Literacy My History as a Reader

I learned to read between 32 and 33 years ago. It was hard for me to go back so many years and think about it, but after I gave it some time, several memories came up. I remember in Kindergarten learning the letters, but I do not remember having to know the sounds or do any kind of reading at that grade level. Then when I went into First Grade I recall reading simple sight words like I, he, she, is. I remember reading words like hop and mop, top those kinds of simple phonetic words. I also remember reading the Dick Jane and Spot stories. First grade memories of reading in class are fuzzy. My treasured memories of reading are the times when I was reading short stories and books at home with my mom and dad. They were really good about tucking me in at night and giving me a story and letting me read to them. The Dick, Jane and Spot stories were ones that I liked actually. I used to get excited to read with my mom. I remember loving the illustrations and using those to help me understand the stories. It was not until second grade that my memory of classroom reading becomes clearer to me. In my school which was very rural there was only k-6 and it was one class in each grade level only, we were grouped by reading level, and we went to Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Yagami her paraprofessional for reading. She would take a group and the rest of us would be busy doing other things like listening to stories on these archaic machines that we would refer to as SRA and they were like slides put into a machine and stories would appear and then we had questions to answer. I unfortunately hated Mrs. Smith because she was mean and she would humiliate students if they struggled with a word. I hated her and I feared her, but I did love books and love reading despite having such a nasty hateful teacher. I also have fond memories of going to the tiny city library that was located in a basement of a building and loving the smell of the old books. There is one book I still remember about a squirrel who lived in a tree, and I must have checked out that book like a thousand times and I would read it over and over. The squirrel's name was Susie, but I have forgotten the title. I wanted it when my daughter was learning how to read, so I could share that with her. I used to go with my grandfather to the city library, and he was a regular at the library reading everything and anything. I was amazed at the thick books he would read, and I remember visiting him at his house and always finding him reading. I admired him because he could read in English and Spanish, and I thought that was very special. I never struggled in reading, but I don't remember anyone glorifying me as a super reader either. My best recollection of being an early reader are personal ones in my family and not so much in school. I do love reading anything and anything like my grandfather now as an adult. I find myself using strategies that I learned way back in elementary school still as an adult reader when the context is hard for me to understand.

Differentiation Topic 5 Article of Choice

Since the instructions for this assignment said to give a micro response, I thought it would be a good idea for me to mention an experience I had in one of the Alum Rock schools when I was a sub. There is a student in one of the schools who is severely mentally handicapped, and she has a one-on-one paraprofessional to work with her throughout the day. I first met this student when she was in kindergarten and she was only in the scribbling stage by the end of kinder. She was retained and then moved on to first grade. In first grade, I subbed for her teacher several times that year, and even with a paraprofessional she was up and out of her seat all the time, making moaning and groaning noises, wandering around and being clearly disruptive. It was a challenge for me to be in there just several times during the school year when the teacher was out. She was given a lot of extra recess time, and was clearly not functioning very well in a regular education classroom. I guess my question is this. What rights do the parents of the other children have in making an issue out of how disruptive she was? I understand that the Individuals with Disabilities Act of 2004 presumes that the first placement option that they must consider no matter the severity of the disability is the regular ed classroom. However, it was frustrating to see just how disruptive she was, and speaking as a parent and not as a teacher, I would be concerned about the level of disruptions occuring in the classroom as a result of this particular student. I don't know if this sounds insensitive but by trying to accomodate and be fair to one student, I see that sometimes other students are being asked to give up the right to a classroom and an environment that is not full of chaos. This student was creating chaos even with a paraprofessional.

