This article reiterates what was talked about in Chapter 7. It is important and I felt that it should be reviewed.
http://www.education.com/reference/article/early-writing-scribbling/
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Decoding Children's Scribbles
This source explains the stages of children’s drawings. I
found this helpful as a future teacher because it gives picture examples of the
children’s scribbles. Comparing those examples and real examples could be extremely
useful. It also lists what the specific stages are so you can identify which
one a child is in. It also gives the ages that are specific to each stage so
you can place each child easily.
Creating Individual Books
http://www.mykidsadventures.com/homemade-book/
This website shows you how students can create their own hand-made books.
I personally love the idea of children creating their own books, because it gives them a place to express their thoughts. Children can be creative when making books, and make them in many different ways with unusual materials.
When children write books of their own, there are no rules. Their imaginations can run wild with the idea that they can write about ANYTHING they want! Figures 7.10-12 in our book show more great examples of how children can construct their own books using yarn, staples, glue, and paper.
This activity could be used at a writing center as our book suggests, but I would do the actual construction as an entire class. The children could then work on writing and illustrating their book each day at the writing center.
This website shows you how students can create their own hand-made books.
When children write books of their own, there are no rules. Their imaginations can run wild with the idea that they can write about ANYTHING they want! Figures 7.10-12 in our book show more great examples of how children can construct their own books using yarn, staples, glue, and paper.
This activity could be used at a writing center as our book suggests, but I would do the actual construction as an entire class. The children could then work on writing and illustrating their book each day at the writing center.
How a boy became an artist
http://www.ted.com/talks/jarrett_j_krosoczka_how_a_boy_became_an_artist?embed=true
This is a video about a man who
became a successful author because of the support of his family and teachers as
he overcame many struggles in life. He talks about creativity, imagination, and
the importance of writing in school. He expresses the importance of art and
education along with development of writing. He talks about how in third grade,
the first book he wrote he would let the words tell the story and other times
he let the pictures tell the story.
This video is an inspiration to me
as a future teacher because one day I might have a student like this. I want to
be a teacher who encourages creativity in writing along with the importance of
illustrations. As teachers and parents it is vital for us to encourage and
support the creativity of writing and drawing.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Writer's Workshop/Writing Process
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/literacy/writing_workshop.html
I liked this website because it gives a more in depth explanation on writer's workshop. It also provides links to other websites to give teachers different ideas on how they can use writers workshop. Check it out!
I also thought this chart was helpful when thinking about the writing process:
I liked this website because it gives a more in depth explanation on writer's workshop. It also provides links to other websites to give teachers different ideas on how they can use writers workshop. Check it out!
I also thought this chart was helpful when thinking about the writing process:
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Writing
This chapter touched on some things that I had never considered before and really got me thinking. The first of which was the importance of drawing and connecting the drawings to words. Listening and showing interest in what a child has to say about their drawings can really show a depth of thinking that someone might not see without asking. I have seen in my observations of kindergarten classes where the teachers will have the student draw a picture about a topic and under it have the students write about their picture. At the beginning of the year most of the pictures were pretty elaborate while the writing made little to no sense to me. However, when I asked what they drew and what they wrote about their drawings the students had a lot to say. I think that this is true for most young children, has anyone else witnessed this?
The second thing that I have heard over and over again but have never given much thought to until now was the idea of incorporating the social aspect of writing. Having the students communicate through writing. As adults who text, send emails, and some even write letters social writing is a large part of our lives. Yet, when I think back to my school experience I can not think of one point where I wrote a letter and actually sent it to someone. My writing experiences were never authentic I never received responses to imitate like this chapter suggests. Does anyone remember actually having an authentic writing experience where they got to communicate with someone? Often times I think that we, as teachers, get too caught up in the teaching of literacy concepts and forget that the reason students are learning these concepts is to communicate meaning to another person. When I think of a literate person I think of someone who knows how to read. This chapter has changed my view on what literacy is. The book says that literacy encompasses reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing.
