FINAL PAPER AN INITIAL PHILOSOPHY OF LITERACY. By Stephanie Berry EDUCATION

Transcription

1 FINAL PAPER AN INITIAL PHILOSOPHY OF LITERACY By Stephanie Berry EDUCATION MAY 9, 2012

2 Section I-The Daydream I will complete a degree in Education after student teaching in the fall semester of When I graduate in December of that year, I will have obtained a Bachelor of Science in Education and a teaching certification from West Virginia State University with a content specialization in elementary education and an endorsement in reading education. Upon graduation from West Virginia State University, I hope to be hired as a first or second grade teacher. I have especially enjoyed field experiences in both grades and would enjoy teaching at either grade level. I hope to be a part of an elementary school staff that values reading and literacy education in addition to the general curriculum. Regardless of which grades I eventually teach, I hope to make a difference in the lives of my students. I want my classroom to be a literacy-rich environment that enhances the education of each student who passes through. I hope to teach literacy in a way that influences students to develop a love for language arts and become life-long learners and readers. Section II-The Role of the Language Arts Related to My First Job Part A - Chart I-Ranking of the Role of the Language Arts in My First Teaching Job In the Real World In My In My Content Specialization Future Classroom Listening Reading Speaking Writing Viewing Visual Representation The six English Language Arts are defined in alphabetical order as: (1) listening, (2) reading, (3) speaking, (4) writing, (5) viewing, and (6) visual representation. My content specialization is in elementary education, grades kindergarten through six. The ranking of the six language arts for this age of students is very similar to that of the real world. The focal point at the elementary level, however, is more focused on learning and practicing the six language arts. Of the five skills, listening is probably the most rudimentary. Students need to have the ability to listen before they can learn anything else. With the ability to listen, students will hear instruction and teaching that will help them to develop the remaining skills needed to be successful in English language arts. Writing, even at the most basic of levels, is so important. The ability to write will allow for communication when listening and speaking are not a possibility. Writing can be such a wonderful outlet of expression. It can be as simple as a private journal for reflection or as elaborate as a written work for publication. The beauty of writing is the freedom that remains in the hand of the writer. Students are often required to complete various assignments for school, but writing is a skill that can be carried so much further. Reading is my favorite of the five aspects of English language arts. This skill is important because it is required in everyday life, but when the reader takes the time to explore, reading can

3 reveal endless possibilities. Literature offers so many choices, allowing the reader to choose from a vast selection depending upon their interests. As with writing, reading is often required with various assignments, but reading for pleasure allows for independent education, relaxation, and more. When a student reads, he or she can step into a new world, searching, wandering, or simply exploring new possibilities. Speaking is a basic requirement for everyday communication. Students will have to know how to communicate effectively to be successful in many facets of life. Public speaking, however, is a skill that will be required only for certain events, professions, and occasions. Speaking in front of a large group of people is a requirement that will vary depending upon assignments, professional settings, and chosen profession. For example, from the perspective of one in the teaching profession, speaking in front of a large group of students is an entirely different matter than speaking to a large group of one s peers. Speaking has its value, but it is often a task specific requirement. Viewing and visual representation can be especially important for very young students who are not able to read and write. Even before children are able to listen to and understand spoken words, they can view and visually represent things. These are probably the earliest form of learning for most children. Viewing is an important literary component because technology has opened so many doors in the recent past. Rather than being restricted to printed texts, newsprint, and written work, students have options that can allow them to view visual media and use them as learning tools. Visual representation is also a valuable skill that can allow students to express their knowledge, understanding, feelings, and questions concerning different areas, both academic and nonacademic in a variety of ways. Students can consider different literary elements as they view materials and create visual texts that can share information learned during literature focused units and thematic units. The ability to connect to language results from the development of good listening skills. Thus, it is imperative that listening skills be included in the daily curriculum. Research has shown the importance of including speaking with the reading instruction. Students will often use this important skill in response, but also in situations requiring discussion, feedback, and presentation. A great deal of daily instruction in the elementary classroom is presented verbally, so listening and speaking skills are important. A large amount of instruction is also presented visually. For this reason, it is necessary for students to learn how to properly use, comprehend, and integrate different visual media into their education. Visual media such as the internet, advertisements, and photographs, are commonplace in American life, so it is imperative that children be taught to use them properly. Students are often required to complete visual based projects in addition to visual based learning. Because of the shift toward technology-based education, many of these projects involve visual texts as part of literature focus units, literature circles, and thematic units. This allows students to create meaning through various types of visual representation including videos, dramatizations, and illustrations. These types of activities are used often in the elementary classroom, often in relation to reading and writing instruction. The process of reading requires the use of strategies and skills to decode and comprehend what is being read. Reading choices and reading strategies vary based on students purpose for reading. Writing is also a strategic process that students use to create stories, reports, poems, informal pieces such as reading logs and graphic organizers, and much more.

