Call me Crazy…but NCLB isn’t that bad
So this is my second attempt at posting this, apparently even though it states it is saving as you go, it really doesn’t.
NCLB isn’t that bad if you look at it from a parent’s point of view. I believe my child deserves a high quality education where he will be able to pass the end of the year exam in his school system. My child deserves a teacher that is highly qualified to teach him the lessons North Carolina states are needed in order for him to succeed in the future. I deserve to know that his teacher at least has a degree in education and has passed her content exam (Praxis exams), I also deserve to know that the curriculum used in the classroom is research based as well.
As a teacher, I understand that there are great teachers who still do not meet the minimum requirements…I’m sorry, but I think that it isn’t unrealistic to expect that all students are able to pass their state’s mandated exam by the year 2014. I take my son to a School of Choice because at least 50% of the students pass the end-of-the-year exams. It isn’t too much to ask that our children actually learn while in school, it is also not too much to ask for parent’s to be active participants and collaborators in their child’s education in order to ensure that all children pass their grade exams.
The Anna Plan seems to good to be true. In my old school we use the Reading First approach. It is research-based and state funded. It is also a unilateral approach in which children are expected to come to kindergarten ready to sit for a 90 minute literacy block that includes rotating into 5 different centers and completing an activity at their learning level in the center. The best of all is that this research-based curriculum expects students to absorb the instructions for the different centers and the three different activites in a mini-lesson given on Monday, so when I get to the last center on Friday I still remember what my activity is. Good luck proving that this approach is developmentally appropriate for children who have never attended school before. But it seems to work, because by the end of the year the children understand the structure and are able to flow through the centers. My old school is a Reading First School, every classroom has an Elbow Projector and Smart Board. The teachers are required to attend Reading First workshops once a week, we have a full time literacy coach as well as intervention specialist. Yet my school has failed for four years in a row to meet their annual growth. The children are still not passing the end of the course exams….so does it really work??? Both my parents learned to read and write in what in considered a second-world country. My dad has yet to figure out a computer and never had one in the classroom until he moved to the states with his family. Yet all my uncles and aunts in this second-world country know how to read and write…what are we doing wrong?
Guilty as Charged when it comes to Perceptions
So I taught kindergarten at a Reading First School, nothing new to you all. I am also the mother of two…same thing, most of you already know that. But what you may slowly be realizing that I strongly believe that it is my job to raise my children and to prepare them for a better future not a teacher. So I will admit as stated by Barone that I may have misinterpreted limited participation in school activities and support for children’s learning from some families as a form of not showing interest in their children’s education. Why? Well I simply felt that if the teacher requests that you assist your child with homework or to extend the learning in the classroom with some suggestions at home, that a parent will take that information and correlate learning at home with school. But I quickly realized that many parent’s don’t even have the time to look through their children’s bookbags and keep the school work that was sent home on a regular basis. The cleaning of the binder was also my job.
Barone does bring up a good point when she states that some families focus their role on educating their children to develop morals, values, and high standards, and to become good people. As a Latina mom I can tell you that before reading comes respect. But I am not stuck in a cave and know that I have been my children’s first teacher. So as a mom and teacher I would argue that if schools will inform parents that part of their duty is to teach early literacy skills at home, in their own fashion of course, I am sure more children will be kindergarten ready! Why? Well, in order to enroll my child in kindergarten in Cumberland County I have to attend Kindergarten Day, have a physical completed, shot records, etc. Well, what if we were to also inform parents what research tells us needs to be done both at home and at school in order to ensure literary success???? Think about it, it’s a great idea, I promise!
Skipping over to the Duke article:
I think this confirms my argument that children do begin learning at home…nearly all children have had regular exposure to print in their homes and communities, even those children in low-SES homes. Children learn about literacy in general at home as well as at school…go figure!
The differance between limited English skills and learning disabilities
I really enjoyed the article by Gersten and Geva. There is a major difference between limited English skills and learning disabilities. There is a bigger difference between perceived limited English skills and learning disabilities. But I’ll get into that during my time at the end of the blog….
Reading First schools should get a copy of this article, it clearly states that teachers with high student growth in reading skills did not stretch out any activity for too long, no such thing as extended seat work. It seems this concept is different than the one used in a Reading First School, my babies needed to be in a seat doing their center activity for 30 minutes, even if it only took them 5 to cut and paste the pictures that started with the letter of the day. The genius moment is that high-quality vocabulary instruction resulted in better reading skills, well, coming from Reading First, can someone please explain what a high-quality vocabulary lesson plan looks like so I can incorporate it into my own teaching…someday…maybe…when the ill effects of public Reading First School instruction has finally faded.