Topic 5 Pre-Service CALLA Handbook Ch 5

This chapter begins by providing how to plan for CALLA instruction. Assessing prior knowledge is stressed. Here it is necessary to have some information about the cultural backgrounds of the students. I have learned not to assume that all of my students are from Mexico. I have had some students who come from Central America and those cultural differences can be significant. This is where I think the home visits come into play because through those home visits that we do at Rocketship we can get to know the families and what their experiences have been in addition to finding out what country or region even if from Mexico can vary tremendously. Some of my students are from big cities like Mexico City which is a metropolis and others come from really rural areas. Some have parents who have been in the US for a long time and the children were born here and have never been to their parents' native country. Second, selecting concerpts and skills to be learned and including higher-order thining skills is imperative in CALLA instruction. In additon the identification of academic language skills and functions required to perform a specific content area task is listed in this chapter. A teacher would also need to get materials needed to provide context and hands-on activities nmetnined in a preveios chapter. Finally, the organization of ativities into a five-phase instructional sequence which includes preparation, presentation, practice, evaluation, and expansion.

Topic 5 Pre-Service CALLA Handbook Ch 4

This chapter was dense in providing multiple strategies and giving descriptions of them. It provided charts with various learning strategies included. This chapter gave the practical piece of this whole method of teaching. I will be giving a brief synopsis of what was covered in this chapter. This chapter aks why are these learning strategies important? These learning strategies represent the processes underlying lerning. Also, active leraners are better learners. Third, strategies can be learned. Four, academic language learning is more effective with learning strategies. Finally, learning strategies transfer to new tasks. This chapter laid out types of learning strategies. The first one is metacognitive strategies used in planning for leanring, self-monitoring, and evaluating achievement. Metacognitive knowledge is anotehr one mentioned. This is understanding one's own learning processes. Cognitive strategies were mentioned as well which involve maniplating the material to be learned through rehearsal, organization, or elaboration. The final type of learning strategy provided in this chapter was the social/affective strategies which interact with others for learning or using affective control for learning. Next, this chapter goes into how to teach learning strategies. They present preparation which is the evelopment of students' awarenes through a variety of activities, presentation which is teaching the strategy explicitly, practice which provides opportunities for practicing the strategy in varied contexts, evaluation which is teaching studetns toevaluate their own strategy use. Finally, expansion is another way to teach learning strategies which encourages students to apply the strategies in other learning areas.

Topic 5 Pre-Service CALLA Handbook Ch 3

This chapter focuses on academic language. What is academic language exactly? Well academic language is more difficult and takes longer to learn than social language. Academic language also means the language functions needed for authentic academic context. Third, it is the use of both lower-order and higher-order thinking skills. It encompasses everything from seeking infor and using the who, what ,when, where, and how to gather information which is the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy to the most sophisticated and advanced level of Bloom's Taxonomy which is evaluation where a student with assess, synthesize, and verify the worth or an object, idea, or decision. The next question explored in this chapter is why teach academic language now that we know what it is? We must teach it for several reasons. First, a command of academic language is a key to success in the grade level classroom. Second, academic language is best acquired in the classroom and not outside. Third, grade-level content teachers may think that students already have appropriate academic language skills because they are fluent in social language, but as already discussed in the first chapter social language and academic language are two different things. Finally, academic language promotes higher-level thinking and allows for practice in using English.

Next, the chapter moves on to discuss how to select academic language. First, it suggests using observations and recording of language used in content classrooms. In addition, analyze language used in content classrooms. Third, select authentic languge tasks. Finally, allow students the choices in choosing acaeic language to learn and practice.

This chapter wraps up by giving guidelines for teaching academic language. They are the following:

1. Model academic language appropriate to the content topic.
2 Students identify new words and structures they encounter.
3. Provide practice in listening to content information and ansering higher-level questions.
4. Create opportunities for using academic language throug cooperative activities.
5. Have studetns describe, explain, justify, evaluate and express understanding of and feelings about content toics and processes.
6. Have students read and write in evey content subject.
7. Teach learning strategies for all language activities.