4 Part B-A Practical Application of Chart I Rankings Each of these skills is important because they apply not only to language arts but to every other content area as well. Listening, writing, reading, speaking, viewing, and visual representation are skills used every day in life, both inside the school environment and outside, and they are all basic forms of communication. Students at the elementary level require explicit instruction and systematic practice with each of these six English language arts. These skills will be used daily throughout their lives, thus it is important that they develop the ability to practice each one successfully at an early age. To help students see the important of listening, I incorporate Sounds of Language activities with songs and poems. These activities are designed to help promote recognition and familiarization of common sounds in the English language. This is especially important for beginning students who are learning to write and speak the English language. For these activities, students would read and listen to poems or songs that included rhymes and alliteration, recognizing words with similar beginnings and endings. Variations of this can be done to help familiarize students with other language sounds and components as well. This is a common activity in many first and second grade classrooms because research has shown a strong relationship between understanding the sounds of language and early literacy and readiness to read. To encourage speaking and help students to become more comfortable with speaking in front of peers, I would incorporate fun speaking activities into my classroom. This begins with choosing two to five students, providing a topic, and allowing students 1 minute for preparation. At the end of the preparation minute, the game would begin. I would choose a letter and a student to begin. Each student would give a sentence pertaining to the topic, but related to the person before them, that begins with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. If a student hesitates more than five seconds, begins with the wrong letter, or goes out of turn, he or she would be out. The last person standing would be declared the winner. Because each student wouldn t have a chance to participate every time, I would keep an ongoing list, choosing students randomly, but keeping track of who has had a turn to maintain fairness. These activities could be part of the weekly schedule, or, when other activities are completed early, this could be used as a fun activity to fill the space. I would combine the instruction of viewing and visual representation by completing a Silent Film Festival activity. Each student would create a video, using Windows Movie Maker or an equivalent program, that corresponds to the current unit of study. Students would have specific guidelines, depending upon the unit topic, as to what should be included, how long it should be, etc. At the end of the unit, students would participate in a Silent Film Festival. Each student would present his or her short film and classmates would complete a film review that would be returned to the student with feedback. The word silent is included to remind students to listen, refrain from speaking, and give their full attention to the creator of each short film. This activity would promote student creativity and classroom cooperation, helping students to learn from and respect one another. Creating the video allows students exposure to the visual representation component of language arts, and the film festival allows for viewing. If successful, this activity could be repeated two or three times throughout the year with different units of study. To promote reading, I would establish a literacy backpack program in my classroom. Literacy backpacks include a book and several corresponding activities for students to complete at home. These are rotated among the students, each student taking the backpack home for a day or two,

