Blog 5 - Module 6

Miriam Lescaille

LTD-606

Dr. Michelle Rosen

Module : 6

Due: 4-17-16

Articles: 

“Using literacy assessment results to improve teaching for English-language learners”

By: Lori A. Helman

“Assessing preschoolers’ emergent literacy skills in English and Spanish with the Get Ready to Read! Screening tool”

By: JoAnn M. Farver; Jonathan Nakamoto; Christopher J. Lonigan

Theme 1: Data from Early Literacy Assessments Can Guide Teacher Instruction:

•       On going assessment of early literacy progress is essential for giving teachers the information they need to measure students progress, identify students who may require additional or individualized assistance, and guide instructional practice (Helman, 2005).
•         Results from early literacy assessments can help in four areas: Teachers and school personnel can pinpoint groups of students in need of additional support; They can provide instruction at students’ developmental levels; Educators can determine which literacy activities are difficult for individuals and groups of students; Finally, educators can identify students early and provide enriched learning opportunities that build on their background understandings (Helman, 2005).
•         Screeners administered by teachers at the beginning of the preschool year to predict the oral language and phonological and print processing skills and their findings suggest that they can effectively be used to assess preschool children’s emergent literacy skills (Farver; Nakamoto; Lonigan, 2007).
•          The results support the early use of screening measures to identify the children most at risk of later reading difficulties regardless of whether children are ELL or EO; Such screening may be used to guide additional in depth assessment to specify more clearly children’s areas of strengths and weakness in key domains, to guide selection of appropriate effective early intervention, or both (Farver et al., 2007).
•             The assessment provides teachers with information about the educational progress of individual students, and points to possible areas of difficulty that might impede a student’s learning (Helman, 2005).  

Theme 2: Phonological Awareness and Literacy with ELLs and Non ELLs:

•         Some, studies have shown that phonological awareness and reading skills are correlated in Spanish, and there seems to be a typical developmental sequence in phonological awareness across alphabetic languages such as Spanish (Farver et al., 2007).
•          In a recent review of several predictive studies with ELL children, Klingner et al. (2006) concluded that factors were associated with later reading ability in English or a second language generally included phonological awareness and print/letter knowledge (Farver et al., 2007).
•         Finally, interventions for first-and-second grade ELL children that included some form of phonological instruction, children made significant progress in later reading (Farver et al., 2007).
•         Beginning readers whether Ells like Carlos and Rosita or Non Ells will profit from reading and rereading memorized text, print that contains known sight words, and text that features words with simple letter-sound correspondences (Helman, 2005).
•         Beginning readers increase their phonics and phonemic awareness skills when given the opportunity to use developmental writing (Helman 2005).

        Theme 3. Standardized Assessment/Screening Tools for Literacy:

•           PALS 1-3 (Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening 1-3) is a multilayered assessment that extends as needed to document the beginning literacy strengths of students first through-third-grade students: word recognition in isolation, developmental spelling, and oral reading in context (Helman, 2005).

TEACHER TUBE VIDEO - ON PALS:

http://www.teachertube.com/video/k-pals-214871 

•          The PALS assessment has been used in K-3 classrooms across the country to measure reading progress and identify students in need of extra support (Helman, 2005).
•           GRTR/ E-GRTR and S-GRTR  (Get Ready to Read English and Spanish Versions) is administered at the beginning of the preschool year to predict the oral language and phonological and print processing skills of Spanish-speaking English-language learners (ELLs) and English-only speaking children (EO) at the end of the year and the findings suggest that both screeners can be used effectively to assess preschool children’s emergent literacy skills (Farver et al., 2007).
•           The primary goal in developing the GRTR screener was to develop an instrument that could provide a brief and reliable assessment of preschoolers’ status in acquiring fundamental emergent literacy skills and which also had strong concurrent relations to lengthier measures with established validity in predicting reading skills (Farver et al., 2007).
•        PALS 1-3 Assessment Literacy Screening and GRTR Screener for ELLs or EO preschool children are very effective to assess children’s emergent literacy skills (Helman, 2005 and Farver et al., 2007).