Topic 5 Pre-service CALLA Handbook Ch 2

Chapter 2 explores the content-based curriculum in the CALLA model. This model stresses content rather than language which will drive the curriculum. Language skills will be most meaningful when students understand that they are needed in order to accomplish a communicative or academic task. CALLA's focus is on academic tasks within a comminicative context. The chapter then goes into why teach content? Teaching content provides development of important knowledge in different subject areas. Second, it provides practice in the language. Third, students show greater motivation whe nlearning content vs. language learning only. Four, content provides a context for teaching students learning strategies that can be applied to grade-level classroom. This chapter stresses that content should not be watered down or simplified to the point where it is no longer appropriate. This reminded me of the GLAD training we had in the summer. The trainers stressed not watering down the language. The final part of this chapter provided strategies on how to teach content.

1. Hands-on and cooperative experiences.
2. Link the topic of the lesson to prior knowledge.
3. Teach and have students use technical vocabulary appropriate to te content subject.
4. Follow general overview of the lesson or unit in informational chunks. (This was also mentioned in the GLAD training)
5. Show students how to ask and answer high- level questions about content
6. Monitor students' comprehension on an on-going basis.
7. Teach students how to "know when they don't know"
8 Teach students how to use graphic organizers.
9Provide books, articles, and other resources on the content topics.
10. Provide explicit instruction in learning strategies for understanding, recalling, and using content.

Topic 5 Pre-service Calla Handbook Ch 1

This chapter of the CALLA Handbook basically gives us an idea of what CALLA is and who it is for. CALLA is an instructional model designed to meet the needs of students learning English as a second language in American schools. Our ESL students need learning strategies that will help them deal with the dual demands of learning a new language and learning academic content through that new language. From the beginning of the chapter there was an important distinction made. Just because a student can speak and understand English fairly well does not mean that he or she still does not have difficulties in content classrooms where there is an expectation to use English as a tool for learning. Here we have social language vs. academic language. Social communication takes about 2 years to develop; however, a student needs 5-7 years to acquire language skills for successful participation in content classrooms. Again this is important to note that it is a question of cognitive academic language proficiency vs. social interactive language skills. A quick overview of CALLA is the following: targets advanced, beginning, and intermediate levels for three types of ESL students. First, those with social communicative skills but not yet developed academic language skills appropriate to their grade level. Second, students with academic language skills in their primary language and beginning proficiency in English but need help to transfer concepts and skills learning in primary language to English. Third, Bilingual English dominant students who have not developed academic language skills in either language. All three of these cover students I have right now in my classes. a quick overview of CALLA we can break it down into three parts:
1. language development
2. content area instruction
3.explicit instruction in learning strategies.

Finally, this chapter offers a list of the theoretical framework of this model.

1. Learning is an active dynamic process.
2. Three types of knowledge
a. declarative (knowledge of facts)
b. procedural (knowledge of how to do things)
c. Declatative and procedural kowledge are learned in different ways and retrieved in different ways from memory.
d. recognition of procedural and declarative knowledge by teachers. Figure out what strtegies the studetns are using and encourage them.
e. Students have power to control their own learning and develop independentlearning skills.

Reach 104 Assignment #3

In reading this chapter for the second time, the central message in this chapter is to think like an assessor and not like a teacher. How am I going to check/assess that the students have achieved the goals in Stage 1 of UbD? Yesterday when I was doing a lesson with the Tarheels about how to find one less and one more than a number, I had them all in a big circle on the carpet and using the sticks I had enough time to pick between 5-7 to demonstrate after I had modeled 1 time. They had to use the base ten blocks and ones blocks to create a given number that another students had chosen for them and demonstrate using the manipulatives how to construct that number. Then they had to show how to make one less (taking 1 away) and one more ( adding another one block). I was amazed at what I discovered through observation. Some students I thought would not be able to do the task because they were still struggling (or so I thought) with tens and ones and how to make them did a very solid job. One in particular when I pulled her stick out of the cup, I thought to myself, "she is going to struggle and make a lot of errors." Boy did she show me differently! She was not only able to make the number with the blocks, but she went a step further and showed me on the number line where one less and one more would be in relation to the given number. She connected the words before and after which were the concepts the day before to one less and one more. Amazing! What made this amazing for me is that I had thought that she was farther behind in her comprehension of this concept. Some of the other students were amazed, and even her cousin turned around to me and said,"look teacher, she knows." I was full of emotion. My point here is that this was a perfect activity to assess 5-7 children per class period. Could they make the number using the blocks? Could they tell me how many tens and ones? Can they count by 10's? Can they write the number? Can they say the number? Can they find the numbers on a number line? Do they know what to do when there is a number like 30 with no ones? How would they manipulate the blocks to show one less than 30 for example? What would they take away or add? In contrast, another student I called on in the last class simply went up to the board wrote the number the student had given him and filled in the blanks for the number one less than and one more than with no difficulty. Now I asked him to explain. I asked him to prove it and he breezed through the same process. He said, "I know because I have it in my head."