Gillanders paper is great, but I have to give a shout out to my girl Dr. Gallagher (I know I know, some of us feel a little differently), I think she hit the nail in the head (see ELLs can pick phrases too) in her course when she discussed the importance of teacher-student and teacher-parent-student relationships. I feel that there shouldn’t be a difference, teachers need to treat these babies like their own when they’re educating them. Now, so you understand what I really mean, I don’t think its the teacher’s job to raise my baby for me, but if he feels sad, please give him a hug, and if he gets hurt please tell him it’ll be ok. Now if he’s disrespecting you and his classmates please give me a call so I drive to school and set him straight (no I don’t spank my children, but you will be surprised what a speech and a few minutes in the corner can do) Teacher Sarah just did the right thing by building that positive relationship with the children in her classroom. Most of my classmates will agree with me and Dr. Gillanders, students are the same as your own children. That is why I advocate for parent-teacher relationships, if I expect a teacher to follow my lead on a subject that is important to me, such as zero tolerance for disrespect, then I need to follow her lead when she requests that I, the parent of the child, review classwork or assist with homework. But it is a two-way street, teachers are not paid enough to become our local neighborhood Spider-Man heroes. Parents are their children’s first and most important teacher!!! Parents, we need to step up!!! Once again we touch on purposeful teaching of vocabulary, we need to discuss what this looks like in the real world.
In my last blog I discussed growing up labeled ELL by a 2nd grade teacher new to my community, where her perceived minority was in fact the majority in South Florida. If you don’t speak Spanish please do not forget your TomTom. Well, I was the lucky one, I only spent one year in ESOL and then was mainstreamed when the principal realized that I was teaching ESOL because the other students related better to me than the monolingual teacher he hired. But my poor younger brother was labeled learning disability instead of ELL, both of which did not suit him, unfortunately for him, our parents were immigrants, studied abroad and were compliant with the school’s recommendation and kept my brother in Special Education classes until high school because they did not realized they could actually say ‘no’ to the schools recommendations. Fast forward a few years, he takes the SATs and scores better than me, but we all know about self-fulfilling prophecies.
My question is this, why don’t more schools utilize the TVIP and PPVT-III. I know we never took that test, I know the Cambodian baby in my classroom was not formally tested, he was just automatically placed in ELL class because his parents stated in his kindergarten entrance paperwork that they spoke a differant language at home. So if there is a researched differance between limited English skills and learning disabilities, when are we going to figure out a way to distinguish between the two adequately?
!Buenos Dias Amigas!
?Como estan chicas? ?Espero que muy bien? So I guess I’ll start with some comments on the reading and then put my personal, you don’t have to read it if you hate my guts after last week, thoughts.(PS, in Spanish when you write an exclamation or question you put the marks upside down in the beginning of the sentence and right side up at the end in order to prepare the reader in the change of tone).
I thought the example in the book on page 52 was great, a real eye opener. But as time passes, not to sound cynical, we will forget that feeling. Also, I think it’s great that the section discusses in a reader friendly format the difference between communicative (BICS) and academic (CALP) language. I know we had that other article on the subject but to me it seems it made more sense here. As educators who do not speak the home language of ELL students we need to keep in mind that ELL students are trying to speak, write and understand and whole new language. The text point out that what/how much children understand directly affects their overall performance. TPR is my new learned concept from this chapter:total physical response in order to show various behaviors related to literacy throughout the day. I strongly believe that this concept is equally important for all children when learning new vocabulary or concepts. I agree with the statement that not all illustrations support text, and sometimes the text is too wordy! ’A text that engages children possesses predictability, familiarity, and supportive illustrations/visual aids.’ I think this is true for adults too!!! Maybe its just me but I felt that once we hit pg. 63: Scaffolding ELL Children’s Language and Literacy Learning, all the techniques described are similar to ones that a good literacy teacher would be incorporating into her classroom anyway.
Ahora para mi momento personal del texto…
Attention all teachers, especially those that have very limited experience with ELL children, please take note of the statement on page 64: incomplete sentences and broken English is OK, if the children add extra vowel sounds at the end they are just following Spanish protocol, it does not necessarily mean there is a problem. Trust me, there is usually a vowel at the end of everything in Spanish and articles are either masculine or feminine. So if you are ever in the Sunshine State and dare to venture to Miami, please remember that the majority rules and you may be the one with the extremely funny accent; oh yeah and just about everyone knows how to say: ‘no espeaky English.’
Get ready for true story.
