The video of Wellwood Elementary School was very encouraging to watch. As I have stated in my introduction to this course, I have only been exposed to teaching 7-12 Mathematics and have viewed very little instruction in an elementary school setting. There were many effective strategies that the teacher in this video used. I really appreciated the word wall in which students were encouraged to make their own sentences. I also really enjoyed watching the teacher have a group learning experience with the English Language Learners. As a future teacher, I believe I will have an decent amount of English Language Learners and will have to find a way to instruct these English Language Learners while still being able to teach the predominately English-Speaking children. This type of situation is where differentiated instruction plays a crucial role in the classroom.
It was extremely helpful to see how the classroom was set up in order to help the needs of all the students. While it was independent reading time, children were allowed to choose a "station" of which they would try reading on their own. This teacher also brought the stories she read to real life. By asking the children questions while reading a story it helps the students connect to what it is they are reading or what is being read to them. This is a great method because it allowed the students to participate in the reading instead of just watching from the sidelines and not truly comprehending what is being read. I really enjoyed when the teacher said, "If I was just reading I would be doing my part but there is no confirmation that the students are understanding the story."
After viewing the video, I now have a better idea and a new approach to reading comprehension and literacy for young learners. It definitely broke down the idea of literacy so that it is now a smaller part of a bigger picture. I can now see how young children would need aid and assistance while learning how to read and how to form sentences. Literacy is the simple process of breaking the language down so that children are able to see how it is formed, what it represents and the meaning of communication. With the comprehension of literacy, children will be able to communicate effectively and excel in the classroom and in the world.
I agree elementary instruction does look different from secondary. I am always amazed on the preparation for the daily stations in the classroom. These stations and in Texas we have the ELPS (English Language Proficiency Standards) help native English speaking students as well as ESL students. I use these strageties in my 6th grade math class to improve reading comprehension. I have the students use the same reading strategies the use in reading class to solve problems in math.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you have a better idea now of reading comprehension and literacy for young learners. The broke down components to the big picture of literacy is what we are going to be learning this semester.
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