Thinking like an assessor goes beyond just the final paper test. It is a plan to put into place to put all the pieces together to come to a conclusion of what the student understands and is able to transfer over into new situations. Observations, dialogues, performance assessments, tests and quizzes all are assessments that help the teacher. All class period is an assessment from the moment they walk in and do Bellwork to the last activity that we do in Math Meeting. I have to constantly be watching, and it keeps me on my toes because with 81 students it is quite the job. I am pretty good at keeping my mental notes on this but it would be a goal of mine to create some method of being able to record these observations as I see them. I am actually excited about the idea of assessing because it includes so much more than just the paper test. It involves everything you see them do with your eyes and everything you hear them say with your ears!

104 assignment #2

The concept of understanding is really a deep one. I liked that one page 82 the author talks about if you understand it then you can teach it, use it, prove it, connect it, explain it, defend it, defend it, and read between the lines. Understanding is not just knowledge but a deeper meaning that can be broken down into 6 facets. When we truly understand something we can do these six things which the authors call the six facets of understanding. When a person undestands he or she can explain, interpret, apply, have persective, empathize, and have self-knowledge. So far with my students I think I focus a lot on explanation. I am always asking my students to explain or to prove their answers. I tell them that mathematicians can always prove and explain their answers. I tell them that they just don't give the answers, but they go a step further and prove or explain them. In math it is so easy just to accept an answer... a one word answer, but I try to stay out of accepting those type of answers from them. Facet 2 talks about interpretation. In math I ask the questions why do we have to learn this? How can we use this in the real world? For example in learning about money, this concept with directly apply to them when they spend money at a store or make money. Students definately have to know how it applies to them personally. Facet 3 is all about application. How can they use this knowledge in new situations. How and where can I use this knowledge. As my students learn to count by fives and tens, how is this concept applied to other areas of math? If they truly understand then they can apply it to counting money using the nickels and dimes and when they have to count tally marks and grouping things by fives or tens is easier than counting one by one. If they truly understand then they can apply that knowledge of counting by fives and tens to other useful areas in math. Facet four is about perspective. Here the student would be able to ask from whose point of view? Is it reasonable or what is the evidence? Does this mean that understanding something in one way doesn't prevent understanding in other ways? In terms of facet five this is where they are able to get inside another person's feelings and worldview. I can see how this is applied in terms of our school culture; however, when I take this to the level of math, I am not sure at this moment while I am writing this how empathy is applied in the area of math concepts. Help me out here. Facet six is self- knowledge. This is the ability to understand who you are as a learner. It is knowing your strengths and what your weaknesses and what you need to help yourself with understanding. Some of us are visual learners others need objects to manipulate. Some of us do well with lectures and others learn in different ways. WHen I first read this chapter back in August, I thought it was interesting, but it definately caught my attention more now that I can use this to track what I am doing currently with my students and where I need to go with my teaching to make sure that my students can explain, interpret, apply, give perspective, give empathy, and gain self-knowledge about who they are as learners. I tend to think about this not only for my students but for myself as a lifetime learner.

