Classroom Literacy Report

Basic literacy is the ability to read and write, my literacy skills began to develop while I was a small child. It all started with the bedtime stories my mother would read to be. It wasn’t until I got to school that it developed even more as teachers began to teach me how to read and write. I feel that in order to be successful you need to learn how to read and right, that’s why I took pride in learning it. I’m glad that I learned that at a very early age. I notice that to get a good grade on my writings I had to write how my teachers wanted me to write things. In the long run it did pay off because I got good grades on my papers. Obviously you can see that I had to

One of the most eye opening experiences of my life occurred in the second grade. I would have never thought that doing one simple assignment in elementary school could change my whole perspective on literacy. My understanding of literacy was sparked when I had read my first real book. I remember sitting down on the vividly colorful carpet day dreaming about playing Mario Cart on my Nintendo 64 while everyone was obediently listening to the teacher read a book out loud. It wasn’t that I did not know how to read or listen, I just didn’t care. Reading to me used to be tedious because I did not understand the purpose of it. I did not grow up with the luxury of my parents reading to me because they weren’t literate in English, so I had to figure out for myself why literacy is vital in everyday life. My ongoing learning experience with literacy can be traced back to one simple visit to library.

In the prior Literacy Action Plan, the material, resources, and information used and found were done for specific reasons. These reasons were found by using data from state assessments and district assessments from Okeechobee School District. Janice Greenberg stated “Tony Wagner goes on to say that children will need seven basic survival skills to succeed in the world that awaits them which are as follows: 1) Critical thinking and Problem Solving, 2)Collaboration across Networks and Leading by Influence, 3) Agility and Adaptability, 4) Initiative and Entrepreneurialism, 5) Effective Oral and Written Communication, 6) Accessing and Analyzing Information, and 7) Curiosity and Imagination” (Greenberg, 2011). These are also reasons why students should be proficient in reading and writing and why we have to write a Literacy Action Plan so we have action set into place to help our students achieve proficient scores in Reading and Writing.

The teacher passed around a microphone to each child, it symbolized who was speaking and this made everyone special. The students then had to write two sentences and draw a picture of what they remembered best about their holiday break. Eventually, they shared their two sentences with the teacher or me. Second, I noticed that once everyone read their journals, the teacher quickly called on students based on their bin color, which meant it was time for reading to begin. Each student had their own colored reading bin which included: three reading level books, a word list of the week, and a worksheet using the given word list. The colored bins symbolized what the student was to complete during reading time. For example; students with yellow bins read with the teacher at a table, students with green bins worked on the worksheet, students with blue bins read the three books quietly, and students with pink bins worked on writing on a small whiteboard the word list for the week. This strategy was beneficial because it developed independence. Thirdly, I noticed enthusiasm during the math lesson at the end of the day. The teacher had the students sit on the purple rug for a math lesson. The teacher used her laptop and the video clip to provide the students with visual instruction. Once the video clip was over, the teacher pulled up the worksheet to preview together with the class. Then the students went back to their desk to work on the worksheet

The literacy narratives were not only a means to base where my writing skills are at, but take in information about people I barely know. Amongst my group, I would have to say the two foreign students had my attention indefinitely the entire time, because I was intrigued to hear about their journey to the U.S. The both of them had suffered great culture shock and went through the tedious process of learning American English. I can only assume that the difficulty was astronomical at first, due to the fact that we don’t speak proper English a majority of the time, which conflicts with the rigid learning that comes with learning a secondary language. It’s something about that culture shock that interests me as it shows a certain determination

Today Students of Mrs.Mcmanus's literacy class observed the seventh-grade students of Mrs. Holyoak’s gym class in the annex gym. Luke Cahill reports that as soon as the seventh graders entered the room you could tell that the group was a high-energy one. Right away there were to boy pushing each other around in a playful manner which also gave of the mood. The class began with a warm-up that included adding and multiplying numbers that were shot from fingers and then whoever got the answer first would run to the next corner of the gym. This warm-up lead to a very loud atmosphere where kids were flying all over the room from corner to corner screaming out answers to the math problems that appeared on their fingers. Although most of the students