References

Farver, J. M., Nakamoto, J., & Lonigan, C. J. (2007). Assessing preschoolers’ emergent literacy skills in English and Spanish with the Get Ready to Read! screening tool. Annals of Dyslexia Ann. of Dyslexia, 57(2), 161-178. doi:10.1007/s11881-007-0007-9

Helman, L. A. (2005). Using Literacy Assessment Results to Improve Teaching for English-Language Learners. The Reading Teacher, 58(7), 668-677. doi:10.1598/rt.58.7.7

Research Project Poster Presentation - Nursery Rhymes & Literacy

Blog 4:
Research Project Poster Presentation 

Nursery Rhymes & Literacy 

By: Miriam Lescaille 

My Poster Presentation

References

Dunst, C. J., Meter, D., & Hamby, D. W. (2011). Relationship Between Young Children’s Nursery Rhyme Experiences and Knowledge and Phonological and Print-Related Abilities. Cell Review, 4.

Harper, L. J. (2011). Nursery rhyme knowledge and phonological awareness in preschool children. The Journal of Language and Literacy Education [Online], 7(1), 65-78.

Lombardo, M. A. (january 2005). Rhythmic Reading and Role Playing. Library

Media Connection, 23(4), 38-39. Retrieved February 24, 2016, from http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/16537464/rhythmic-reading-role-playing.

Research and Development Staff. (2014). Nursery Rhymes and Phonemic Awareness. Sadlier-Oxford, 3. Retrieved February 28, 2016, from http://curriculuminstruction.parkridge.k12.nj.us/modules/groups/homepagefiles/gwp/2112102/2151697/File/Interesting Places Docs/Nursery Rhymes and Phonemic Awareness.pdf.

Miriam Lescaille

Module 3- Supporting Emergent Readers

Blog 3

Case Study: Orlando’s Case Study

Student: Orlando

Age: 7yrs.

Grade: 1^st

Focus: Comprehension

Possible Strategies: Graphic Organizers; Repeated Reading; Comprehension Strategies

            Orlando is a 7 years old boy in 1^st grade.  Orlando is having difficulty recalling and remembering simple facts from stories as well as answering questions pertaining to the characters, setting, main idea, sequencing, and predicting, etc. Despite his over all eagerness and happy disposition he is struggling when it comes to comprehension especially when he reads independently.

           

The Following 3 Strategies Should Aid Orlando and Help Him Achieve Better Comprehension:

1. Comprehension Strategies:

Comprehension is the understanding of what has been read.  Comprehension strategies are the techniques a proficient reader uses to gain meaning from a text (The IRIS Center- Orlando Case Study). Some of the best Comprehension Strategies include: Predicting, Summarizing, Retelling, Rereading, and Questioning.

• Predicting: refers to guesses a student makes even before they start to read the story such as looking at the pictures on the cover, title, or just an educated guess.  This strategy will support Orlando by allowing him to get an idea of what the story is about by just looking at the pictures on the cover or making a guess about what he thinks the story is about and then see if his guess or predictions were correct.  We search for and use the visual information that represents the language of the text, for children that means following and understanding the story and also getting information from pictures (Pinnell & Fountas).
  
•       Summarizing: helps the student identify the main idea of a story. This strategy will support Orlando by helping him to read small sections at a time from the story or one paragraph at a time and come up with the main idea of what he has just read in one sentence.  Students are asked to name the “who” or “what” of the story, decide what the most important thing is about the “who” or the “what,” and finally, say it in one sentence (The IRIS Center- Orlando Case Study).
  
•       Retelling: allows the student to retell the story right after he has heard it or read it. This strategy of “Retelling” will support Orlando by helping him for example with the main idea, characters, main events, and setting which are some of the skills that he is struggling with according to his teacher.
  
•       Rereading: this helps the student to go back and reread a part of the story in order to look for the answer or clarify something they are not sure of.  This strategy will support Orlando because he would be able to go back into the story what is called a “look back” to allow him to get more clarity or find the answer.  Rereading and revisiting texts is very beneficial it expands vocabulary, helps them understand sentence structure, and it increases their background knowledge (Pinnell & Fountas). 
  
