Week 5

 In response to Inquiry 2 Part A for Stephanie:

Guided reading groups like you have mentioned are a great time to teach students specific literacy skills. There are many different ways you can do this. Through explicit instruction, we are able to model our thinking to students. Other strategies aside from think-alouds that can be explicitly taught during these small-group sessions include: read-alouds, interactive read-alouds, lifting text, guided discussion and rereading for deeper meaning (Harvey & Goudvis, p.46) . Specific skills related to comprehension or decoding can also be a focus of these types of guided reading groups. Since you are focusing on foundational skills, you will have to choose which ones you are going to focus on as the highlight of certain lessons you do.

When you go to plan for your guided reading groups, it will be important to figure out how you are going to group students for instruction. According to Harvey & Goudvis, “responsive teaching is intentional, flexible, and adaptive”. Small group instruction is one way to differentiate instruction because you can “plan instruction to support students with varying reading proficiencies, learning styles, and language backgrounds (p.36). Guided reading groups are one way you can support this. According to Parsons (2008), “when teachers implement differentiated and explicit instruction, they are able to help each student develop the skills and strategies to improve his or her reading proficiency, thereby helping students perform well on high-stakes assessments”  (p.631).

To teach foundational skills you may also want to balance your small group instruction with whole group and individual instruction. When coming up with tasks for students, in order for them to be intrinsically motivated these tasks should include the following characteristics: authenticity, collaboration, challenge, an end product, self-direct, and sustained learning (Parsons, p.629). Keeping these characteristics in mind when planning will help to implement high quality literacy instruction. 

Inquiry 2 Part A - Matina

1.       Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

      The target area I will be focusing on for guided lead teaching is acquisition, use, and assessment of foundational skills. My unit will focus mainly on rhyming.

2.       Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

      About one hour and twenty minutes is spent on literacy instruction in our classroom. This includes writing and reading lessons.

3.       Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2 Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2a Recognize and produce rhyming words.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2b Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2c Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2d Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words.¹ (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.)
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2e Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.

4.     How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

      Teaching this rhyming unit is important for developing these students’ decoding skills. Detecting and producing sounds are skills which are important for developing their reading and writing abilities as they advance through school.

5.    What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk such as Almasi, 2006)?

      The foundational skills that have been taught so far this year are oral language skills and inferring. Students are given a specific prompt or question to talk about and then turn to a neighbor and share about their ideas. We review an anchor chart that lists what “Good Listeners” and “Good Speakers” do. After a few minutes of talking, the class then comes back as a whole group and shares what they talked about with their partners had told them.

      Norms I would like to build inside my classroom include staying on task, actively listening to their partners, and respecting others’ opinions. One way I could try to help my students focus on the task is to give students a structured response sentence (Berne & Clark, 2008). If a student wants to share an idea their partner discussed they might have to start the retelling by saying, “My partner said… I thought that was cool/interesting because….” Implementing this formula will hold students accountable when listening to their partners.

6.   Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

      A core practice I want to focus on during this unit is thinking aloud. This is important to remember to do often while teaching new skills so it will eventually become second nature for students. I feel like I often forget to stop and show students how they should be thinking while they read or learn a new skill. As a teacher, I need to focus on improving this practice because students need this modeling in order to successfully use the skills and strategies taught.

7.   What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

      I have many resources to work with as I plan and teach my unit. There are lessons include in my district’s MAISA writing curriculum and Houghton-Mifflin reading curriculum. Our school also uses a comprehension-based program called “Making Meaning” which I could pull ideas about thinking aloud from. My colleagues in the building are also great resources; luckily I have my mentor teacher, fellow kindergarten teachers and their interns. There are also many books to pull from within our kindergarten “pod” that can be helpful in supplementing the curriculum.

            8.  What additional resources do you need to obtain?

      I plan on using my TE textbooks from this class as well as classes past. The Common Core is another important resource to obtain because it will guide my planning throughout the unit.

9.       How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

      I will pre-assess my students using a program called “Reading Racers.” The program assesses the students’ letter recognition and sound knowledge. Knowing this information will be helpful in planning because I will need to know how much time to spend on each letter’s individual sounds and when I can start blending and stretching sounds with the students. I also will be asking the students questions that get to their prior knowledge about rhyming and other foundational skills.

10.   What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

      I will need to get to know the individual academic needs of my students as I start to plan my lessons. For example, what kinds of adaptations may be needed for both high-achieving and lower-achieving students so that each student is progressing.  Additionally, I’ll want to pay close attention to which activities students seem to be most engaged in so that they remain interested in learning the new skills and ideas I introduce.