So I was about five and my brother 4 when my mother had the bright idea to deport us from Miami, Florida to Barranquilla, Colombia for a summer in order for us to learn to speak Spanish properly. We stayed with our extended and very united family. The first few weeks was the worst time of my life! I couldn’t understand much, my mother wasn’t even there and all we (my brother and I) did was cry until an uncle (Neil) who spoke very broken English came home from work and called our mom for us. He was our life line until we became fluent. All I could remember was crying all the time, everything was different, the sounds, smells, and food. Milk came in a plastic bag, it was much thicker and harder to drink at first. The supermarket wasn’t anything like here, it was an open market where everything was sold on a freshly basis thus (now this is according to me, la gringa) smelled so horribly bad that it made your stomach turned. And the best part of all, the electricity and water was shut off by the government part of the day and we were stuck taking cold showers or showering outside. What in the world! But after a while you get used to it.
PS I am a bi-product of South Florida’s dual immersion program, I was in ESOL part day, in a regular class part day and in Spanish Immersion part day everyday. Pretty cool huh?
So this is what Reading First Should Look Like!
Hi everyone, so I am reading the article by McGee and Schickedanz and remembering the teacher text in my old Reading First school. These long boring tales with one picture and the most ridiculous questions written right into the text. Then at the end we learn they are consultants and directors of the system I have grownto loathe more than military deployments…Reading First. In the article they state that it is NOT RECOMMENDED to subject children in the first reading to identifying books parts, discuss the definition of author or illustrator or explain the purpose of the dedication page….well did they make their opinion public in the creation and implementation of Reading First? At a Reading First School, you do the complete opposite. So I wonder if they practice what they preach….After pulling myself together and giving their expertise a chance, theybring up a valid point when the article states ‘young children are relatively insensitive to problems and goals compared to characters and actions.’ I agree that it is important to guide children thoughts when reading a book, but also think that it is unnecessary to start inferring different ideas when reading just for the sake of it…the example of Oonga Boonga, for example, I have yet to read the text, but it seems that the baby wanted to hear the funny words versus just seeing her brother. I teach kindergarten and inferences Lea made might be way over my own head…for the sake of argument, why didn’t baby Louise just hush when she saw her brother? From my understanding it took the actual words to get her to quite down. I think if we infer more than the explicitly obvious we may teach children that a whole lot more is going on in a story thus distracting their attention form the here and now. May be I am over thinking it or maybe I just become negative when a supporter of Reading First speaks up…I just don’t want to listen.
Duke makes a good case when discussing the need for more informational text, I agree with him! Looking in my own children’s library there are very few informational text. What’s worst, after analyzing our reading routine, we seldom read them…they are bit boring and wordy for my jitterbugs. Perhaps Duke needs to find a formula to create informational texts that parents want to read and children want to hear. Most read like a page from the encyclopedia. But that’s my opinion.
I enjoyed the article by Doyle and Bramwell about social-emotional learning and dialogic reading. Children really do learn to cope with their strong emotions and learn social skills (pg. 557). It’s interesting that the article states that emotion vocabulary skills in preschool predict academic achievement and social competence up to four years later, this has always been my view of what the early years of learning should look like. Unfortunately it seems that many school systems sacrifice, as stated in the articles, social-emotional development for high academic scores.
Final thought from the article: repeat, affirm and expand!
LEA Approach
So I read about the LEA approach before and have always agreed that it seems to meet children where they are and take them to the next level. Pierson and Glaser really hit it home with their example regarding children ‘covering up’ their error. The article states that the main focus is on student’s ideas for a story and not on grammetical forms. I really see this approach to litearcy extremely useful for ELL and children with disabilities. If the child is able to take full owenership of a project such as writting their own book with the writing left to the adults, then they really are more likely to this new form of reading material. When children are aloud to dictate their stories to someone else they really can see the relationships between speech and print. I guess I must have taught to write using the LEA approach because I was drilled to always brainstorm, make a ‘sloppy copy’, make revisions and then turn in my final copy to the teacher. So I guess I can actually ‘endorsed’ the LEA writing process model.
Sorry ladies I couldn’t update the Wiki with the updates from your suggestions in class, I have been in St.Louis, MO all week at a Parents as Teachers training aimed towards the military. I am doubtful I will venture out to Chapel Hill, I got in late last night.
Can you say Spanglish?
I agree with Aukerman, unless you fluently speak a child’s home language, there is no way to know for sure whether the child is utilizing his BICS or CALP skills. It’s great that Cummins is a supporter of a bilingual education. I was educated in Miami-Dade County, Florida. I would spend time in my English-learning class (memorization), Spanish-learning class (home skills), and ESOL (cross-referencing skills). So I appreciate the article stating, “BICS/CALP fosters greater recognition of the importance of developing the native language.”
