Revisiting Read-Aloud: Instructional Strategies That Encourage Students' Engagement With Texts

     This article describes evidence based practices that encourage students' interactions with printed material. It is hoped that these interactions of student involvement with print will lead to intrinsic motivation to read regularly and widely.
     The read aloud process is enormously  beneficial to literacy learning. The reader incorporates variations in pitch, tone, pace, volume, eye contact, questions, and comments to produce a fluent and enjoyable delivery.
Read aloud is the single most important activity for building knowledge required for successful reading. It builds listening, speaking and reading skills.
     I am currently reading Charlotte's Web to my second graders. We are going to see the play on Thursday and I wanted them to be familiar with the story. I decided to give them the alphaboxes worksheet and instructed them to try to write down  8 things they heard that they knew about or wanted to know about.
After each chapter, we discussed words, phrases, questions, ideas and anything else  they wrote in the alphaboxes. For some, it was a struggle to get 8 words on their worksheet.  We are not quite through with the read aloud yet, but I do think this activity is helping them understand the vocabulary and to comprehend better..
     After seeing the play, I do plan to compare and contrast the book with the play.

GPS
ELA2LSV1 - The student uses oral & visual strategies to communicate.
ELA2R1 - The student applies knowledge of letter-sound correspondence and spelling patterns to decode   unfamiliar words. 
ELA2R2 - The students acquires and uses grade level words to communicate effectively.
ELA2R4 - The student uses a variety of strategies to gain meaning from grade level text.

Phonemic Awarness Activity

     For the Phonemic Awareness Activity, I chose to do  Beginnning - Middle - End, which is a three step activity activity from Words Their Way. Instead of using a pocket chart for a whole class activity, I used index cards and sat at a kidney shaped table with a small group of children, including one ESOL student. These students are six of the lowest readers in second grade. One is a stutterer, one is ESOL, one is being placed in special education, one has some kind of seizures, and the other two are just beginning reaeders
     I taught them the song first. Then we began with an easy word face down on the table. I did the first one in sequence of how it was spelled and then mixed up the sequence of the other words. I did this with six
words so that every student had a turn. This activity will be beneficial to this group of students. It is just another opportunity to learn a skill to help them read.

Picture Book - GPS in Science

     I chose the picture book, Butterfly House by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Greg Shed. This poignant  story is beautifully written and illustrated, seeming personal and from the heart. In this story, a young girl saves a caterpillar from being eaten by a hungry bluejay. Her grandfather helps her make a butterfly house to keep it safe. They decorate the house with colorful flowers and leaves and watch the larvae as it transforms from caterpillar to buttefly. Time comes for the girl to set the butterfly free. Grandfather tells of a time when he, too raised a butterfly and set it free. Years pass and the girl grows into an old woman. Each spring, an abundance of butterflies come to her garden. Is it because she showed a kindness to a caterpillar many years ago as a child?
     The book does not disclose what happens in the "between" years. However, the  human life cycle  is implied. Grandfather is no longer in the story and the little girl is an old woman.
     I began this lesson by asking, "What do you know about butterflies?" We wrote responses like "they are pretty, they can fly, they come from caterpillars, on the board. Then I introduced four vocabulary words and wrote short definitions on the board as follows:
          larvae - just hatched baby insects
         chrysalis - a cocoon like house
          falter - to stumble or lose strength
         nectar - sweet, clear, honeylike juice in flowers (like what is in honeysuckles)
      After the vocabulary discussion, I read the book. We discussed if what we thought was true and how all living things change. We  talked about other changes in the story (we had a poster, "How will you change?" and we talked about that. They said the grandfather died (and went to heaven). Then the students wrote and drew the four stages of a butterfly.
     The next day I reviewed by  recalling facts. Then I paired the students together and had them read factual information about butterflies and then draw the stages of a butterfly. We also watched a brief clip of butterflies migrating.
     I would change the time of year that I taught this lesson. I think it would be better to teach in the spring with life cycles of frogs and birds. I would let the children make butterfly houses and I would order a live kit (http://www.nature-gift.com/) and let the children actually raise and release Painted Lady butterflies.
     I think it helped to preteach the vocabulary. The children seemed to understand what I meant as I was reading.

GPS Science Standard:  S2L1.  Students will investigate the life cycles of different living organisms
    
    

Internet Sites of Interest

     Many author websites have activities, videos, coloring sheets, and contact information. I especially like Jan Brett's website, http://www.janbrett.com/. She has written many great children's books and you can find something about  all of them on her website. It is great for parents, teachers and students.
     Reading Rockets, http://www.readingrockets.org/, is another website that I liked. It is user friendler for parents and teachers and has links to other sites. It has lessons, activities and reading strategies to help children learn to read.
     I checked out http://www.readwritethink.org/. It has lots of information for teacher including sample activities. However, you have to purchase the actual activities. Most of us have enough expenses and are looking for free information and activities.
     Reading is fundamental, http://www.rif.org/, is a non-profit children's literacy organization whose primary goal is to bring reading motivation to all children, especially the disadvantaged. It is a good website for teachers. There is access to literacy issues, booklists, activities and articles.