•       Questioning: This strategy allows the student to answer the following questions from the reading: who, what, when, when, where, and how.  This strategy will benefit Orlando because by him being able to answer the questions of who, what when, where, and how from the story he will acquire more understanding and comprehension of the text he has just read and be able to answer simple comprehension questions.
  

            The above Comprehension Strategies and their components take time for the students to begin to use on their own or with the help of the teacher, however over a period of time they will benefit the student with the over all comprehension.

2.  Graphic Organizers:

Graphic Organizers are simple diagrams used to assist students at any grade level in organizing and recalling elements from stories they have listened to or read (The IRIS Center- Orlando Case Study).

Some examples of Graphic Organizers are: Story Mapping, Literary Webs, and Venn Diagrams.  Using the strategy of Graphic Organizers can help Orlando with his comprehension skills.  The purpose of teaching students to use graphic organizers is to provide students with metacognitive tools that they can (eventually) use on their own (Swanson & De La Paz, 1998).

·      Story Mapping: This Graphic Organizing skill can be used for example, to help Orlando remember parts of the story like “who, what and where” as well as having a visual representation.

·      Venn Diagram: This Graphic Organizing skill helps students see what stories have in common, how they are alike and what they share, as well as what they are different in.  This type of Graphic Organizer skill would help Orlando by helping him compare and contrast some of the things the stories read have in common as well as what they differ in and this will help him in his comprehension and comparison between stories.

·      Story Mapping: Sequencing: This Graphic Organizing skill helps students to organize a story in order of events.  They can draw pictures to represent the order things happened in the story.  This type of Graphic Organizer skill would help Orlando by having either a visual representation or writing words to help him with his comprehension and recall of the story and the order/sequencing in which the events of the story took place.

·      Literary Webs:  This Graphic Organizing skill helps students to dissect the story and take it apart and go from the whole to smaller parts in order to get a better understanding of the story.  Literary webs help students understand a story in terms of both the whole and its parts (The IRIS Center- Orlando Case Study). This type of Graphic Organizing skill would help Orlando by being able to start with the entire story and then braking it up into smaller parts to improve his comprehension and understanding of all the components of the story.

Orlando would benefit from all the different types of Graphic Organizers because they will help him enhance his comprehension and retelling and recalling of the stories read independently or as a group for him to be able to remember the characters, setting, sequencing, common threads within stories, as well as remembering details and creating a visual and mental representation.  Orlando would also benefit from the teacher modeling how to complete each Graphic Organizer or Story Map over a period of time and then eventually having him work on it independently or in small groups.  In conclusion, overall research and the readings I have done demonstrate that Graphic Organizers help and improve students’ reading comprehension.

3.  Repeated Reading:

Repeated Reading refers to reading a familiar book or story over several times.  Repeated reading has been shown to assist students reading below grade level to make gains in fluency and reading comprehension skills (Bos & Vaughn, 1998).  This strategy will help Orlando by giving him more of an opportunity to understand and recall more of the details and have better reading comprehension.  Moreover, children who had repeated exposure to a story elaborated on and engaged in more interpretations of text than children who did not (Doyle & Bramwell p.555). Repeated Reading can be used with “Partner Reading” or in a “Group Repeated Reading set up.

• Partner Reading: refers to when you pair two students and the student that is the more skilled reader reads first to the student that has less reading skills to help model for the student that needs the extra help.  Morrow and Smith (1990) found that children read to in small groups demonstrated better story comprehension than children read to in whole-class settings.  Orlando would benefit from partner reading because he would have more of an opportunity to ask questions for better comprehension, and feel more comfortable, and achieve better understanding and comprehension of what is being heard.
• 
  
  
  
  
•        Group Repeated Reading:  refers to when the teacher first reads a line from a book first to show her students and then her students follow along in their book, then the students repeat what the teacher has read, and finally the students and the teacher repeat the line from the book together. Orlando would benefit from repeated reading because he would become more comfortable with the material, gain more comprehension, and build vocabulary. 
  