This chapter provides some very good information on strategies that we can use with students at many different stages. I did not realize how much can be done to promote writing from birth to two. Being positive and supportive of the many different types of marks and sounds that a child makes is very important to their development. Having parents that read and write often or even taking the time to model reading and writing for children who are still very young has profound impacts. This surprised me. I see my two year old niece doing many of the things mentioned in this section of the chapter but I never really thought about how much development was actually going on. After reading this I plan on taking more interest in how she holds books, makes marks on paper, and what she says about her drawings and marks. The examples provided by this chapter of actual children's writing and drawing really helped me to understand and see the different stages. Did the amount of literacy development that takes place from birth to two surprise anyone else?
The second thing that I have heard over and over again but have never given much thought to until now was the idea of incorporating the social aspect of writing. Having the students communicate through writing. As adults who text, send emails, and some even write letters social writing is a large part of our lives. Yet, when I think back to my school experience I can not think of one point where I wrote a letter and actually sent it to someone. My writing experiences were never authentic I never received responses to imitate like this chapter suggests. Does anyone remember actually having an authentic writing experience where they got to communicate with someone? Often times I think that we, as teachers, get too caught up in the teaching of literacy concepts and forget that the reason students are learning these concepts is to communicate meaning to another person. When I think of a literate person I think of someone who knows how to read. This chapter has changed my view on what literacy is. The book says that literacy encompasses reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing.
This chapter provides some very good information on strategies that we can use with students at many different stages. I did not realize how much can be done to promote writing from birth to two. Being positive and supportive of the many different types of marks and sounds that a child makes is very important to their development. Having parents that read and write often or even taking the time to model reading and writing for children who are still very young has profound impacts. This surprised me. I see my two year old niece doing many of the things mentioned in this section of the chapter but I never really thought about how much development was actually going on. After reading this I plan on taking more interest in how she holds books, makes marks on paper, and what she says about her drawings and marks. The examples provided by this chapter of actual children's writing and drawing really helped me to understand and see the different stages. Did the amount of literacy development that takes place from birth to two surprise anyone else?
Where have all the poets gone?
Hello friends! As I was reading chapter 7 I got to a certain point about writing poetry. In that moment I realized that I forgot about the fact that we have to teach our students how to write poetry. Then I thought even harder...when was the last time I wrote a poem? I have determined that the last time I wrote a poem was in 8th grade. That was 7 years ago. 7 years ago!!! So I am being reminded I have to teach how to write poetry and I don't even do it myself?!?! So I want you to ask yourselves when is the last time you wrote a poem. Then ask yourself, could I teach my future students how to correctly write a poem. We mustn't forget that many types of poetry exist. The book then reminds us that "Poetry that rhymes is probably the most well-known type; however, poetry doesn't have to rhyme."
So let me go into more detail about the different types of poetry. We have acrostic poems. These are poems where you have one word and with that word you make each letter mean something. TEACHER: Trustworthy Excited Aware Caring Helpful Energetic Responsible. Then we have triangle poems. So the first word and first line is a noun. The second line is two adjectives. The third line are -ing words, and the fourth line is a sentence. We then have a cinquain and a diamante and I could go on and on about the different types of poems. My acrostic poem was hard enough for me to figure out let alone the rest of them I just named.
I think that we kind of dismiss poetry but I believe poetry is the key to understanding the creativity that students have. Sure they could write us a short story with 150 details about their dog. But with a poem, they have to be cunning and have to truly understand what it is they are writing about. They get to let their inner creators out. In order for them to fully understand poetry we have to introduce them to it. I'm sure they listen to music and music is very poetical. That would be a great first step. We need to read it to them and discuss it with them. An easy way to do that is to make your morning message a simple poem. The book gives some great tips for beginning and writing poetry with young children. It is something that we need to learn and never forget.
Here are a few questions for you to think about. When was the last time you wrote or read a poem? How would you introduce poetry into your classroom? Do you have any ideas on how you would teach it? If I challenged you (which I am) could you write your response in any sort of poem?