5 completing the activities, and returning it. Themes can be relative to current lessons, units of study, seasons, or holidays. Activities might include shared journals, word puzzles, activities that connect to other contents (social studies, science, math, etc.), and more. The bags might also include things like mascots (stuffed animals, etc.) or disposable cameras with guided instructions that students could use while they have the pack. Literacy backpacks allow students to take learning home, include the family in the learning process, promote literacy outside of school, and have fun with reading. I would use daily journals to incorporate writing in my classroom. Journaling is a very versatile method of incorporating writing into the classroom and can be completed in a variety of ways with a variety of subjects. As a beginning teacher, I would provide daily prompts to be completed during morning work. Topics and contents would vary depending upon different units of study, holidays, school events, and more. For this type of journal, I would have students create a cereal box journal at the beginning of the year. Each student could bring in the box from his or her favorite kind of cereal and I could provide extra boxes and writing paper. With help, students would cut out the front and the back of the box, put writing paper in the middle, punch holes in the side, and bind with string or pipe cleaners. This is an easy, inexpensive way to help spark students creativity and promote writing in the classroom. Each of these skills is important because listening, writing, reading, speaking, viewing, or visual representation may be difficult for any one student, but it would be a rare occasion to find a student who struggled with each one. When a student struggles with writing, he or she may be able to complete an assignment more successfully by creating a visual representation. When a student struggles with reading, he or she may be able to comprehend a passage by listening to an audio clip. The possibilities are endless with each of these skills. Section III-The Role of the 5 Dimensions of Reading Related to My Future Classroom The five dimensions of reading are defined as (1) Phonemic Awareness, (2) Phonics, (3) Fluency, (4) Vocabulary, and (5) Comprehension. Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words. During my resource field placement this semester, I observed kindergarten students demonstrating phonemic awareness in several ways. I completed an activity with students in which they were required to pick a letter from a bag, say the letter, say a word that began with that letter, and give a word that began with the same sound, which helped them to recognize words that begin with the same sound. Students used ipod activities to practice isolating and saying beginning and ending sounds in a word. Students used puzzle pieces to blend separate sounds and create words. Picture books with empty word blocks were used to help students segment words into separate sounds. Phonics instruction teaches children the relationship between the letters of written language and the individual sounds of spoken language. I taught four Saxon phonics lessons in my first grade field placement this semester working with different phonics concepts including letter-sound associations, letter-sound correspondences, sound-symbol correspondences, and sound-spellings. Systematic and explicit phonics instruction has been shown to improve word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension.

6 Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately and quickly. Different methods of repeated oral reading allow students to practice fluency and develop automaticity. In my first grade field experience this semester, I observed choral reading, tape-assisted reading, and partner reading; I had the opportunity to participate in student-adult reading a few times as well. I was also able to teach two reading lessons; the first involved partner reading, and the second involved choral reading. Based on my experiences, I feel that choral reading was the most beneficial for the students I worked with. Both lessons were taught on day four of five day reading units, so students had equal amounts of exposure to each story. After choral reading, students were more responsive to guiding questions and expressed a deeper understanding of the content than they had been after partner reading. Vocabulary refers to the words we must know to communicate effectively. There are four types of vocabulary: listening vocabulary, which includes the words we need to know to understand what we hear; speaking vocabulary, which includes the words we use when we speak; reading vocabulary, which includes the words we need to know to understand what we read; and writing vocabulary, which includes the words we use in writing. I have observed both direct and indirect vocabulary instruction in my field placement this semester. Each week students have four to seven amazing words that they learn. These are often sight words. Students also learned new vocabulary when the teachers took advantage of teachable moments to explain new words. I saw this several times during regular instruction, but also during supplemental classes like art when students were learning about things like warm colors and famous artists and in developmental guidance when students were learning careers and everyday heroes. Comprehension is the reason for reading. Good readers are purposeful and active as they read. Scientifically based research shows that comprehension can be improved through explicit instruction, cooperative learning, and by helping readers combine and use strategies flexibly. In my personal experience, repeated exposure to material has been the best method of comprehension. In my field experiences, however, I have observed uses of direct explanation, modeling, guided practice, and application to aid students in comprehension. I have, in my own lessons, used some of these methods and found that they not only help students develop a solid understanding of the material, but it also helps them to develop their comprehension skills. Then, later on, when they are presented with new material and new stories, they have the prior knowledge they need to begin developing comprehension on their own. Section IV-Continued Professional Growth As I continue my education and enhance my professional background and experiences, I would like to acquire: 1. More training to learn how to correctly align curriculum to the new Common Core Standards 2. New methods to incorporate language arts into other content areas to allow for literacy instruction across the curriculum 3. Specific training to gain the knowledge and understanding needed to teach and work with students who are English Language Learners I intend to continue my education as long as possible because I know there is always something new to learn. I m excited to learn from my students, mentors, and cooperating teachers, but, regardless of how much experience I gain, I know there will always be room for improvement. I will be a life-long educator and a life-long learner, and I will always strive for excellence in every way.

7 Sources Armbruster, Bonnie B., Fran Lehr, Jean Osborn, and C. Ralph Adler. Put reading first: the research building blocks for teaching children to read: kindergarten through grade 3. Washington, D.C.: National Institute for Literacy, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, U.S. Dept. of Education, Print. Tang, Linda, Sara Gable. Activities for Promoting Early Literacy (for children ages 3 to 5). University of Missouri EXTENSION. Tompkins, Gail E. Language Arts Patterns of Practice. Columbus, Ohio: Pearson, Print.