I think that NCLB influences language arts curriculum greatly. I think it really puts emphasis on younger elementary teachers because I feel like it is their job to build a foundation for the students’ future education. According to NCLB, it is the district’s responsibility to teach 100% proficiency in twelve years. I feel like in order for the latter years to be effective, the beginning years must cover all basic areas of literacy. Although this seems like it is a good and easy idea, I feel like this is where more students fall behind in school- they never get a good solid foundation in reading and writing, which leaves them nothing to build on as their go through schooling, so it is like they are not given a chance from the start. Due to these factors, I feel that it is imperative to teach language arts at the most basic level as early as possible in a child’s schooling.
I think that there are a variety of teaching approaches that can help children develop phonemic awareness, phonics, and spelling. A few things that I have witnessed in my placement are segmenting words into sounds, and substituting sounds to make new words. The students learn different letters individually that have a character, song, and poster that go with them. For instance, Sammy the Seal represents S- he has a song that tells all of the thing Sammy does and then has a poster that goes with these activities~ all of these things start with S, like swim, sand, socks, etc. The students then raise their hands and say any S words that they know. After this is done and they are written on the board, the children as a class say the words sound by sound until they figure out the word~ they also do a hand motion to capture each letter- I think that this is effective because it shows the kids that the sounds of the letters combined create the word. My CT then picks letters that they have already learned and then part of a word on the board. They kids then individually choose different letter sounds to change the word. For example, the word on the board will be “at” and the kids have the option of adding S, P, M, C, etc. Overall, I feel this is a great way for students to be interactive with literacy, while learning phonemic awareness.
I feel that book clubs are a great thing that can bring students together by building a community from sharing opinions and ideas. I feel like each student brings new literacies to the classroom, whether it is their language, culture, home life, etc- I think that all of these things effect how one’s opinion on certain stories, books, and novels. By having book clubs, it allows students to tap into their personal literacy, whatever it may be, and then share it with the group. This supports language learning in the sense that it promotes using and sharing personal vocabulary as well as promoting reading and sharing connections with the story.
~Have a great weekend~
-nicki
2 comments:
As I read through Nicki's post I saw how much we agree about NCLB. I agree that most of the literacy learning must begin in the early grades if students are to succeed throughout the rest of their school career. However, due to NCLB, those students who come to the U.S. halfway through their school career are left behind. In order for NCLB to be effective, a different method of ensuring that no child is left behind needs to be found, and soon.
I am in the same school as Nicki, the same grade level, but a different teacher. Both teachers teach literacy in the same way. I agree with Nicki in that the methods used show how many letters make up one word. The strategies used, such as the animal letters like Sammy the Seal, help students to realize letter sound correspondence, the foundation of learning how to read and write. By swtiching the sounds at the beginning of a word, or making rhyming words, students will further see that every word is not one sound in itself, but a combination of sounds. I too like the methods used to teach literacy because they are interactive, the students have fun, and they learn at the same time.
*Lisa*
Nicki I think it is amazing that you have seen sound being substituted in your classroom. After watching that video in class it seemed like such an awesome method. However I have never seen it done before. I agree with you to an extent on emphasis being placed on younger elementary teachers for the teaching of foundations? I agree because yes I think they need to be taught maybe more directly during those years with more emphasis on the how of approaching literacy. Such as what to do when you come across a word you don't know, the importance of reading, and basic concepts of print. I guess my problem is as my post says that i see to much time being spent on just reading books to practice reading. why not have students read different picture books on martin luther king and the civil rights movement and tie it back to the history lesson you are working on. I guess where I see literacy teaching failing is that every time I see it taught it is a entity to itself and not stretched throughout the curriculum. Can't we apply these literacy techniques we are teaching them such as substituting while teaching science, social studies, and even math.
-Tasha
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