Week 9 Reading

I chose the following article:
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/accommodating-students-dyslexia-all-classroom-settings

Three things that I learned from this article include:  a number of ways to accommodate dyslexic students involving materials, involving interactive instruction, and involving student response.  These three categories each had a large number number of suggestions to accommodate students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.  The most important thing that I learned from this article is that while dyslexic students need accommodations, there are a number of things that teachers can do that are neither time consuming or difficult to help these students.  So often you hear that it takes too much time or is too difficult to change your lesson to help students who are struggling, but this article disproved those arguments by giving reasonable suggestions.

It doesn't take too much time to make accommodations to help your students!

Week 9 Activity

I am going to be doing the following activities from Chapter 7 with Liv (I still need to choose a book):

These activities all focus on collecting evidence from the story, which is vital to comprehension.  Liv usually does really well with relating to characters and their feelings, which is why I chose the first two activities.  I chose the third because I feel that it is important for every student to be able to determine the purpose of text.

Week 8 Reading

I chose the article Dyslexia: Beyond the Myth since I am working with Liv, who has dyslexia.  The article had tons of facts about dyslexia that are all signs that I see when I work with Liv.  The article said that students with dyslexia need explicit, systematic, structured, multisensory instruction.  I also learned that students with dyslexia have difficulties with oral language, written language, reading handwriting, math, motor skills, attention and organization.  I thought it was interesting that the article clarifies that dyslexia is not just reversing words and letters, that that is only part of the problem.  Perhaps the most important thing that I took from this article is that students with dyslexia can learn, they just learn in a different way.  Individuals with dyslexia are often very intelligent people, they just have a language learning difference.

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/dyslexia-beyond-myth

Everyone learns differently!

Week 7 Activity

I will be using the book that I previously mentioned, The Name Jar by  Yangsook Choi to do the following activities:

I believe that the first activity will help Liv with comprehension because she seems to be able to relate with other people's feelings to understand things.  Activity two focuses on the theme and the sequence of events which will also help me to gauge Liv's comprehension.  The last activity will hopefully help Liv learn some new words and maybe aid in decoding and fluency. 

Week 7 Reading

Chapter 4
Three important things/ideas from this chapter are that collaboration involves achieving a goal, rules need to be explained and modeled before small group collaboration, and educators need to monitor students as they work.  The most important concept that I learned is that students can't be expected to provide a good written response if they can't "talk it."

Chapter 5
Three important things/ideas that I learned from this chapter are that great answers result because students know what kind of evidence to look for when they read, a great answer is neither too long or too short, and that answer frames are useful to students who are just learning to write.  The most important concept that I learned from Chapter 5 is that all great answers always reference the text with specific examples or details.

Week 6 Reading

Three important things from Chapter 3 are explanation,modeling, and bridging.  These are all important components of explicit instruction that will help students to be independent readers.  Teachers need to explain their objective for reading before students read so that they know what to look for.  When teachers model a strategy they need to connect the point they are modeling back to the strategy, make sure their modeling is brief and has good examples.  Bridging is the point in which teachers check students' understanding by releasing responsibility to the students.  This should last about 10-15 minutes and helps teachers determine what to teach next and who needs more instruction.  The most important thing that I learned in this chapter was that students need time to talk, whether in a whole group setting, small groups or a turn and talk.  Students are more likely to express themselves freely by speaking to classmates, allowing them the chance to interact with the text.

Week 6 Activity

Here is the link to my VoiceThread!  Let me know if anyone has trouble viewing it.

https://ed.voicethread.com/new/share/6590066/