Contemporary literacy learning is a personalised approach to responding to the interests, experiences and learning needs of the student. Contemporary literacy learning is about managing diversity, understanding and accepting students differences and knowing their points of entry so that they may experience a planned learning journey that is tailored to their individual learning needs. Pickering and Painter (2005) discuss using Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development so that student’s knowledge will expand and they will be engaged. Contemporary literacy learning refers to an inclusive, positive strength based approach which focuses on the student’s strengths and interests (Comber & Kamler 2004 p 296). Albright and Walsh (2009) discuss a

This week was exciting for me. I am actually going to be in the classroom three times this week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I am excited to see what happens on Friday because it will be a new day and will be full of new adventures. We also get to dress up like a character from Because of Winn Dixie; I plan on being Ms. Franny the librarian. One high from this week was I taught my first lesson and it went really well. The students loved my lesson they had so much fun and their reactions were hysterical. My cooperating teacher also gave me positive feedback on my lesson and she said that she could tell the students really enjoyed my lesson. One of the most exciting parts of my lesson however, was the ending when we had our discussion. I could tell that the students had really learned the importance of adding detail and specifics to their sequencing writing. One low from the week was that I had to have a discussion with one of my students about respect. The teacher then confronted the student and they had to write me a note apologizing for being disrespectful. I hope that I will still be able to build a strong relationship with this student, and that our relationship is not strained because of this interaction. Even

I made a few adjustments in my plan today. Instead of playing my sight word game, we read a story that I decided to bring last minute. I figured if the students got bored we would read it. I was so thankful I brought it! With this story we wrote sentences and drew pictures to match. This was the perfect time to review with the two students from yesterday who needed their picture to match their sentence. I also finished the morning meeting way sooner than I had expected. For the five minutes we waited on Ms. Pray we did DEAR time. I thought this was a good idea because it gave the student’s choices in what they were reading.

ENGLISH with Mrs. Spade… AWESOME FIRST WEEK! Our Dolphin Team did an excellent job assimilating to ODS over the past couple of days. We settled in, wrote a quick persuasive piece, and read the first chapter of The View From Saturday. I am already impressed and know we have a solid group this year.

Butterfly is an animal that often attracts the curiosity of children. This majestical, yet delicate creature, is colorful, can fly, and goes through metamorphosis. Who wouldn’t be interested in such an insect? With that in mind, I created this unit plan in which children will learn about the life cycle of the butterfly as well as some math concepts. Both notions are supported by NYS standards. This unit will start with the butterfly life cycle, then move on to counting, sorting and categorizing, shapes, and problem solving.

Each classroom has age appropriate centers that are available for the children at any time. All of materials are reachable for the children as the children are capable of making independent decisions. Classrooms are divided into following centers, reading area/group time area, art/meal area, writing center, light/science area, block area (hollow and unit block), sensory area (water table), manipulative/math/reasoning center, and dramatic play area.

After reporting the outcomes of this research, researchers decided to distinguish between the main literacy assessment and different core literacy tasks, like underlining a sentence in a paragraph. Researchers mentioned that the core tasks “required little or no inference on the part of the respondent” (p.2). In fact, the major literacy assessment—the part including real reading—was the part which needed inference. In other words readers make inferences as they recognize information in a text (Pressley,

Wednesday, I made sure that the students chanted their chunks on the carpet. Then the students went back to their desks, they already knew what to do for spelling. I put our spelling poster up on the board had the students play Soccer with their spelling words. The phonics lesson for the day was the same as Tuesday except for wit /ir/ instead of /er/. I saw surprised that some of the students were still singing the bossy r song. When prompted all of the students could sing it. When we were reading our Basel books I would occasionally ask students to stop, point, and spell a word that was on their spelling test. For homework,

During this photovoice assignment, I became enlightened on the literary culture at the school in which I am conducting my observation. I toured the school’s hallways and my clinical supervisor’s classroom as if it were a museum deliberately designed for literacy. I closely examined many of the school’s bulletin boards, posters, bookshelves, and classrooms with the sole purpose of unearthing the culture of literacy in the elementary school. The many steps I took to and fro each classroom and hallway taking pictures of every literarily related item I could find were not in vain. In fact, walking around the school and digitally capturing every bit of literacy culture allowed me to identify not only the strengths and the weaknesses of the literacy customs incorporated by the school, but it also provided me with literacy strategies I could integrate into my own lesson plan when I become an educator.