http://krisco85.edublogs.org Another excellent Edublogs.org weblog Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:03:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en When looking back over all of my blog entries, I noticed there was a recurring theme of me not having exposure to certain concepts and situations involving literacy. I seemed to preface a lot of things with, "I'm not a teacher but...", and would reiterate the fact that I am ... http://krisco85.edublogs.org/2009/04/19/self-evaluation/ Chapter 8, "Engaging Families", in the Barone, Mallette, & Xu book first of all reminded me of the cross-cultural counseling class the school psyc students had last semester. It highly emphasized the significance of learning about the cultures of the students and families with which you work, and not assuming ... http://krisco85.edublogs.org/2009/04/09/engaging-families/ I enjoyed the article by Cristina Gillanders about the teacher-child relationship on English language learning. She did a thorough job with her research-visiting the classroom 51 times! It sounds like the teacher she observed, Sarah, used great strategies in establishing an atmosphere in which her students felt comfortable and accepted.  ... http://krisco85.edublogs.org/2009/04/01/teacher-ell-relationship/ I found the video about supporting English language learners, as well as the book chapter about it, to be both informative and helpful. In the book, it was interesting to learn about the three dimensions of language proficiency that Cummins (2003) established. These dimensions are conversational fluency, discrete language skills, ... http://krisco85.edublogs.org/2009/03/27/english-language-learners/ Like April Wa. said in regard to repeated readings, the fact that children with visual impairments are at risk of experiencing delays in the development of language and literacy=duh! Was this a surprise to anyone else? Maybe I shouldn't assume it is a well known fact, but it seems like ... http://krisco85.edublogs.org/2009/03/19/literacy-and-visual-impairments/ I was excited when I saw that this week's reading is about Running Records, because it is something with which I have prior experience and that I actually know something about! :) We school psychologists learned about them as a Curriculum Based Assessment. I have only done a couple but ... http://krisco85.edublogs.org/2009/03/12/running-records/ The article, "Nurturing Emergent Readers Through Readers Theater", by Kelli Jo Kerry Moran, was pretty intriguing to me. I think it sounds like a great idea in which to get children of all ages involved. I think it would be a little more difficult, however, with younger children, esp. if ... http://krisco85.edublogs.org/2009/02/27/readers-theater/ When I first read in Chapter 5 about the internet and computers helping children with their beginning literacy skills, I was not so crazy about the idea, and I'm still not completely sold on it. I think it depends on how it is used. If it is in fact, merely ... http://krisco85.edublogs.org/2009/02/14/internet-literacy-support/ "But it is up to teachers to recognize that children's existing frames of reference are the primary raw material for new learning, rather than some static predetermined academic language" The above quote, taken directly from "A culpable CALP: Rethinking the conversational/academic language proficiency distinction in early literacy instruction" by Maren Aukerman, ... http://krisco85.edublogs.org/2009/02/11/calp-article/ On Tuesday, I had my very first session with the child I'm using for my Kidwatching project. He is three, and will be four on Feb. 14th! I did the assessment of name writing activity and was very impressed that he was able to represent all the letters in his ... http://krisco85.edublogs.org/2009/02/08/kidwatching-1/