Topic 5 Summer Pre-Service Differentiated Instruction

This article pushed my thinking about differentiation. It does not matter in what classroom I have been in the range is pretty wide in terms of levels. There are always the ones who are above the level being taught and those that are far below. Then there are all the inbetween. When I read this article, it made me realize that all students are different in their readiness to learn, their interest and styles of learning, experiences, and personal circumstances pg 1. Students come into a classroom different from others. I understand that differentiation is not an instructional strategy but a philosophy instead. I also understand that with instruction becoming so standards based that sometimes teachers lose sight of the importance of differentiation. We are so pressured to perform and to show results that meeting the needs of individual students and where they are at become lost in the shuffle. I understand that curriculum tells us what to teach and differentiation tells us how to teach it. I definately want to learn more about differentiated instruction because I am faced with this very issue right now in my classroom. I have some who are beyond and some who are very behind, and I do not feel that I am adequately meeting their needs. This is a delicate issue because even though I want to bring the ones from behind up, I don't want that to be at the expense of keeping the ones who are ready to go beyond held up from pushing forward to reach their potential. I think like the article mentioned we tend to not worry or spend so much time on the ones we know can meet the standard, and so we neglect their needs because they will perform and demonstrate competence anyway. I have also seen teachers not want to spend time and energy on the ones who will not be able to reach the standard no matter what and decide to focus instead on the middle group who have potential to reach the standard and raise test scores. This idea makes me so uncomfortable because it is true. Sadly this is what goes on.

Topic 5 summer pre-service Differentiated Instruction

This article gave an example of a teacher who was working in a center-based school for students who had IQ's higher than 140 and decided to come back to the general ed classroom. She had a 5th grade class, and encountered many challenges. She had a myriad of different learners with completely different issues. As I started reading this article, I began to think wow this is what I have in my classroom too. We have ELL's, students with special education needs, students at grade level, students way below grade level, and students above grade level all wrapped up into one classroom. Where does a teacher even begin to tackle these different issues? How can teaching for all these groups be done? What I liked about this article is that the teacher in the article took responsibility for the success of each student. No student should be left behind or forgotten hoping that he or she can learn how to swim. We have to figure out what each student needs and what are the strengths of each child and build on those instead of looking at their deficiencies. The end of the article gave six principles for fostering equity and excellence in academically diverse learners. Good curriculum, all tasks should respect the learner, when in doubt teach up, use flexible grouping, become and assessment junkie, and grade to reflect growth are the principles listed at the end of the article. I right now feel overwhelmed with the range of levels that I have in my classroom. I have 80 students so being able to differentiate for that number of students seems overwhelming. Some students' needs are obvious, but some are harder to identify for me. Finally this article made me remember that each deserves to be taught and nobody left behind.

Reach 104 Assignment #1

In terms of lesson plans, I have always worked my lessons plans on a weekly basis. I can't seem to work far enough ahead of two weeks when things are running smoothly this is about as far ahead that I can go. Planning by the week has always worked well for me. When I worked in other districts because of the structured curriculums that they had I was able to do grade level lesson plans with my grade level team month by month. What I am struggling with right now at Rocketship is that even though I plan by the week, something may happen that knocks out what I had planned for that day. For example, I had to stop my content lesson two times in the second and third week of school with the Highlanders because we had to go back and do a lesson about Learning position and procedures etc. So I fell behind with that group. I am also finding it hard to plan those lessons for the differentiated groups. I have two students in the Broncos who are very very low in math. One in particular is at beginning kinder math, so I am finding that it is so challenging to create lessons just for her. It is helpful to have the CET person with me on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during the first class because she helps me a lot with these two students. I am thinking that there has to be a better way to plan for these students. The ones that are high and above it is easier for me to incorporate more challenging work for them because I take it a step or two beyond, and they do fine. Overall, I have to say that I like planning by the week. I refer to the LTP to guide my weekly lessons, and so far I am comfortable. I do not feel like a fish swimming upstream. I know my planning could be better, but I know that it will get better as I learn more and practice more.