Module 3

Encouraging Enthusiasm for Reading Video

This video is inspiring for teachers and parents alike.  Nothing encourages a child to read more than good experiences with books modeled from a teacher or parent. When parents read at home, their children read more too and I feel it is the same when students see their teachers read as well.  In my own pre-k classroom I love to see my students take a book I have just read and retell it to another child or even retell it to themselves.  It makes me happy to see them enjoying the story that much that they want to read it again.

Using the Smart Table for Collaboration- Video

I would love to have a smart table in my classroom.  I think it looks so fun and educational for students.  They would love it too!  What a great way to incorporate and present an activity and have so many children work on it together.   This type of technology could be used with any grade level.  They could learn literacy skills like reading, writing, speaking, phonics, phonological awareness, and grammar.  It could easily be used for other subjects as well.  I think it would be particularly useful for ELL students as they could work along side other students and develop language concepts.

Virtual Field Trips to Atlanta:

I enjoyed viewing the virtual field trips to my own local city.  Watching some of the videos reminded me of some of the attractions that I almost forgot about.  I think learning through virtual field trips is really the next best thing from actually traveling ourselves.  While I do think that there is nothing like seeing an attraction in person, schools can save on expenses if they use virtual learning.  I feel that it is extremely important for students to learn about the city and state that they live in, using virtual field trips makes it that much easier. 

Exploring Social Studies and Technology- Video

Technology is very useful when teaching, especially social studies.  Teachers can use it during their lesson planning to create an in depth look at historical events and people.  They can look at pictures of historic figures or photographs from certain time periods.  Students can participate in webquests where they navigate through sites and learn information on their own.  They can also use technology to learn about maps and globes.   Lessons can also incorporate music from other time periods or music from other parts of the world.  Technology can also be used for students’ projects and work samples.  They can create brochures or pamphlets, slide show presentations, or draw and use graphics with certain programs.  Using technology and a smart table will allow students to brainstorm and create visual webs individually or with a group.

Integrating Science and Literacy in Early Childhood

Literacy is more than just reading.  It involves reading, writing, thinking, listening, and speaking.  One of the main take aways I learned from watching this video was you can’t stand and deliver literacy, but you watch it happen and encourage it.  Some of the most important things we can do to help early childhood students in preschool and pre-k is to develop their oral language and give them exposure to read alouds.  Oral language in early childhood is used when singing songs, reading and discussing stories, and naming items.  It can promote memorization, organization, cause and effect reasoning, and vocabulary which are all the early foundations for math and science.  During reading alouds not only are children learning where to begin reading or how to turn the pages, but they are learning to associate spoken language with written language.

Development of Literacy Strategies

This presentation discussed information literacy.  It incorporated a model that generated ideas of 7 basic literacy pillars. In order to achieve information literacy, you need basic IT skills and library skills.   Knowing why you need information, where to get it, and how to evaluate is the main focus of information literacy.  With so many search engines and links, information found online can become misconstrued.  It’s important we make sure we are using reliable sources and providing that same high quality information when teaching our students.

Expository Texts- Signal Words

I thought this presentation got right to the point.  The visual display used in it was right up my ally and is something that I can easily learn from and gather ideas from.  The first graphic organizer displayed, the descriptive writing web, is really my favorite one because you can do so much with it.  If you teach young students, they can draw pictures inside the bubbles instead of write.  When teaching older students, they can extend the web adding further details.  It is also so easy to draw, so there is no need searching on the computer for a template and making copies.  I liked how this presentation made a list of signal words for each strategy to make it easy to identify what type of text you are reading.  I think that this presentation would be helpful for students to have displayed in their classroom as they could refer to it for deciding what types of texts they are reading.

Expository Text- Moss Article

I found this article interesting and I could relate to many parts of it.  When I first began teaching, I thought it was difficult to engage students and teach them using expository texts.  It made me think of my own experience, when I was going through school and I thought reading informational texts was boring and monotonous.  Some of it probably had to do with the topics and the materials at hand, but I think some of it had to do with the ability level and my comprehension.   Now I enjoy using these types of texts with my students.  I find that by selecting the proper level of text with the right structure, students are engaged and interested.  Even with my young students, we work on comprehension reading skills as they listen to books and offer their retelling.  Often times I have them draw a picture and I will write down their exact retelling of the text.  I really liked the small group retelling strategy that was discussed.  Where one student retells the first events in the story, then student 2 repeats student 1’s story but adds the next series of events, and it continues on until the entire book is retold.