Comments for Loving Literacy

Comment on Engaging Families by kabcuse

kabcuse — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:38:24 +0000

Oh man- I think Julie may get you for some of that deficit language, Kristin! None the less- I know what you’re getting at here – about how some kids are just inherently going to have a more difficult time excelling in a mainstream school. I really think this post ties into chapter 9 from Barone, Mallette, and Xu where we have to look at kids and their schools from an ecological standpoint where it’s not just what the kids are bringing to the table, but also what the school and community has to offer.

Comment on Engaging Families by librarian2be

librarian2be — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 02:07:52 +0000

I agree that it’s important for educators to be aware of their students’ home lives. As a librarian, I think it’s great that I can provide kids with books, and they don’t have to pay for them. I think many parents that don’t have access to print materials for whatever reason are not aware of what libraries can do for them. Even if you don’t have enough money to buy a book to read to your child, a library card is free. However, some parents still don’t have the time to go to the library or don’t have transportation. That’s where school libraries come in. I want to encourage my students, especially the ones who don’t have a lot of reading material at home, to use my library. I want to get to know those kids so I can know their interests and their needs. For example, if I have an ELL student whose parents can’t read to her because they don’t read English, then I can find bilingual books to send home with her.

Comment on Engaging Families by tuttlem

tuttlem — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:46:27 +0000

That sounds like a helpful experience that you were able to accompany the social worker on a home visit. I am sure it takes a lot of experience to get comfortable going into any time of setting and particularly when you may be bringing up a touchy subject or you are responsible for helping the family to change what they are doing. I think home visits are a crucial step to understanding each child, by learning more about their home, family, and culture. I think it also has the power to show teachers/psychologists/etc. that some families are doing many things which contribute to their child’s learning, it just may not be in the typical “school way.” I am sure we can learn from them at the same time we are hoping they learn from us!

Michelle T.

Comment on English Language Learners by ecteacher2009

ecteacher2009 — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 19:00:53 +0000

I also liked the idea of having books on tape for these children. When you have these tapes they are able to learn how to say the words correctly. It also helps them with their comprehension skills, because the majority of children comprehend text thet is read to them better than text that they read to themselves. I also like the idea of books on tape because they can relisten to book if they need to.

Comment on Teacher-ELL relationship by mferris

mferris — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:08:15 +0000

I’m such an avid reader of your blog, Kristin!

It is interesting how all the articles on this topic sort of stressed the idea that many teacher prep programs (as well as School Psychology, and others in the field of education) neglect to teach new professionals how to best work with ELL students. I think a lot of “cross-cultural” that I’ve taken focus mainly on identifying and understanding your own culture and biases, and on more concrete aspects of cross-cultural interactions, such as body language and eye contact. I think what’s lacking though is what you’ve mentioned: concrete strategies for helping students from other cultures succeed in schools, both academically and socially.

Comment on English Language Learners by mferris

mferris — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:43:09 +0000

Thanks for always posting early Kristin

I agree that it was great to see these successful ELL programs in action. The comprehension section was interesting to me too. I started thinking back to when I used to study Spanish in high school, and even though I was a fairly good student, when we started reading full books during the later years (such as Don Quixote), I felt like I was so bogged down figuring out every single word that the book sort of lost it’s humor and overall meaning. I guess comprehension usually comes later, but for young children just learning, it is important that they understand at least some of what they are reading in order to be interested in learning and so that their frustrations to not become all-encompassing.

Comment on literacy and visual impairments by Jackie Zins

Jackie Zins — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:38:25 +0000

I think it is not that much of a surprise that kids with visual impairments may experience delays in literacy. It is also known that reading Braille takes significantly more time than reading words formed with the alphabet. But, I will tell you this great story about a little boy I know. He is blind and had not learned to read all throughout elementary school. I don’t if anyone ever tried to teach him. Once he entered middle school they worked with him and his language and literacy progressed rapidly! He loves to spell now and listen to books on tape. He knows all of his letters and the sounds that they make. He can read Braille, he can spell any word given him. It is pretty amazing and inspiring to me!

Comment on literacy and visual impairments by mferris

mferris — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:18:45 +0000

Yeah, it definitely has to be tough, during the early years especially. When you think about very young children, a lot of the books for them are mainly pictures with only a few words to describe the picture. As children get a little older though, there’s a lot of great books with very descriptive language that should be enjoyable for children with visual impairments. I can remember loving my teachers reading chapter books aloud to us in 4th and 5th grade. However, I guess the challenge here is getting the children even interested in reading at a young age when they do not have the benefit of word-picture correspondence. The authors did offer up some great suggestions though.

Comment on Running Records by kabcuse

kabcuse — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:06:56 +0000

I had the same question about younger, Kristin! The website authors mentioned emergent literacy, but I know my kidwatching student isn’t likely to read anything at the 90% accuracy level. And I don’t think reading a book for toddlers with one word per page is going to be that helpful for intervention. None the less, I loved how this article broke down HOW to record any errors or self corrections- I don’t think we learned enough of that in our CBM lesson and this could be a lot more useful for intervention purposes. I liked that this article conveyed that there’s more to running records than a child’s instructional level!

Comment on Readers Theater by sirsand

sirsand — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:16:46 +0000

When I have done Reader’s Theater with 5 year olds, they really loved it. They enjoy performing for other kids in class and the other kids liked being the audience. Some of them are reserved and I usually give them the option to do a part “with” me or they have a part that they can do with another child. The children also like brainstorming ideas for simple costumes and props. Whenever one group of children have acted out a story, the other children always want to know when it will be their turn.
Another way I have seen Reader’s Theater done is that the teacher is the reader while the children act out the story as she reads.