Shannon Slate

Shannon Slate Question #1

There are several crucial literacy understandings that kindergarten students should master before entering first grade. Kindergarteners should be familiar with the structural elements and organization of print. This takes in many smaller concepts. Students should be able to recognize and write most of the letters in the alphabet. They should also have some concept of phonemic awareness, which is the understanding that words are segmented into smaller units. By the end of kindergarten they should be able to represent at least beginning and ending consonant sounds in their attempt to spell words.

Students should have a concept of word and be able to finger point read simple text as well as recognize a few frequently occurring sight words. Students should understand how print is organized and have a concept of how print works. This includes front and back of book, print moves from left to right, and words make sentences. They need to be familiar with the format of books. Not only are these concepts important but also it is crucial that students become motivated to learn to read and establish good perspectives and attitudes that enhance this learning.

These concepts can easily be taught. A great way to teach these concepts is through big books. Children can learn to finger point and the concept of a word and a sentence by watching the teacher model reading with big books. Repeated readings and repeated words help them learn sight words. Big books also help introduce letter-sound correspondence. Predictable books and other small books give children a chance to handle books and explore their format. The language experience approach is another way to teach written language. You can write about what you experience as a classroom.

Within three days of activities you have modeled and pointed out; spoken to written language, finger pointing, words, sentence structure, sight words, letters and sounds, and given them an opportunity to point and read. Another great way to teach phonics in kindergarten is by using picture cards that match letters and playing games with three letters at a time. Also, giving children an opportunity to use inventive spelling in their writing helps them practice letter sound knowledge. Students in kindergarten can be motivated to read and gain positive attitudes about reading by being read to. Simply reading books to your students can teach them that reading is fun, meaningful, and that stories have a rhythm. They also learn new vocabulary by hearing books read. Reading to children is a very important part of teaching children to read.

These literacy understandings can be assessed using four simple tasks. The first assessment is alphabet knowledge. The child names upper and lower case letters in random order as the teacher points to them. Then the child writes lower case letters as the teacher directs. Next, assess concept of word in text using the “Katie” book. Teacher and child echo, point, and read each page as teacher watches for voice-print match and then ask child to repeat specific words. Then a spelling assessment is performed by calling out six words for the child to spell on their own. Finally, word recognition is assessed by the child attempting to read ten words as the teacher points to them one at a time. These four tasks can quickly tell you where a child is in the process of learning to read. Shannon Slate Question 2

Over the years reading programs in the United States have gone back and forth from one extreme to another, when all the time a balanced program would have been the best. Each phase in the history of reading has provided us with further understanding of what types of reading instruction and materials are needed for struggling beginning readers. The basal readers of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s such as Dick and Jane introduced repetitively words that frequently occurred in language. Phonics was incorporated but was introduced very slowly. There wasn’t a great deal of emphasis on phonics because these books were teaching whole words that weren’t decodable. This type of text wasn’t good for students with poor visual memorization skills. They needed to be taught how to decode words. We learned that there needed to be more phonics earlier in first grade, which lead to more phonics in the basals by the 70’s. However, the basals went from too little phonics to too much phonics and overloaded the low readers. During this period teachers felt as if they had no control in how they taught in their own classrooms and we realized the reading program needed something else. In the late 1980’s whole language with natural real literature hit the United States and proclaimed that kids would all learn to read by whole group and by simply plunging into reading and writing. However, a big drop in scores from the whole language period taught us that this wasn’t the way to go either. This approach also taught us that struggling readers need good natural language literature, books on their level, the modeling of big books, and to be able to inventively spell in their writing. The recent push back to phonics and decodable books is correct again in that we need some phonics instruction but most decodable books don’t contain natural language and they move too quickly for struggling readers. Each of these periods in reading has contributed to our understanding of struggling beginning readers.

An ideal first grade reading program would be a balance of the techniques used in the past and present. Text used in a first grade classroom should be interesting and meaningful. They need to contain natural language and predictability. They should engage and flow to keep the readers eyes moving across the page and reading beyond the word. However these text need to be highly phonetically decodable. Struggling readers will better develop decoding and word recognition if they read good text that supports this. The text should have word control and contain high frequency words and low frequency words that can be decoded using phonics. These books should also include adequate repetition of these words. In an ideal classroom students would also receive direct systematic phonics instruction in isolation. It is also important that the students engage in shared reading activities modeled by the teacher and be given the opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of reading. Shannon Slate Question #3

Routman wanted more for students during the period of the whole language approach but was afraid to venture to far away from the popular way of teaching reading.

She attempted to combine the whole language theory with traditional aspects of first grade reading instruction. In the article she combined the two in several ways. The whole language theory came into the classroom through all the whole group activities.

She believed that the majority of time devoted to reading should take place with the whole class through shared book experiences. Routman felt that all students should be exposed to the same literature and questioning. The majority of the schedule was spent in whole group. The teacher read aloud several books and poems and included lots of higher level questioning. Whole group time also included reading strategies and phonics within the context of big books. About four minutes was given to whole group phonics instruction. Following this was writing collaboratively. Journal writing was allotted thirty minutes with teacher guidance. Finally, at the end of the two and a half hour reading block, after one hour and thirty minutes of whole group, was fifty-five minutes of reading groups. Small reading groups were where Routman brought in the traditional aspects of first grade instruction. This time included fifteen to twenty minutes of instruction for each of the three groups. Within this group time students were reading a predictable book with continuous meaningful text. Students participated in many readings until the book was ready to send home to be read, practiced, and enjoyed.

I believe there were strengths and weaknesses to Routman’s program. Her strengths were the ability to manage small group time where children who weren’t with her were participating in other engaging activities. She also had three small groups, which allowed her to give students more differentiated instruction. Within the groups she read books that were on the students individual levels. She also included some very good activities during whole group shared reading time such as big books and children’s literature as well as collaborative writing from text and language experiences. However, her weaknesses were also evident. I believe she feared putting too much emphasis on small reading groups. She could have spent more time differentiating instruction within even smaller groups so that students received more individual instruction. All of the phonics in her program was quick, in context, and within the whole group setting. I believe phonics is something students need systematically and in isolation and should be taught in small groups according to their needs. She should have been teaching more phonics within small groups. She also taught reading strategies whole group and didn’t mention reinforcing these within the groups. Her reading groups basically consisted or reading and rereading and I think more and varied instruction could have taken place there.