I’m glad that Aukerman discusses the discrepancies in scores with language assessments. I think it is funny that with all the research that it takes to develop an assessment the creators of some of these assessments didn’t check to see if typical developing English-speakers from across the country were able to pass the assessment in the first place.
For all of you taking Spanish for Educators…like I said last Spring…just as there are several dialects in American English (northern vs. southerns vs. westerners) there are wide varieties of dialects in a single South American country. Just like soda is Coke is pop in English, the same rule applies in Spanish!
I agree that we need to assess children across both domains. Sometimes the right answer can obtained through the use of Spanglish! I don’t agree with the statement, “ELLs come to school less prepared to cope with cognitively demanding academic tasks,” what I do believe occurs is that ELL children come to school not understanding the American school system and with a different understanding of school life.
Technology
After reading this section of the text I think I have been wasting my time ‘protecting’ my son from technology. I need to get on the ball and set up his desktop in his room already. This article makes me feel that he won’t be able to compete with the 27.9% 3-8 years old in 1999 able to navigate the Internet. Could you imagine what that number is today? I think technology is great, but there is a time and a place. I don’t think 3 years old should be sitting in front of a computer. Then I again I have different views when it comes to rearing children. I spoon feed my son until the age of three when an EISC (Early Intervention Service Coordinator) assessed him with the ELAP to age him out of services and it was there in black in white on the assessment. Hispanic moms have the tendency to baby their children, especially boys.
February 9: N is for Nonsensical
Hi guys, so a light bulb when off, I realized that there is a Publish status thing on the side…
So I used to teach kindergarten, I am what you would consider a well-educated adult, so why is it that I felt inadequately prepared to read about the The Primary Spelling Inventory in Chapter 4? I could not explain to you a short-e vowel sound or a long-u. Spanish was my first language, when I learned to read in English I believe I learned to memorize words, not techniques in reading. I just learned to read, no long or short vowels, I still have no idea how to read them. I still have to stop and think when I read the letter ‘e’ and ‘i’ in English. So I wonder with other students whom English was a second language have the same issue?
I may have discovered why I did not enjoy teaching in a Reading First School. According to the NAEYC/IRA position, Learning to Read and Write, it clearly states that, “extensive whole-group instruction and intensive drill and practice on isolated skills for groups and individuals,” is an outdated theory still used in the classroom. It also states that not one teaching method or approach is suitable for all children. I agree that the most single successful activity to do with young children is to read aloud to them. I also agree that we need to use attractive stories and informational books in our classrooms. Only when a child is truly captivated and motivated to learn by an interesting story with rich and colorful illustrations will they engage in analytical and predictive questions that affect comprehension and vocabulary. The reading on Interactive Storybook Readings also supports this idea. The article states that how we select reading materials and the way they are read to children will determine its effectiveness. Books need to be interesting to children and children to be allowed to ask question before-during-after the story is read. Someone needs to inform Reading First of these findings. Their selections for Read-Alouds would bore me, the reader, imagine the children. Now David Shannon or Eric Carle, now those were great stories! N is for Nonsensical also supports the idea that drilling children does not work, but content-rich instruction does. In my school, the reading block is a 90 minutes long memorized drill for the children. Although Reading First states that the learning is differentiated, what actually occurs is that those that are behind stay behind because they are never challenged to attempt the assingments created for the ‘proficient’ student.
Hello everyone.
Hi everyone. My name is Annette Fernandez and I am a graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill. I am a MEd.X student and hopefully after I complete this class I will be graduating this upcoming May. I am happily married to a career active duty soldier, we have two beautiful children, Josue Jr. and Sofia. I am originally from Miami, Florida and currently live a mile from Ft. Bragg. I have worked as a Developmental Specialist for a number of years and most recently had the honor to have my very own kindergarten class. I wish everyone luck in class!!!
Reading Two: Yopp & Yopp
OK, so let’s see if this works finally.
The article by Yopp and Yopp brought up a very important statement, phonemic awareness is the most important foundation of reading success and that attending the sound structure of spoken language is a priority. IRA has a similar stand on phonemic awareness. Some, like Reading First, feel that it needs to be taught without the use of phonics. I have always had issue with this because I am a visual person, if I can not see it then it does not exist. I agree with Yopp and Yopp that the amount of time needed to teach phonemic awareness needs to be reflected upon the quality and responsiveness of instruction. In Ms. A’s class literacy learning was embedded in the classroom and in the children’s daily routines. Yopp and Yopp eludes to a structured timed learning sessions as seen in Reading First. I strongly feel that Phonemic Awareness needs to be learned in a natural format, that children do not realize that they are learning, and as the Position taken by the IRA states, with the occasionally aid of phonics.
