Reading in the 21st Century - New Literacies

With the ever so changing world of technology that we live in, reading is changing due to new literacies available for our students to comprehend.  As teachers we need to become aware of how to help our students access this inforamtion.  Though I am sure that most of my students can do more than me sometimes.  This is a challenge.  Even though I consider myself technology savvy I feel that as a teacher I need to make sure I keep updated and share this information to better the success of my students. 
Ipads, the internet, blogs, twitter, and all that follows are great ways to help students access new information.  As well the growing CCSS and informational text along with critical literacy all adds to new literacies that teachers need to guide their students learning.  I do feel that best practices in literacy carry over into the new literacies and the evolving technology in our society.

Lytle Article Reflection/Practitioner Inquiry

  In genral I feel that teachers learn to teach throughout many avenues during thier careers. First and most importantly is from thier own experiences. It is what we face everyday that makes us better teachers and learn more about ourselves as teachers. From here we are able to change and learn from our teaching. Secondly, teachers can learn from conferences/professional development. There are so many available refources in professional development that teachers can learn new information and add to thier teaching pedagogy. I have learned so much from attending conferences and sharing ideas with other teaches, which leads to practitioner research. I feel that this is imortant in our field of teaching. Teachers can learn so much from listening and asking questions from one another. From my experiences, I hold conversations with the K teacher daily. We have not come to the point of research but we learn so much from each other. At this point she is really interested in inquiry. I have a lot to share with her but together we can learn more and research and figure out how to incorportate this more into our classrooms.

The article I read was about Home-school journals. I really enjoyed reading this and can appreciate how these teachers began thier research to make a connection and build a relationship with parents and home/school. I want to try this out in the beginning of the new year. This for example is learning to teach. I have read to better myseld as a teacher. I like the aspect of practitioner research and will try continue being part of the field of education.  These journals can be my one small step to incorporating funds of knowledge from students homes, that I discussed in my previous post, into my classroom!

Funds of Knowledge

As teachers, we need to be considerate of the infliuence and learning environment that our students face at home.  After reading the article, A Thrice-Learned Lesson from the Literature Life of a Five-Year-Old, I gained an insight on just how important the home life of students is to their success in the world outside of the classroom.  Norton-Meier discusses a little boy whom she encounters as a teacher.  She considered this students a struggling reading within her clasroom, but once she saw how he could read within his home environment she was amazed at his ability.  This article stresses the importance of the Funds of Knowledge our kids bring to our classrooms and take back home with them.  I want to invite more of my studnets home culture and Spanish language and experiences into my classroom.  I have not figured out how to start this and have serveral questions about how it will work, but I think I can start with something small and see what this brings. 

Text Complexity by: Fisher, Fry, and Lapp - My Reflection

The Common Core state standards bring new vocabulary that many teachers are

unfamiliar with.  For example, text complexity.  Before reading Text Complexity:  Rigor in
Reading, I had little knowledge about exactly what it was and what the CCSS were asking of
teachers.  After reading, I can see why it is important to know more about the language used in
the CCSS and how we as teachers can use this to enhance the learning of our students. 

             One of the big ideas that I have taken away from our conversation book club and from

reading the text is the shift away from a leveling system and a move towards challenging texts
with teacher scaffolding.  I think that there is still a place for students to read text at their
appropriate level of independence.  I think that this will provide them with success and
encouragement as a readers.  Through I agree with the CCSS about scaffolding learning through
challenging texts.  Students need to be able to develop strategies needed to read texts that are
above their level.  How better else to support this than scaffolding!   

When is scaffolding too much?  This was brought up in our book club discussion.  That if

we are spending too much time scaffolding are we killing the text?  I think that we need to
provide our students with text that are challenging but we also need to figure out the
appropriateness of the text.  We want to provide our students with a challenge yet we don’t want
them to lose interest.  Interest is a huge factor in a student wanting to read.  If students are
interested in the text they will be willing to read, despite the challenge.  I think that this is the
goal of CCSS.  Find a text that interests our students, is slightly above their level and scaffold
their learning throughout the text.  This will provide the students with meaningful reading
experiences.

            The dimension of text complexity as defined in the book with a great figure that was

brought up throughout our conversation.  This figure is a triangle and includes all dimensions of
text complexity:  qualitative, quantitative, the reader and the task.  I think that this is important to
know what impacts text complexity.  Though I like the triangle I could also see this in circles
like the figure of reading as a transaction.  I can see this more useful as a transaction model.  All
these factors working together to influence the reader and the text.  Teachers need to be aware of
what influences readers and text.
           

            I enjoyed reading this text and really enjoyed our discussion.  Having teachers from a

wide array of positions all coming together to discuss the current issue of the CCSS.  It was great
how we can simplify terms and brings them to life within the discussion of our own classrooms.   
I think that this book club/discussion should continue as the CCSS unfold within our schools and
students.  Yay for CCSS!

