Recitation: Choral Reading

The literacy block should consist of a balance of whole-group, small-group, and independent practice. Tyner states, “The challenge in orchestrating the literacy block can be best described as putting together a literacy jigsaw puzzle.” (Tyner,2009). The components of a balanced literacy block should include modeled reading such as a read-aloud which should include texts above the students’ reading level, modeled writing so that teachers have the opportunity to demonstrate how a writer thinks while writing about a text, shared reading which includes the teacher reading most of the text but also allows the students to engage in choral reading with grade-level appropriate texts, shared writing to be used to focus on comprehension but may include the writing process as long as it is used together, small-group differentiated reading and writing, and independent reading and writing so that students can use the skills learned previously to produce a final product.

Introduction to reading comes through phonetic reading boxes. The reading boxes are cleverly organized, going from simple to the complex. Reading does not follow the same process of writing, which is taking our own thoughts and symbolizing. When we read, it is not our language with which we are working with, it is the author’s language. Reading is the analysis of the language followed by a synthesis. Story telling and socio-dramatic play in the environment can help the child develop an imagination that fosters a higher capability to understand what is being read to them.

Reading: Locates, understands, and interprets written information in prose and documents--including manuals, graphs, and schedules--to perform tasks; learns from text by determining the main idea or essential message; identifies relevant details, facts and specifications; infers or locates the meaning of unknown or technical vocabulary; and judges the accuracy, appropriateness, style, and plausibility of reports, proposals, or theories of other writers.( 134 USDOL)

Opportunities for sharing books and rhymes – Looking at books with adults seems to promote children’s languages. All settings should have a place where the children can look at books independently or share the book with an adult. The area needs to be warm, cosy and comfortable. The books need to be attractive and displayed so that the children can access them easily. As well as sharing books, language rich environments also provide opportunities for children to learn a use new rhymes and songs. Rhymes and songs are known to encourage children to vocalise.

“A Poetry Reading At West Point” is a five stanza poem in which William Matthews writes about an author reading his poetry to a freshman class at West Point Military Academy. Matthew translates dialogue between an author and a cadet, a trainee in military school. In fact, the poet writes this poem in first person point of view to show the perspective of an author reading out poetry. Every five stanzas in this poem includes six lines which is a sestet. The first couple of lines of the poem demonstrate where the speaker is reading and to who he is reading to. For example, “Twice the hall filled with bodies dressed alike,” evaluates the hall in the Military Acadmey is filled with soldiers all dressed alike because of their uniforms. Readers

The first poem starts out with the repeated lines, however the reader does not know they are repeated at this point. The ‘we’

I struggled with Romeo and Juliet until I began to speak the dialogue aloud; and interestingly enough, I saw a boost in my quiz grades. I wish all teachers would encourage their students to read audibly. It helped Rose and I, and I believe it could help many more

Reading in these groups teaches the children to take turns, listen, offer support to one another, share views, stretch their imagination and raise their self-esteem.

additional groups to work independently, reading at their own specific level. The roles of the teacher

We included whisper reading as the during-reading activity, to give students a chance to read independently but without the pressure of having an audience. As they read to themselves, students will pause at words they are struggling to pronounce and break them apart, at this point we will continue guiding students through this process, in order ensure that motivation is not lost when students feel challenged. To gauge the learnings of the students, we will have each student chose one word that they struggle with and create a master list, the students will practice pronouncing their individual words and receive clarifying definitions if necessary. The students will then create their own sentence using this word, practice it through whisper readings, and then share it aloud with the group. This process creates a learning experience where students are able to practice not only their phonics skills but also work on comprehension.

Whether the task is understanding mathematical word problems, analyzing research articles in science, or summarizing instructions from a shop class manual, it is self-evident that learning cannot occur independently of reading. Furthermore, Trelease cites the 1983 Department of Education report, which reads, “The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children,” (Trelease, The Read-Aloud Handbook, 2013, p. 1). From an evidentiary standpoint, this report draws credibility from a compilation of twenty five years’ worth of research projects and is given its authority because of its connection to the Board of Education. On the same token, Trelease introduces findings from another report, this time from doctors Hart and Risely at the University of Kansas. In short, their findings strongly correlated the volume of words heard at home to student success at school (Trelease, The Read-Aloud Handbook, 2013, p. 2). When the students heard fewer words at home, students were less successful; inversely, when students heard more words at home, students were more successful. In conclusion, Trelease’s ultimate supposition rests on these conclusions: literacy is extremely valuable in general education, while reading aloud is crucial to developing

Repetition is an important element of both “Introduction to Poetry” and “The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently”, because it deepens the reader’s understanding of the poems’ messages. In the poem “Introduction to Poetry”, Collins repeats the first-person declarative phrase “I ask…”, “I say...”, and “I want...” (Collins 1, 5, 9) three times, establishing a norm throughout the poem so that the reader can focus on the juxtaposition of how Collins wants his readers to interact with poetry and how these readers instead want to squeeze every drop of meaning from the poem. For example, the first instance Collins writes “I ask them to...” (Collins 1), he is setting a foundation that will be built upon throughout the rest of the poem. Collins establishes

As a reader voice is the major component of reading because you’re able to illustrate and control the story in the way the author wanted. For example reading a horror story the tone of a readers voice sound illustrate the sound of fear and anger. Day 4: “Sentence fluency is the rhythm and flow of the language, the sound of word patterns, the way in which the writing plays to the ear, not just to the eye” (Education Northwest, 2014). It’s important to read with fluency because it shows reading comprehension and the ability to process words. I personally feel that each student in the course understood how important sentence fluency was because during reading students were correcting one another when a word was missed or not pronounce right. This showed me that Mrs. Morrow had reach her students and showed them why reading is important. Day 5: During the last day of my practicum observation the last literacy trait that was discussed was ideas. The instructor had a period after reading that each students share ideas amongst the class of the reading material and what they felt would occur in other chapters. This strategy wasn’t only educational but it also offered students fun and way to communicate.

In 2014, Marion Long conducted a study on the effects of rhythm-based music training on children’s reading ability. It was found as a result of the study that music had a profoundly positive impact on children’s ability to read. Of the students tested, after the music intervention, reading levels improved to correlate with his/her chronological age or exceeded their age

The poem can be used in a lot of ways to implement other language arts activities but the highlight of this activity is coming up with silly or fun body movements to accompany the choral reading of the poem. Doing the body movements creates lots of laughter and giggling. The fun, being silly, and the laughter, relaxes the children, helping to being more receptive to soaking in new information. This also lights a spark in the students to learn the moves and memorize the poem so that they can share it with the family.