Power Of Pattern Books Thesis

In chapter five, by Cris Tovani, “Why Am I Reading This” explains how educators need to establish a clear reading instructional plan. In order to accomplish understanding students need to concentrate on main ideas from the readings. Tovani explains that it is vital for teachers to model how students should hold their thinking or slow down their reading. Throughout the chapters she gives examples as question strategies, highlighting text, or summarizing key points. As this will benefit students in their reading assignment. Tovani also explains throughout the chapter that teachers should model thinking aloud. This strategy will benefit students on how to negotiate difficult text.

“The more you read, the more things you know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” This is how Dr. Seuss thought of reading, and I think of it in much the same way. Literacy is everywhere and influences us every day, therefore, it plays a major part in each of our lives. I believe that reading is an interactive activity in which learning happens, or as Clay (2001) defines it, “…a message-getting, problem-solving activity” (p. 1). Reading is the process through which one reads information and from doing so, constructs meaning about the material. The more exposure and practice one has with reading, the more knowledge one gains. In this paper, I will begin by discussing my own personal educational philosophy, then continue by stating and explaining four of my beliefs about the reading process and the research that is found to support each of them before sharing the remaining questions I have about literacy. I am an existentialist, and a strong supporter of a balanced literacy approach. My beliefs about literacy come from these foundations and perspectives that I embrace. For students to be successful in their literacy development, I believe that identity acceptance in the classroom is crucial, instruction for all students must be differentiated, direct and explicit instruction is at times necessary, and vocabulary is a significant component in the ‘Big Five’ of children’s literacy development.

To assist students to “read with purpose and anticipation,” Vacca et al. (2014, p. 173) suggests, in their book Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum, that teachers need to “create an instructional context” that activates their students’ “prior knowledge” and helps them to become interested in a lesson. Throughout chapter six, “Activating Prior Knowledge and Interest,” Vacca et al. (2014, pp. 172-173) explain instructional strategies that can lead students to “read with purpose and anticipation.” This chapter presents the reader with a plethora of instructional strategies and means for applying them, along with example for real educators. As I journeyed through this chapter, I discovered many instructional strategies,

Over all, her work has been cited 440 times in other scholarly works. Considered a reliable source among her peers, her writing consists of analyzing what is hot and not in common core literacy standards, the utilization of pattern books in the classroom, reading techniques for mentally or physically disabled students, utilizing Pinterest as a tool in developing content knowledge, and diagnostic and correction of reading habits. Additionally, in 2007 Grote-Garcia contributed to a scholarly article on professional resources. Furthermore, several of her articles have been published Literacy Today. The submission process for Literacy Today simply involves an individual submitting a question, pitch, or article to the provided email on their website on Literacy Today’s website (December). Overall, Stephanie Grote-Garcia’s professional opinion is that educators need to stay on top of the hottest trends in literacy development and comprehension building in the classroom (Google Scholar). This includes the utilization of pattern books, reevaluating common core’s literacy impact on struggling readers, and developing a student’s knowledge base in struggling readers. Throughout all the material that she has contributed to, all possess the common thread of developing literacy skills in students.

Reading is the beginning of every child’s learning. The basis of education begins with learning to read. Short (2010) explained that literature acts as “an inquiry to life” and a “way of knowing” (p. 50). However, in order to support children’s learning, it is essential to show children that learning is interesting from a young age. When Short first began teaching using worksheets and a basal reading program, she wrote, “I often felt that children were learning to read in spite of me” (p. 49). The students were not learning to think critically. However, when she began introducing literature circles to her students, she saw them “critically exploring their understandings with each other” (p. 49).

Reading comprehension may be the most important skill for any student to acquire and is therefore an area of particular interest to educators. Without adequate comprehension skills, students are limited in their reading, analytical and occupational abilities. To many, including the student’s themselves, comprehension or “good reading” skills begin and end with simple decoding. It is thought that if students can ‘read’ and define the vocabulary they are reading, then they also comprehend what is read. True comprehension goes far beyond decoding, however. True comprehension requires visualization of a text, predicting events in the text, making inferences about the text and clarifying what is not

meaning of the story or poem, know little, if anything at all, about the author,

* Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and information in texts that they listen to, view and read by drawing on growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1660), (ACARA, 2012). Learning to read is essentially learning to decode and understand the words/language written in the story and to construct meanings from those words (literacy) (Nicole & Roberts, 1993). The more language the children (and adults) hear and read the more developed their vocabulary will become (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998, Nicole & Roberts, 1993, Anderson et al, 1985). Reading fluency is enhanced with an enlarged