So let me go into more detail about the different types of poetry. We have acrostic poems. These are poems where you have one word and with that word you make each letter mean something. TEACHER: Trustworthy Excited Aware Caring Helpful Energetic Responsible. Then we have triangle poems. So the first word and first line is a noun. The second line is two adjectives. The third line are -ing words, and the fourth line is a sentence. We then have a cinquain and a diamante and I could go on and on about the different types of poems. My acrostic poem was hard enough for me to figure out let alone the rest of them I just named.
I think that we kind of dismiss poetry but I believe poetry is the key to understanding the creativity that students have. Sure they could write us a short story with 150 details about their dog. But with a poem, they have to be cunning and have to truly understand what it is they are writing about. They get to let their inner creators out. In order for them to fully understand poetry we have to introduce them to it. I'm sure they listen to music and music is very poetical. That would be a great first step. We need to read it to them and discuss it with them. An easy way to do that is to make your morning message a simple poem. The book gives some great tips for beginning and writing poetry with young children. It is something that we need to learn and never forget.
Here are a few questions for you to think about. When was the last time you wrote or read a poem? How would you introduce poetry into your classroom? Do you have any ideas on how you would teach it? If I challenged you (which I am) could you write your response in any sort of poem?
Early Years of Literacy Development
This chapter of our text was a bit overwhelming for me this week. It is
heavily content based, and contains a lot of information. The chapter was
centered around the importance of writing, spelling, and literacy development.
After reading the chapter, I feel much more informed on how to help children
read and write. I thought that the chapter had a great introduction to
this specific topic of literacy development. Growing up, "I Know an Old
Lady", was one of my favorite stories. Reading this chapter brought back
memories I have from my childhood involving this book, and how much I loved
it. I remember thinking this story was so funny, as a child, and I loved
hearing my teacher say such silly lines from the book. Back then, I had no idea
that I was developing problem-solving skills, or developing vocabulary.
While reading the chapter, I highlighted a few
sentences that I found interesting, and wanted to share in my blog post. One of
the topics that I found interesting to read about was the importance of drawing.
As adults, when we look at children's scribble marks, we just see scribble marks.
As future teachers, though, we know better than this. When children are
drawing, we know that this is a huge step in a child's journey through emergent
literacy. This is the beginning of them learning to write. What may look like just
"scribbles", means much more to the child. They are starting to
make connections of letters with objects, and what they see. As a child, I
loved to draw and write, before I actually knew the alphabet. As awful as this
is, I would "scribble" in my favorite books. I believe this was somehow my way
of understanding the story. Children need time to express
themselves through play and drawing in the classroom. A good teacher knows
that they aren't just playing, but they are in the beginning stages of their
literacy development. I also really enjoyed the pictures throughout the chapter. I thought that they were great examples of children's work, and helped the readers envision some of the work they might see from future students.
Patterns in Literacy Learning and the Importance of Teacher and Guardian Support for Development
First of all I would like to point out that I was extremely excited to see "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" used in an activity at the beginning of this chapter. I have my copy of the book sitting in my room here at college, and I having been trying to think of ways to use it because it was one of my all time favorites as a child. I like the idea of having students notice the rhyming pattern in the story in order to create their own rhymes with the same pattern. Anyways, for the rest of this post I would like to discuss patterns I noticed in the process of learning how to write as a child grows, and then I would like to talk about some of things mentioned in the chapter regarding the teacher's and parent's role in helping children's writing skills develop.
As I was reading the descriptions for how children learn at different ages, I noticed some patterns in the ways children learn to write. When a young child first begins to write on paper they are just experimenting with the new medium and the mechanical process, but very quickly with the help of encouragement and observations of adults writing children understand that writing has a purpose. The first purpose they notice is communication. They learn to communicate messages first through pictures, then they mimic symbols and letters, and eventually the child is involved in writing real letters and begins spelling. Children are excited about this learning process because there is a genuine purpose for learning to write, and because they get to explore with the new things they learn. I think that throughout literacy education we give students new purposes to write, and the more authentic the purpose, the more students are willing to participate.
