Peter and the Starcatchers

When Peter and the Starcatchers was introduced in class as a way to find out where Peter Pan and Tinkerbell came from I was very intrigued. The aspect that I believe that children will love the most is that the heros of the story are children. Children (and adults) will also like the suspense, the magic and the adventure. I know that as I read the story I found my self so intrigued that I couldn’t put the book down. I believe that this story  has the power to  captivate the reader’s mind and draw them into an imaginary world full of mystery.

Another aspect of the book that differs from the Disney movie Peter Pan is that it shows that a pirates life wasn’t very pleasant. This is evident in the slop with things wiggling in it that the boys were brought as food. It is also shown in the description of Black Stache when his hair was described as being greasy from years without washing and his teeth as being brown as tree trunks. The book also showed another reality of pirate life when Black Stache wanted The Wasp for his own. Finally, the treasure-what every pirate dreams of!

Morphology and Vocabulary

In the morphology article we learn that students with a broader vocabulary usually comprehend what they are reading better. They usually have an easier using clues to help them decide what unknown words mean. Some of the ways they decode words are: using root words, knowing how it relates to other words around it and by relating the word to something they know. Also, for ELL students seeing the similarity between certain words in English and then the parallel word in Spanish helps them to define the word. It is important that students have these decoding skills by upper elementary grades because reading is involved in everything that students do.

Morphology plays a large role in vocabulary. It is important for students to learn the roots of words. Also,in some words  students will be able to more easily identify relationship between the roots. For instance, in the article it states that students will have an easier time going from dryer to dry that to see the relationship between strength and strong. Another aspects that students must learn about is prefixes and suffixes and how they change words. Students must know that adding a prefix to words can completely change the meaning. We see this when the prefix un is added to the word acceptable.  Also, adding a suffix to a word often changes the tense.  For example, by simply adding ed to the a word changes the tense from present to past.

There are many ways to help students gain a better grasp the meanings of words. As teachers we must use every resource available to help our students grow their vocabularies. One way we can do this is by reading on a consistent basis. We can choose words from passages and discuss their meanings with our students. We can teach them decoding skills such as using the other words in a sentence to try to figure out what the unknown word means or using their background knowledge. Another tool that I believe would be useful is to have different types of word walls in the classroom. We could have one for prefixes and suffixes and others for root words, etc. We could also create charts that shows students as many possible tenses of the word as possible.

Modeling Comprehension, Vocabulary, Text Structures and Text Features

 I must admit I had a hard time with understanding the beginning of the assigned reading article. However, when you get into the depth of it there are some great modeling tools that will teach students how to comprehend what they are reading. I especially liked when it discussed talking children through the process of using context clues to figure out what a word means. In the classroom that  I am currently interning, part of what I do is listen to students read out loud for practice. I have been paying attention to how they decide what a certain word is. I remember one girl read a sentence with a word she did not know. She stopped at that word and looked through to the end of the sentence (at this point I could see her working it out in her mind) then she looked at the word again and read it correctly. She used the knowledge of what word would fit into the sentence to figure out the word she did not know.

Another thing that impressed me about this article is that in it the teacher models that she did not know the definition of the word “atmosphere”. Since she did not have a glossary to look it up in she told the students she would ask another teacher. I think sometimes in life we get a little stubborn and don’t ask for help when we should. What we must understand is that these students are watching what we do. Therefore, if we do not know the answer it is best to admit it; not try to pretend we know. They will be able to tell. Then we can let them watch us through the process of obtaining the desired information. Also, when they see that even we need help, they will feel more confident in looking for help themselves when it is needed.

Another important aspect of modeling is teaching the children to take the time to observe the text structures in their readings. I know that there are many times when as a student I have just wanted to get things read to be finished. So I skipped tables, charts, captions and other things that were placed there to help me comprehend what I was reading. When I finished I often did not understand what it was I had just read. I think it is very important to model for students how to use this added information to help them understand what they are reading. Often times people will make sense of things more from a diagram than they will from a paragraph. So it is important for us to teach children to pay special attention to the text structures that are provided for them.

Pirates Readings

The two readings that were assigned this week were really helpful and full of great ideas. I loved the idea of combining fiction and nonfictional texts to help students gain further knowledge of the lives of pirates. One interesting aspect of the study was the use of a glossary of historic terms to help students understand words that they may not have had previous contact with. When I read The Not So Jolly RogerI know that I came across terms that I had never encountered. Also, the data retrieval chart is such a great tool to help students know what kind of information they are looking for in their research and what is relevant.

