After reading this chapter, I gained a lot of insight into how to foster reading and writing skills into my classroom. What I enjoyed most was reading Ms. McKloskey's reading lesson. I especially liked how she started with comprehending the story and moved to reading skills. I had a teacher in elementary school who just had us follow along with our finger on the word every time she read. It helped with reading skills no doubt, but I rarely had any idea what was happening in the story because I was so focused on the words and not putting it together. By reading the story once and discussing the story's purpose, students put meaning to the story when they work out technicalities with the literal ability to read. It broadens their focus, and when there is meaning to the text it makes reading more fun! It just amazes me to think about the language that young readers are exposed to all the time, and I was reminded of that while reading the text. All the visuals, print, technology and spoken language that is everywhere makes me really excited to find new ways to incorporate it all into my teaching.
I did become slightly skeptical about the LEA approach. Because the oral language vocabulary is so much more extensive than the written for children I can see that it is a great idea for teachers to put their verbal language in writing. Children like to read stories by them as well, I just wonder if the room to grow becomes limited. One huge bonus about reading are all of the new things that you are exposed to, even in children's books that might seem simple. I think that if I were to use this method it would be used sparingly. I think it needs to be counteracted with children's books and lots of writing lessons.
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Particularly after our discussion about the LEA approach, I can see some benefits. Having kids get the information out and in using a number of different mediums (written, oral, visual, etc.) is one of the more basic and common accommodations for struggling students. It's shortcomings in this particular way are obvious, but I agree in that there is some practicality to using a similar activity in the classroom. Doing this activity in a different way probably would give kids room to grow- I like that idea.
ReplyDeleteSarah, I agree with you on your skepticism about the LEA program when implemented in school classrooms. I think that this is something that needs to be done carefully and only as a shove off point for further instruction and learning. I know we talked about the idea in class of having the students tell their story into a voice recorder then listen back to the voice recording and write the story themselves. This way they will still be able to get their story out with out interruptions caused by spelling or grammar, while also practicing their writing with verbal recognition. I like the fact that they will than read the books they create so they have personal connection to the material and will in sense spend more time reading and learn more
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