11.  What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

      I need to know when the best time to stop and model my thinking so that it is beneficial for the students. I know “too much” modeling will take away from the idea as a whole but I want to be sure to model enough that the students will be able to note what they need to do.

12.   What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

      I am concerned about how to follow the school’s curriculum with my own ideas and lessons.  I want to make sure my “home-made” lessons correspond well with the curriculum so that the unit runs smoothly for the students. Another concern I have is making sure my tasks are high-level without being too difficult. Lastly, I want to be sure I plan lessons that will fill the hour and twenty minute time slot for literacy.

Terranova-Inquiry 2 Part A

1.     Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

My target area for my guided lead teaching will be: acquisition, use and assessment of foundational skills. This includes print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition (rhyming) and fluency. I will be focusing mainly on phonological awareness.

2.     Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

Literacy receives at least one hour and 20 minutes per day currently in our classroom. This includes writing, reading, poetry and word work. Literacy concepts are also integrated into our science and social studies lessons (approximately 20 minutes).

3.     Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

I will work toward the following CCSS standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2 Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2a Recognize and produce rhyming words.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2b Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2c Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2d Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words.1 (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.)

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2e Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.

4.     How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

Teaching in this target area will provide opportunities for students to learn about important content/skills that relate to their lives by introducing strategies for decoding words. This will help students to learn about literacy and ways to become a better reader and writer. When students are able to successfully blend, segment, substitute and rhyme, they have a skill set that will provide them with multiple ways to figure out unknown words they are writing or reading. Understanding and using these foundational skills is very important as it serves as a base in which to be built off of in the later grades. Knowledge of these concepts affects future literacy learning and experiences.

5.     What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

We have not done much with the foundational skills just yet. We are mainly focused on learning letters/letter sounds. We are also learning new vocabulary and working on comprehension.

The talk that we have done so far has been in the form of “think-pair-share”, where the teacher initiates by posing a question, the students think for a minute, turn and share their thoughts with a partner, then share with the whole class what their partner has said. We have done this during “Making Meaning” lessons (which are comprehension-based) in regards to a read aloud and also during writing instruction. Some norms for interaction I would like to build within my classroom include the role of the participant in a discussion as both a listener and a speaker. I would also need to model/explain how discussions work. One way I could do this is by using an anchor chart students can refer back to, such as the “desirable and undesirable behaviors in discussion” one that is mentioned in Berne & Clark (2008, p.76).

6.     Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

For my core practice I would like to focus on developing/improving thinking aloud, specifically making mistakes known and asking questions so that I am modeling how good readers think about a text. This will contribute to my professional learning because it will gradually become more automatic for me to think aloud as teacher of young children. Right now, I am focusing a lot on what my lesson objectives are and hope that I can eventually do more thinking aloud while reading aloud to model these important processes for my students.

7.     What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

As resources I have my mentor teacher, collaborating kindergarten teacher and her intern, the public library, our current kindergarten curriculum (Houghton-Mifflin), “Making Meaning” comprehension program and MAISA writing units.

8.     What additional resources do you need to obtain?

I will need to obtain resources from the Common Core State Standards, TE 802 course texts and possibly lesson ideas from TE 401 texts and books/websites on teaching phonological awareness.

9.     How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

I will pre-assess students by documenting my observations during the time when my target area is being taught. I will record these observations in the form of anecdotal records. I will also collect writing samples as well. I may also pose related questions to students and record their responses in order to see what kind of prior knowledge they hold on these topics. I am also already pre-assessing letter recognition and letter-sound knowledge through a program called “Reading Racers”. However, most students are only at the letter recognition stage.

10.   What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

I also need to know how my students view themselves as readers and how they perceive literacy learning in general. I want to pay extra close attention to what types of literacy lessons and activities seem to engage my students the most, and what (if any) adaptations I need to make during my planning in order to support all students in my classroom.

11.   What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

I would like to learn if there is such thing as “too much” or “too little” of incorporating this practice and when the right time is to incorporate it. I would also like to learn if certain genres or types of texts better lend themselves to the implementation of this core practice.

12.   What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

My biggest concern is still balancing between my own ideas for teaching and the school’s set curriculum. I am also worried that my students may find it difficult to transition to a new teaching style/method than that of my MT’s, which has so far become the routine in our classroom.

Inquiry 2, Part A

1.       Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

Our class follows the written curriculum of The Waterford School District for ELA. Guided lead teaching is expected to fall during the unit of “reading emergent storybooks”. The target area that applies would be, “Acquisition, Use and Assessment of Foundational Skills” because students will be developing introductory concepts and skills of reading.