                                                                             

Common Core Thoughts

Common Core State Standards are all the rage right now among teachers and schools.  Many people are freaking out about what this is going to mean for them as teachers and how it is going to affect them and thier students.  Here are a couple of my thoughts:
 I feel that these standards are a good thing.  We want our students to succeed in a higher level thinking world.  We the teachers are preparing them for this future and we want them to be ready.  The past standards are good but now what?  Education is becoming more and more challenging and we need standards that can push our students a little farther.  Yes this idea might be uncomforatble for most teachers to be thinking about the new CCSS, but the more that we read about them and become familiar with how to use them in our classrooms, you can see the higher level of education that we are giving our students.

Ch. 8 & 9 Discussion

As an undergrad I recieved my degree in Early Childhood education, therefore, I really enjoyed reading this chapter and felt it as a good review. I also feel this is where muuch of my philosophy of teaching comes from. Piaget and Vygotsky are major influences that can been seen by just walking into my classroom. I think that its important to really think about how young children learn to build on the foundations of reading. If we look at these theoriest, we can gain insights into the young minds of learners and begin to teach them in the ways in which they learn best. Most of Chapter 8 focused on these theorist and the social learning that takes place among young students. I feel that much research and theory that we have been reading this semester also contributes to this idea. Children need to opportunity to learn in a social situation and from their peers. They will be able to learn and practice by being social beings, which as humans we are. Early Childhood is so important to me as an educator of first graders and I feel that this educational physology has set a basis for how I teach literacy and what I know about children and how they learn.

After reading Chapt 9 I was very overwhelmed about the brain. I know that it is a good thing as teachers to understand how the brain works to understand more about how are students are learning to read. I really liked how in the beginning of the chap. the author was discussing that the brain will ready itself for learning to occur. p. 175 I feel that this also fits in with begin developmentally ready to learn to read. At what age or stage of development is our brains ready? If within the first 3 years of life our brain dramatically changes at what age should we be exposed to explicit literacy instruction? Hope that makes sense!

As for Annes awesome youtube video:

I think that The fMRI's are a great glimps into the brain and how students with Dyslexya are using parts of their brain. Yes there is controversy and being aware of both sides helps us to critically think about this. I really think that seeing those pictures and hearing about all the studies show us an view of what is happening on the inside that can be so frustrating to figure out. I dont know how I feel about the extensive phonics instruction for thsie students. Yes it was seen successful and it awesome for those students to rewire thier thinking/brain but I'm just still a little curious about it. I know how great phonics instruction is for students but I just cant explain it.

Thoughts about Schema

The shift from asking what students know and filling their heads with information to the

new found schema theory – asking what they already know and can bring to a text then using that to learn new information is important in the reading process.  As teachers we know we need to activate our students’ schema as they engage with text.  This will help them make connections and inferences with a text and create a higher level of thinking than if a student had no schema.  As I was reading through the chapters, I came across the idea that schema can be modified and built.  I really like thinking about schema in these senses because I feel that our schema is always changing depending on our surroundings and what we have encountered and learned.  We can change schema due to new information.  We as teachers can also build schema.  This is really important in the students I teach.  Most of my students lack schema and it is my responsibility to build that schema.  These students need to be able to build a new schema and make a deeper connection to text than they would have previously without that schema.   It is the student’s schema that lies within comprehension and as a teacher I need to make that for my students.

Schema is powerful.  It is our knowledge that connects the facts and ideas that surround text.  Without that there is no connections or inferences therefore, there is no comprehension or understanding. 

Schema is a foundation for reading.  Yes we need phonics and phonemic awareness and all of the important concepts to learn to read words, but to understand text and really become a reader we need prior knowledge.   We need to have experience about topics so we can relate to text in a personal meaning making way.

After listening to D. Pearson about the Common Core and prior knowledge here are my thoughts.  First, I so see how some teachers can over indulge in prior knowledge with students.  This meaning that more time is spent on hearing children’s stories than reading the text.  Yes I think it is an important part of the learning process to activate that schema but we cannot forget hat the text is also important.  I think that he brought up a good point that if common core leaves out this prior knowledge there will be trouble.  Just like D. Pearson said, it’s a cycle.  What we know affects what we read and then after we read again it adds to our schema.  We cannot take this out of the reading process but there needs to be a balance. If we want our students to reach that higher level thinking that Common Core possesses we cannot remove schema and bringing what we know to our learning.  Taking this away I feel will lose meaning and connections to learning. 

All teachers needs to active, modify or build upon their students schema.  We need to remember just how important it is in reading.  We need to be aware of what we know about the world around us and bring that to reading of text.  It is through our schema and a text that we make connections and inferences, therefore creating a higher level on comprehension.