Picture Book Power: Connecting Children's Literature and Mathematics

     Interdisciplinary connections between literature and math can be made with picture books. Children's Literature becomes a vehicle for meaningful learning in mathematics, teaches children to value math and encourages them to use critical thinking skills to become problem solvers.  It explores a variety of mathmatical topics and makes math meaningful in a way in which children can relate. It also helps children to makes the text to self, text to text and text to world connections.
    One of my favorite books is Patricia Polacco's Thunder Cake. This story is based on Ms. Polacco's childhood fear of thunder and her real life experiences with her  Babushka (Russian for Grandmother).
It is the story of a young girl who hides under the bed when there are thunder storms. Babushka finally declares upon the first loud clap of thunder of a big thunderstorm that it is time to bake Thunder Cake.
    Babushka takes the child scurring around the farm to find the list of ingredients, all while the storm is  getting closer. She teaches the young girl to count the seconds between seeing the lightening and hearing the thunder to calculate the how many miles away the storm actually is from them. They must get the ingredients and get the cake in the oven before the storm arrives for it to be a real Thunder Cake. By occupying the young girl's mind in the quest to make Thunder Cake, she forgets about being afraid of the storm. When all the ingredients are gathered, they measure and bake the cake.While it bakes, they set the table and make tea. The cake is ready just in time.
     This can be used to introduce/teach elapsed time, distance and  temperature, but primarily for measurement. The students get to measure the ingredients and mix them together, bake the cake and eat the final product.
     This is an excellent book to read while studying weather, too.
     The recipe from the story is:

My Grandma's Thunder Cake

Cream together, one at a time                                                  1 cup cold water

1 cup shortening                                                                      1/3 cup pureed tomatoes

1 3/4 cups sugar                                                                   Sift together:

1 teaspoon vanilla                                                                    2 1/2 cups cake flour

3 eggs, separated                                                                    1/2 cup dry cocoa

   (Blend yolks in. Beat egg whites                                            1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

    until they are stiff, then fold in.)                                             1 teaspoon salt

Mix dry ingredients into creamy mixture.

Bake in two greased and floured 8 1/2 inch round pans at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.

Frost with chocolate butter frosting. Top with fresh strawberries.

Lost on the Moon

I just wanted to comment on the activity "Lost on the Moon". I thought this was an excellent activity for students to use higher level thinking and problem solving skills as well as research skills and working cooperatively. It is too advanced for my second graders, but I sent it to a friend who teaches fifth grade. He loved it and plans to usel it in his classroom.

Presentations

     In our last class, each group gave a presentation.  The presentations were excellent. They were informative and professional, and it was clear that  lots of effort went into each one.
     I was part of the group that presented "Vocabulary".  In preparing for the presentation, I learned that a child must see and hear a word twelve times before it is learned. Only five words shoud be learned at a time on a vocabulary wall and then placed on a word wall. Students should not be assigned to look up words in a dictionary and write the definitions. It will be futile. Vocabulary should be taught in a variety of ways including pictures, drawings, use in sentences, conversations, and games.  I plan to use all these strategies in teaching vocabulary to my second graders this year.

Motivation

     In the article "Assessing Motivation To Read", the authors recognized what teachers already know - we must motivate our students to read. In fact, motivation is a big concern because of the correlation between motivation and academic success. If a child cannot read, he/she cannot be completely successful in other subject areas. The study indicated that teachers need to learn more about what makes children become motivated. Why do some children have that desire to read not only assigned work, but read for personal enjoyment. It is likely that  motivation is  influenced by the expectation of success.  If a child and/or his family places a value on being successful, then he will do his best to become successful. The study even  suggests that students who believe they  are competent readers will perform well. If a student places a value on reading, then he becomes a stakeholder in his own destiny. These student do not have to be prodded to pick up a book. They become readers who enjoy reading for  knowledge and information and most of all for pleasure which in turns encourages further reading. The problem is with readers who lack motivation. We as teachers must continue to seek ways to motivate our students who are poor readers to read. We must show them the treasures that are found in books!

Getting Started

Whew! I finally got my blog started. I am so technically challenged and  my computer died this summer and I had to buy a new one. Worrying about setting up the blog was stressful, but it was easier than I had expected.
I have wanted to get a reading endorsement since the first time it was offered, but I was not able to get in that class. I have asked Mary Lee several times about classes for the reading endorsement. I am so excited to be able to participate in this program.
In my experience as a teacher, especially as a Title I reading teacher for many years,  I found myself trying to find new and/or different ways to help the struggling readers I served. I hope these classes will help me to become a better reading teacher. If a child cannot read, they cannot perform well in other subjects.
This is also personal for me. I have a passion for reading and have always taken for granted that I could read. I have a step brother who is 53 years old and never learned to read.  This has had a major impact on his life. It has suddenly hit me that  I have never tried to help him.