it out. This was 2  months into kindergarten, when most came in without knowing their letters or sounds. After reading this article I wanted to utilize the strategies, we have a word study walls called trick words that have king of -ing, are, and, I, and is. My mentor teacher teaches these new words during center time in small groups and then as a whole group we learn more about the word and utilize it in kid-writing. I wanted to try out this strategy in my lesson. I haven’t seen my teacher do this strategy of interactive writing, so I wanted to see how it went. I didn’t tell them how to spell anything or  give them any hints other than tapping it out with them. This was their spelling, most of them weren’t far off! 

Reflection: When I was creating my lesson plan at the same time as reading this article, I asked myself ,“How could I utilize one of these strategies in my read-aloud?” I knew we were going to identify the parts together and then it hit me to allow them to sound it out and write it themselves. This helped me to explore the world through reading of the text and helped me generate new questions about this topic. Doing this helped me understand more about the author and more about the topic of word study in the early years. This allowed me to get hands-on experience trying to do the tips that came out from all of the studies. I got to see how studying the alphabetic layer that students then examine the relationship between letters and their sounds; phonemes to graphemes.