With the above Repeated Reading Strategies one can also use “word walls, flashcards, and Reader’s Theater”.  I feel that Orlando would benefit the most from Reader’s Theater that consists of acting out the story, sequencing the story and remembering the important characters.  This would enable Orlando to have a better understanding and internalize what he has read and in turn have better comprehension of the characters, main idea, setting, and order of how things happened in the story visually and mentally. Children will be eager to look at and perhaps retell or “reenact” books that you have read or reread to them.  This highly beneficial activity helps them internalize the structure of stories, notice features of informational books, and practice the language of books (Pinnell & Fountas).

“Literacy ought to be one of the most joyful undertakings ever in a young child’s life.”

By Don Holdaway

Work Cited

References

Doyle, B. G., & Bramwell, W. (2006). Promoting Emergent Literacy and Social-Emotional Learning Through Dialogic Reading. The Reading Teacher, 59(6), 554-564.

Pinnell, G. S., & Fountas, I. C. (2011). Literacy beginnings: A prekindergarten handbook. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Welcome to the IRIS Center. (n.d.). Retrieved February 22, 2016, from http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/

     

Children’s Story- “The Little Red Hen”

            The children’s story that I selected to develop a Graphic Organizer to be used with the story to help Orlando identify the story’s main components is the story “The Little Red Hen.”

              The Graphic Organizer that I want to create for Orlando for the story “The Little Red Hen” will help Orlando answer the questions about setting (where), characters (who), events (beginning, middle, end)/sequence of events (first, next, last) and lesson learned. As well as use pictures/images/catchy phrases that relate to the story, “The Little Red Hen” as part of my Graphic Organizer.

   

          

The Components of Balanced Literacy - Blog #2

Miriam Lescaille

Second Blog Post-Article

The Components of Balanced Literacy

Blog #2

My article titled 

“The Components Of Balanced Literacy”

from Mermelstein, L. (2006) Reading/Writing Connections in the K-2 Classroom focuses on the components of a balanced literacy.

According to Mermelstein, L. (2006) 

the components of a well balanced literacy program are:

• ·      Shared Writing
• ·      Read-Aloud
• ·      Interactive Writing
• ·      Shared Reading
• ·      Writing Workshop (partnership and small group work)
• ·      Reading Workshop (partnership and small group work)
• ·      Word Study (which could include spelling, phonics, phonemic awareness)

All the above components should be linked across the reading and writing curriculum.

This article gives a couple of different definitions for what “balanced literacy actually means.  However, the one that the author of this article found to be the most accurate was by Spiegel.  Most recently, Spiegel has defined balance as a “decision making approach through which the teacher makes thoughtful choices each day about the best way to help each child become a better reader and writer.” (Spiegel, 1998).

Balanced Literacy.mov

As early literacy educators we need to assess our students by observing them during reading and writing and look for their strengths and weaknesses.  Then we need to make notes, collect work samples, and keep records in order for us to plan the best way to teach our students.  Separate each component and find its clarity, then, blur the lines and bring the components together so that you can make thoughtful decisions about what to teach in each component and, most important, how to connect them across reading and writing (Mermelstein, 2006).

Here is a brief description of each of the components of balanced literacy as per my understanding after reading this article:

• ·      Shared Writing: is when the teacher models writing as she is thinking, and the students are listening and watching her write.
• ·      Read-Aloud: is when the teacher reads to her students different types of books aloud.
• ·      Interactive Writing: is when the teacher creates a writing text with the help and cooperation of her students.
• ·      Shared Reading: is when the teacher reads aloud to her students and the students take part and participate in the reading as well.
• ·      Writing Workshops: is when the students work in small groups or independently and the teacher works with the students in their small groups or individually to improve their writing skills.
• ·      Reading Workshop: is when the students work in small groups or independently and the teacher works with the students in their small groups or individually to improve their reading skills.
• ·      Word Study: is when the teacher works with her students either in small groups/independently/or as a class on their spelling, phonics, etc.   