Another part of the study that is important is the use of technology for research and presentation. Computers and the internet are such a large part of our world and that is not going to change. Students often turn to computers first to do research. I think that when teachers choose to do an intensive study of a subject or unit it is of utmost importance that they are in control of the information that the students will be viewing. This is why it is so critical to find and comb through the sites that students will be using to find their data. Also by creating a page of hyperlinks for the students use and with close monitoring I believe a teacher can prevent students from viewing inappropriate sites or those that are irrelevant to their purpose. Finally, blogs are a great way to post student assignments and display student work. However, I would definitely want the pages to be password protected. I know that we can use another name or give the students an assigned number but I just have a bit of mistrust within me and would want to protect these children as much as possible. With that being said what a great way to show off what they have learned and to encourage them to write with more depth. I can imagine a student’s parent seeing their work and bragging on their child; what a great confidence boost!

Students’ different reading levels

While reading Integrating Instructional-Level Social Studies Trade Books for Struggling Readers in Upper Elementary Grades my thought was continously “how could anyone not know the importance of having students read on their own personal level?”.  It just makes so much sense that students need to be reading books that are within their comfort levels in order to increase their reading abilities and gain confidence when reading. Yes, it may take effort  to findthe books but, that is what each and every student deserves from their teacher. Once they have that confidence and improved self-esteem in their reading abilities they will take off. Another thing that I want to take into consideration is the genre interests of all students. I want to be able to provide books that will peak the curosity of all students so that each grows in their reading life.  With struggling readers this is especially important. The articles states that if often an author will write the same types of books in the same style. So if I can find a work that a struggling reader likes and provide them with more like it, hopefully they will be encouraged to read more and more.

About poetry

I have always thought that poetry had to rhyme. I also have always believed it must make sense to the reader. However, after creating my poems for my blog I realized that poetry doesn’t do these things all  the time. In my poem about the sea shell I found when I was 10 years old, I could not find rhyming words (nor did I want to). Also, although the poem can be understood by the reader, it was more about getting my memory down in writing for me.

Going through the process of trying to write my poems helped me to understand what children will face when they begin studying poetry. It may seem odd to them if they have not been exposed to different types of poetry. This is what happened to Jack in Love that Dog. He tried but could not write a poem at first. He progressed in time and created some very good work. Also, he went from being afraid of poetry to proud to have his name placed at the bottom of his work.

Out of all the poetry we were asked to read I preferred Love that Dog.It shows that with encouragement from a teacher, students can find a type of poetry that  they will enjoy. Also, students can pattern their works after their favorite author or authors. This will give them a point of reference for their own creations.  Another reason I liked this book was that they poems did not have to rhyme. Jack wrote his thoughts down and his teacher typed them into stanzas; turning his words into poetry. This is a wonderful way to encourage children to write poems.

My meaningful objects.

Writer’s Notebook

I am very excited to learn new ways to help our students write. I realize that writing does not come easily to everyone. A very good friend of mine is trying to avoid taking any English courses in college because writing is a difficult task for her and she has a fear of trying to document her thoughts. For this reason I was very impressed with our text Notebook Know-How. This is a textbook that was written by a teacher who has been in the classroom and had to discover ways to help her students gain a love of writing. Then she took her techniques and recorded to give other teachers possible ways to help their students as well.

I believe a writer’s notebook can serve many purposes. First, it gives a student a place where they can freely record their thoughts. If they are having a bad day and need a release they can write their feelings down. Second, students can learn the art of writing in their notebooks. With help from their teachers and through continuously writing, they can master grammatical and punctuation techniques. Also, by writing consistently students go from a mentality of “having nothing to write about” to writing about whatever topic they so choose. 

My goal as a teacher is to making writing an enjoyable experience for everyone. This is why I liked the idea of giving the students a topic such as their best experience ever and letting them create a list of things that had happened to them. Then they have ideas of stories they can tell in their writer’s notebook. This makes writing personal for each student instead of asking them to write from a prompt. I was also impressed with the idea of using class discussions (and the teacher waiting patiently) as a way to help a topic for writing to be revealed. There is not a more perfect time to have students record their thoughts then when they have a story that they must tell.

Welcome to Jennifer’s blog

Welcome to my blog. I have never attempted anything like this before so I am a little nervous and excited. I am looking forward to learning how to create blogs and also seeing all my classmates’ blogs as well. This will be a great experience and hopefully one that we can take with us into our future classrooms.