In 2011, the professional journal, Theory Into Practice, included an article titled, “Comprehension as Social and Intellectual Practice: Rebuilding Curriculum in Low Socioeconomic and Cultural Minority Schools.” The authors, Allan Luke, Annette Woods, and Karen Dooley, focus on the issue of reshaping the reading curriculum, particularly comprehension, in diverse schools, such as low socioeconomic status and cultural minority. This article highlights a different view of comprehension and a new way to teach comprehension to diverse students to help them truly learn and grasp comprehension when reading. As I hope to become a leader, it is beneficial to learn about different curriculum developments and research the effects of the changes in different curriculums. I chose this article, because since I am a first grade teacher and I teach comprehension, I thought this may be helpful to me as an educator, as I could compare my curriculum of teaching comprehension to this article’s ideas of rebuilding their curriculum. In addition, I have students in my classroom that are diverse that could benefit from my new learning from the information in this article.

In the introductory lesson, I build my students’ knowledge about nonfiction text and text features by identifying the different text features then defining them (instructional material 1.1) in lesson 2, I review the previous days lesson, learning task, and academic language, and vocabulary terms before I introduce the learning target and learning task of the days lesson building new knowledge to their prior knowledge (instructional material 2.1). Each lesson segment build on each other to support students’ development of the literacy strategy. The support and instructional strategy included in the learning segments are applicable to all of my all of my students learning needs, including my student on an IEP and my struggling readers because of my knowledge of my students’ assets which I used to inform my choices when planning my instructional

Textbooks have been an essential tool for the teaching of Mathematics and Science subjects at the secondary level for many decades. The role of a textbook in the classroom is a complex one, not only do they provide a teacher with a large bank of problems and exercises for students to complete, they often serve as a general teaching guide on a subject wide level, as well as for specific topics within a subject. The purpose of this essay is to provide a brief overview of the current research into the role of textbooks in the classroom, as well as the use of textbooks in the classroom by both teachers and students.

Reading comprehension is often difficult for students with dyslexia because of continuing demands on orthographic decoding in combination with limited working memory (Special Education Support Service, 2011). Teachers can develop structure which encourages students to have better comprehension strategies to help with their reading. A structure which a teacher could use would be to use oral language to discuss the material, asking questions such as “What was the title? who were the characters?, and what was the main part of the story?” can help students with comprehension strategies. Reid points outs that often students get lost in the decoding tasks and comprehension is a secondary role. It is important to provide prompts to encourage and promote comprehension (Reid, 2013). Learning this way allows students to organise the information into components such as characters, story and ending. This will help the student retain information for new

Reading comprehenison is an essential compontent to reading. Altough, students with literacy challenges often times lack the strategies need to effectivily comprhend the material they read. Several key components to readng comprehension include applying background knoweldge, asking questions of self and text, summarizing, monitorying understanding and looking to clarify information. Once students with liteacy challenges learn the strategy they struggle with knowing when to use it, if its effective and adapitng to meet their needs.

A common struggle for this particular age group regarding literacy is in transitioning the innate literal views of childhood to a much broader understanding of figurative worlds of language seen commonly in more advanced writing and literature (Ming and Dukes 23). They go on to explain the importance of implementing learning systems in which the “big 5” factors of reading comprehension are addressed directly, and include Phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. They insist that early successes in language arts tend to lead to prosperous behaviors down the road, while early struggles can easily lead to frustration and calamity in the future (26). My lesson encourages exploration by using literature circles to encourage imaginative exploration to familiarize students with the tools they can use to navigate through these overlapping

In this information–driven age, preparing students to read a variety of texts with complete understanding should likely be one of our educational system’s highest priorities. Understanding is more than just the ability to produce information on demand (knowledge) or the ability to perform learned routines (skills). “Understanding is the ability to think and act flexibly with what one knows.” (Active Learning Practice for Schools, n. d.) A review of the literature in the area of reading comprehension of elementary-age students shows two principle areas of focus. There is a body of literature that examines the development of proficient vs. struggling comprehenders and another body of literature that compares methodologies for teaching