Jami's Week 9 Post

In Tompkin’s article on Developing Fluent Reader’s there is a great deal of discussion about word walls. I especially liked the idea of making a word wall that revolves around a topic that the students are working on. This way when they write about that specific topic they can refer to the wall for words to use and how to spell them. Most teachers use word walls that have high frequency words for the younger grades and most teachers add more words per week. In my placement I have noticed that my CT has a word wall which is in alphabetic order. She had this word wall posted at the beginning of the year and I don’t think she has added to it thus far. Teaching word recognition is very important. There are different ways in doing this a teacher can: introduce the words in context, have children clap and chant the words, have children practice reading and writing the words and finally have them read and write the words. When assessing student’s word identification and fluency it is important to look for accuracy, reading speed, and prosody. I have noticed that my students in field are very accurate in their reading. Their reading speed is something that needs work as well as their prosody. They do not read very fast and they just “read”. They do not really read with any emphasis, use expression or include punctuation while reading. It just seems as if they are reading one giant sentence. It is important for students to practice their reading-having daily opportunities to do so. In order to increase their reading speed the students need to practice reading aloud at their level. They should practice 3-5 times with the same book. While teaching prosody a teacher should show students how to chunk parts of sentences and read with real expression. This all just takes practice.

One mini-lesson that could be taught with our book club book would involve having centers in which the students can discuss the book with their classmates and/or do small activities involving both fluency and the book Roll Of Thunder Hear My Cry.

Topic: Roll of Thunder Centers
Grade: 5th
Time: 60 minutes

Introduce the topic:
Students go to one of the 4 centers. They are as follows: Retelling Center (the students talk to each other and retell what they have read thus far in the book), Word Sort Center (Students-on their own- pick out words from what they have read so far that they do not know the meaning of and define them), Writing Center (the students are given a prompt and they are to write about it, this prompt will be on some issue of the book), and with each letter of the title of the book ROLLOFTHUNDER, the students choose a word beginning with each letter and write one sentence (that makes sense) with that one word they chose for each letter.

Share Examples:
After centers are complete students will share with each other what they came up with in their centers. This way they practice reading aloud as well as public speaking.

Provide Information:
In the first center I can explain to the children why it is important to recall events of a story which involves having good reading comprehension. In the word sort center I can show students that there are words in the book in which they may not know and also how to look them up. In the writing center I can demonstrate for the students what they need to write and how they need to write it. I can write up an example paragraph for them to get an idea of what I expect. With the last center I can also demonstrate for them how to do it. This helps students with fluency and word recognition and sentence formation. For example R= Remember to do your chores.
O= Once you have your coat on, please go to the car.
L= Leave your shoes at the door.
L= Learn a new language tomorrow.

Guided Practice:
Each child will share their work with the class. With this I will point out what they did really well so others are able to see and demonstrate the same thing. I will be showing them and guiding them through the centers and how to do each one.

Assess Learning:
After each child shares their work I will collect them and re-evaluate everything. I will have folders that each child is assigned to and this is where they will keep their work until I collect it. This is how I will assess their learning and make sure they are staying on task and doing the right amount of work.

Veronica's Comment: I am so glad you mentioned "word walls". I have only seen this used in my first grade field placement for TE 301. Since I was in the classroom during literacy centers, I was able to see the students develop writing and reading comprehension skills. There were many times that the students would ask how a word was spelled, therefore, I am not so certain they were aware of their word wall or why it was there. It would be so beneficial if your CT added WORDS to the word wall in the classroom, its an ongoing process to have students recognize these high frequency words. Everything that you mentioned above is a great way to clarify high frequency words that are easily confused as well as it gives students more practice with them.
To help your second grade students become fluent readers they can have more practice with a reading of their choice, this way they are very familiar with the text and are able to distinguish difference in the tone. Have you seen opportunities where students read along with their teacher? This also helps promote reading fluency.