Other than creating purposes for children to write, teachers and guardians must model writing and they encourage children with positive reinforcement. I think most of us already knew that positive reinforcement and modeling is important when children are learning to write, but there were many other suggestions that I had never thought about. The most important one seemed to be that children need to invent and reinvent their ideas about writing and test them in order to learn. So, we need to grant that freedom so students can go through this process. Having children practice something over and over instead of letting them explore can also take the joy out of writing. I also loved the idea of creating good writing environments, both at home and at school, so children have the means necessary to explore, invent, and reinvent strategies. These environments not only provide materials to write and draw(crayons, paper, keyboard), but they also have materials that students can use to explore new ideas and forms of writing such as newspapers, internet, and books. Another interesting thing the book mentioned about these writing environments was organizing things in a consistent manner and having a comfortable yet functional area for children to write.
As I was reading the descriptions for how children learn at different ages, I noticed some patterns in the ways children learn to write. When a young child first begins to write on paper they are just experimenting with the new medium and the mechanical process, but very quickly with the help of encouragement and observations of adults writing children understand that writing has a purpose. The first purpose they notice is communication. They learn to communicate messages first through pictures, then they mimic symbols and letters, and eventually the child is involved in writing real letters and begins spelling. Children are excited about this learning process because there is a genuine purpose for learning to write, and because they get to explore with the new things they learn. I think that throughout literacy education we give students new purposes to write, and the more authentic the purpose, the more students are willing to participate.
Other than creating purposes for children to write, teachers and guardians must model writing and they encourage children with positive reinforcement. I think most of us already knew that positive reinforcement and modeling is important when children are learning to write, but there were many other suggestions that I had never thought about. The most important one seemed to be that children need to invent and reinvent their ideas about writing and test them in order to learn. So, we need to grant that freedom so students can go through this process. Having children practice something over and over instead of letting them explore can also take the joy out of writing. I also loved the idea of creating good writing environments, both at home and at school, so children have the means necessary to explore, invent, and reinvent strategies. These environments not only provide materials to write and draw(crayons, paper, keyboard), but they also have materials that students can use to explore new ideas and forms of writing such as newspapers, internet, and books. Another interesting thing the book mentioned about these writing environments was organizing things in a consistent manner and having a comfortable yet functional area for children to write.
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Literacy Learning
This chapter had a lot of very
useful information in it and really broadened my horizons on literacy
development. At first, I was a little overwhelmed because of the content of the
chapter but once I broke it down, I realized that it all connected in a very
useful way. I really enjoyed the part that emphasized the importance of
students drawing in the classroom and how much of an impact it had on their
literacy learning. I didn’t realize the progress that it enabled the kids to
make and I think that encouraging students to draw, write, recap their thoughts
can help them to develop healthy learning styles. I am a big advocate on
creativity and encouraging students to flourish through unique ways that are
best suited for their learning styles. I feel that sometimes, teachers get so
wrapped up they can forget that simple things such as drawing, can open many
doors for children. Based on this chapter, do you agree with that statement?
What were your thoughts on drawing in the classroom and how it can help to broaden
literacy learning?
Another
point that intrigued me in this chapter was when they emphasized the connection
between learning at home and at school. I agreed with the part where they
stated that sometimes parents don’t realize the progress that they’re making
with their children’s literacy development, just by doing simple things. Every
day tasks such as grocery lists, to-do lists, and short notes between families
help children to put meaning to words and symbols and increase their
familiarity between them. It got me thinking, what are some other ways that we
as teachers could point out simple ways for parents to help their kids literacy
learning through simple every day tasks? If parents knew the effects that they
had and the connections that they provided for their kids, I think that it
would benefit the children inside and outside of the classroom.
This
Chapter was also very helpful when describing writing development for students
and how to increase their spelling skills. For me, spelling was always a
challenge and I felt that some of these strategies would’ve worked really well
for me. The “Simile game” is also an activity that stuck out to me and I thought
that the use of images and group work was a great way to improve writing
technique. What was your favorite strategy that you read in this Chapter? And
do you think that they all would work well in your classroom. If not, which
ones could you see yourself leaving out and why?
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