After reading this article, I have learned how important it is to incorporate the “components of balanced literacy” (Shared Writing, Read-A-loud, Interactive Writing, Shared Reading, Writing Workshop, Reading Workshop, Word Study) into my curriculum and how by doing this I will plan better lessons, be a better teacher, and help my students learn to become better and more skillful readers and writers.     

Balanced Literacy Audio Video.wmv

References

 Excerpt from Reading/Writing Connections in the K-2 Classroom: Find the Clarity and Then    Blur the Lines, by L. Mermelstein, 2006 edition, p. 56-68.

 Mermelstein, L. (2006). The Components of Balanced Literacy. 

Week 1 Introduction/Assignment

Week 1 Introduction/Assignment

Blog #1

Literacy Autobiography

            Ever since I can remember I have loved to read.  I grew up seeing my father and my mother always with a book, magazine or newspaper in their hands.  Especially my father, whether he was going to the doctor sitting in the waiting room, waiting for my mother at the mall or just relaxing around the house, he always had something to read.  He would get so involved in his reading especially history books which are his favorite that at times he didn’t even hear me when I was speaking to him. My mother would always say, “you know your dad, he’s reading, and when he’s reading he’s in another world and does not hear.”

            Reading always came easy to me, and it is part of my life. I feel that I have my parents to thank for this because reading was such an important part of their life that they made sure that they instilled that love for reading in me as well.  My mother read to me every day and every night before I went to sleep when I was a little girl.  She was the person that taught me to read, and opened my mind to the fun, world of reading and imagination.  I remember how excited my mom would get every night when I would pick a book for her to read, and she would climb into bed with me to read me the bedtime story of my choice.  I remember what a great reader she was and still is and how her voice, body language, and expressions would change as she read the books to me and made each character come to life.

             By the time I was three years old, I was reading by myself.  My mother and father were thrilled.  When my mother realized that I could read she was so excited she kept telling my father, “see, see, I taught her to read, and she learned because I read to her everyday.”  She was overjoyed, the first night after we realized I could read and she came to read me my bedtime story and, I read to her the story instead.  She had tears in her eyes, and that night she asked me to read the story to her over and over at least three times.  I will never forget that night nor the story, “The Ugly Duckling,” or “El Patito Feo” which is the name of the story in Spanish my first language and the language I first learned to read in.  After, I learned to read that story there was no stopping me, and my mother and I would take turns reading to each other at night before bed many times with my father also proudly listening.  Almost every weekend my father would buy me a book or two and my mother or father would first read it to me and then shortly after I would read it to them.

            When I was 9 years old, I came to the United States and I began to learn to read in English.  It was an adjustment, but at the same time it was not too difficult for me.  I had some issues with the pronunciation of some words but I learned to read quickly thanks to the effort of my teacher, Mrs. Higgins who saw that I had potential and worked very hard with me each day after school to teach me to read in English.  My parents were so overwhelmed with pride when they would here me read in English.  They would love to sit on the couch and ask me to read to them from my reading book, history book or library book.  Now the tables had turned instead of them reading to me I was reading to them in English and they loved it!  I think the fact that I was a good reader in Spanish and that I enjoyed reading made the learning to read in English a little easier, and more enjoyable for me.

            Now, I am 51 years old and I still love to read.  I’m a teacher to my Prek-4 class and I read to them everyday.  I do my best to engage my students in literacy and instill in them the same joy and enthusiasm my parents instilled in me.  I introduce my students to all types of books, vocabulary, and different reading materials. When I read to my students, I try my best to bring the books and stories to life and use all the tools I can to draw and engage my students.  I also encourage my student’s parents to read to their child or children everyday, and explain to them how important literacy is to their child’s school success. 

              On a personal level, I still like to read every night before I go to bed and I still remember vividly and fondly my mother reading to me my favorite bed time story as a little girl, “El Patito Feo,” and I am blessed to have my parents with me and till this day be able to walk into my father’s office and still see him with a book in his hand engulfed in his reading, and my mother saying to me, “ he doesn’t hear you, he’s reading” which brings a smile to my face and warms my heart. 

El Patito Feo Story Book/The Ugly Ducking Story Book  -  (Virtual Video Book)