2.       Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

We have allotted 35 minutes per day for readers workshop.

3.       Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

Key Ideas and Details (RL.K.2,RL.K.3)

o  With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.

o  With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

                        Integration of Knowledge and Ideas (RL.K.9)

o  With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories. 

Reading Foundation (RF.K.4)

o  Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.

Speaking and Listening

Comprehension and Collaboration (SL.K.1,SL.K.2,SL.K.6)

o  Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

a.  Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others and taking turns speaking about the topics and texts under discussion).

b.                        Continue a conversation through multiple exchanges.

o  Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media by asking and answering questions about key details and requesting clarification if something is not understood.

o  Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly

     (Waterford School District)

4.       How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

Teaching this area will provide students the opportunities and support in reading emergent books as they are expected to by the Common Core Standards by the end of Kindergarten. As students continue exploring and reading books, they are building on their concepts of print, developing storybook knowledge, meaning and vocabulary.

5.       What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

Within this target area, we will engage in teacher-led and partner-led discussions. Students will have the chance to “read privately” for a minimum of five minutes before reading with a partner for  a minimum of 10 minutes. Before each reading session, the teacher will go over what quiet and partner reading “looks like and sounds like”. Students are encouraged to share their ideas about the readings with their partners.

6.       Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

I would like to work on “assessing foundational skills to inform instruction”. I think it is important to recognize that all my students are at different abilities and that I need to assess what they know and where they are so that I can provide effective instruction to my students. “Explicit teaching and authentic application activities” is something we have been implementing in our daily activities, anyway, through our Word Study activities (nursery rhymes, sound cards etc).

7.       What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

In this target area, we will be working with our Emergent Story books—mainly our Sulzby Star Books (Are You My Mother?, The Best Nest, Mean Soup, Stellaluna, Make Way for Ducklings, The Carrot Seed, Caps for Sale, The Snowy Day, Whistle for Willie, Tacky the Penguin).

8.       What additional resources do you need to obtain?

There are no additional resources needed as of now.

9.       How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

We have completed the process of pre-accessing our students upper and lower case letter recognition and sounds. We will continue to informally assess students during their private and partner reading through discussion.

10.    What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

We have several students that may be ELL. I would like to know how much support they need and what kind of accommodations would best facilitate their learning.

11.    What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

“Assessing Foundational Skills to Inform Instruction” seems like such a broad practice. I would like to know, specifically, what I should be looking for and the types of instructional practices that could benefit my students.

12.   What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

I am concerned with planning and teaching a unit that would support all my learners—when I have such a diverse group (academically, socially and linguistically). Furthermore, what are the best ways to group students in pairs? How can I divide the limited instruction time I have to ensure that my students are staying on task?

12 Questions

1.      Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

My target area will be guided reading groups. We are working with the “read well” program in my kindergarten classroom.

2.      Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

There will be about 20 minutes every morning for guided reading.

3.      Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

RL.K.2: With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.

RL.K.3: With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

RL.K.4: Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

RF.K.1: Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print. A. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page. B. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters. C. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print. D. Recognize and name all upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

RF.K.2: Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes). Recognize and produce rhyming words. Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words. Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words. Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words.¹ (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.)Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.

RF.K.3: Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant. Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels. Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does). Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.

4.      How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

Reading is an important skill for my students to learn, and it is very hard (if not impossible) to learn how to read without letter-sound knowledge. My students will read on a day to day basis in their life, not only in school, but in their community.

5.      What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk  teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would  you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk such as Almasi, 2006)?

While the students are in their groups, it will be either quiet, or the students can whisper read out loud. While I am meeting with the groups, it will be a mix of teacher-led, or student-led, depending on what we are focusing on for that day. During guided reading, we will have 6 groups of 5 students, and I will be meeting with 3 groups every day.

6.      Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

The main focus will be Acquisition, Use and Assessment of Foundational skills because my students are still learning how to read. My students will be learning concepts of print, along with phonological awareness. We will also be working on fluency and word identification.

7.      What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

We have leveled books in the classroom, along with a “read well” program to give us book with decodable words in them for the guided reading groups.

8.      What additional resources do you need to obtain?

My mentor teacher and I are still working on determining what reading level all of the students are at, so that is a resource I need before I can get started.

9.      How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

I have been pre-assessing my students with the Dibels testing, along with the ‘read well’ programs’ assessment, which levels the students.

1What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

Again, I need to find the level of all of my students to be able to make reading groups.

11.  What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

I want to learn more about how to teach phonological awareness, and how children learn them, so I can help all of my students.

12.  What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

I want to make sure that my students stay interested in their books, and that during their reading time, they are focused on the books that they have chosen to read.