Morris and Salvin

Explain what Morris means by the traditional role of kindergarten is “to level the playing field” in terms of literacy experience.

What Morris meant is that the school district and the schools were not giving reading instruction to the kids who were not exposed to reading in their homes.  

What literacy activities should be included in a kindergarten reading program?

• Reading Aloud – Children begin to associate that books have meaning.
• Guided Contextual Reading – Reading about shared experiences.
• Letter Sound Study – Knowledge of conventional letter sound pairings. 
• Writing – print related understandings, that are developmentally appropriate

Why read aloud to children? (5 things children learn)

1.  Children learn that there is meaning associated with the text
2. They learn that it is possible to create imaginary worlds through text
3. Provides them with vocabulary to relate new experiences
4. Allows them to “exploit the symbolic language of the world”.
5. Helps them with literacy demands of later grades 

 Why is guided contextual reading important in kindergarten?

Children will internalize the structure, cadence, and meaning based characteristics of written language.

            What is echo reading?

             When the teacher reads a line of text and the students read the

             line back.

            Describe dictated experience stories (language experience approach—LEA)

•  Children tell the teacher something that they did, as a group.
• The teacher writes it down on a large piece of paper.
• The teacher has them read it word by word, pointing to each word as they read – the teacher/class does this several times.
• The teacher asks questions about syntax, sight words, and letter recognition.
• The teacher has students work in groups and has each group finger-point, reading the story.
• Students attempt to illustrate the story while individual students finger-point, read the story.
• When they can finger point the teacher will ask if the students know individual words, either immediately, or by using context.

            Describe big book approach (shared reading approach)

The teacher reads a large book with students using a wooden pointer to point out the words as they go along. The first reading is slow and the pictures are inspected thoroughly. After reading a book three times, a new book is introduced.

            Why include both LEA and shared reading methods in kindergarten?

 The language pattern of dictated stories and big books are different yet each offer important connections to children. Big books are children’s literature,  and dictated stories use language that the Kinder’s are used to. Both methods extend children’s experiences and nurture their language development.

 Why is finger pointing so important for early readers?

 The children learn to read from left to right, to match spoken words to written words, and to use sentence context along with beginning consonant cues to identify words in text.

Questions about letter-sound study:

 If a child has trouble moving from one stage to another what is the best thin that the teacher can do?

Questions about early writing:

 When you see that kids are beginning to progress from the emergent stage, to the next stage, should you encourage writing only letters or should you allow them to choose?

Is there a role for independent reading in kindergarten?

 Yes, children learn that reading is important and the teacher can informally assess the student’s abilities during this time.

Questions about early assessment and how it informs instruction:

 I don’t really have any questions about early assessment. I think that early assessment is the best way to determine how a child is doing on most activities, and for most subjects.

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Morris (Ch. 3)

What does Fraatz (1987) mean by “paradox of collective instruction”?

The “paradox of collective instruction” is the ability of a school teacher to instruct her students, in the same grade level, at varying degrees of aptitude. Meaning that each student in her class has different levels of competency, yet she still has to teach them what they need to know.

What are the three critical components of learning to read?

Phonemic awareness, decoding words into their letters and sounds, and being able to understand what is being read.

List the four tasks that the first-grade teacher can use to assess individual children’s reading ability during the first week of school. Describe what each task is used to assess?

• Alphabet – Knowledge of the 26 letters of the alphabet.
• Concept of word in text – Understanding that words make up a text.
• Spelling – The ability to spell a word correctly, or at what level of ability that a reader is functioning at.
• Word recognition – The ability to recognize a variety of sight words.

What are some of the challenges of small-group instruction that face students and teachers?

Children’s self esteem can be harmed; children that are locked into a low reading group can fall significantly behind their peers, and significant organization and management problems.

How does Supported Oral Reading (SOR) differ from round robin reading in guiding children’s contextual reading?

Round robin reading is when one child reads and the other children listen. Supported Oral Reading is when the teacher goes through the book and details what the book is about before reading it so that the children are prepared for the text.

Why is appropriate leveling of books important and how has it been used in intervention and classroom settings?

If you give a student a book that is not age appropriate, you could be under utilizing their skills and not increasing their abilities. Students that are beginning readers need structure and control in their reading. If you give a student material that is too advanced, then it produces frustration and confusion.

Describe the developmental sequence of word study instruction. What does the continuum consist of? Why is it recommended that teachers follow such a sequence of instruction?

The developmental sequence of word study instruction begins with beginning consonants, then word families, short vowels, and finally one-syllable vowel patterns. Each of the concepts builds upon the knowledge of the previously known concept. The knowledge of each step is important to progressing into the next level so teachers should follow the sequence of instruction so that the students are ready for the next step.

How could you assess where a beginning reader’s is at on the continuum of word recognition skill?

By giving the student a spelling test you can see where the student is in the contiuum of word recognition skills. If a student is using just beginning consonant sound, or if they have first and last consonants then different methods would be used to build their skills.

Describe word sorting activities to teach beginning sound consonants and short-vowel word families.

Picture sorts are a great way to have kids understand that the sound at the beginning of word is its beginning consonant. After grasping the link between pictures, just the letter is used. Students match the picture to the beginning sound of the word. When this concept is mastered, students move onto the short vowel sort, where they match words that rhyme. This is done first with the short a family, words such as hat, man, and cap are matched to words that sound similar. When students can match up short vowel words that rhyme in the short a word family, they learn all of the short vowel word families.

What skills does word sorting help develop in beginning readers coupled with word games and spell checks?

“There is developmental logic that to a good word-recognition curriculum”. Students procure a large vocabulary and learn the structure of words after a developed understanding of word sorts.

What is instructional pacing? What factors were found by Barr (1974, 1982) to affect effective pacing?

Instructional pacing is the ability of a teacher to move his or her students through a set of graded reading materials. The factors that Barr found that affected pacing were, “difficulty of the classroom reading materials, time allocated to reading instruction, the number of low readers in the classroom, and the teachers years of experience teaching the perspective grade”.

In what ways can writing help beginning reader’s development?

Writing can help children understand the sound relationship to words. It gives them numerous opportunities to read, and reread text. It also gives students the opportunity to memorize letter sounds, spelling patterns, and sight words.

What are three tasks that could be used to assess end-of-year reading achievement? Describe the tasks briefly.

• Word Recognition – The child attempts to read a set of 40 words. Which are arranged from easy to difficult, and assess how far the student has progressed from the beginning of the year.

• Passage Reading – The child reads aloud six passages that range from the reading ability of an early 1st grader to the late 2nd grader. The child begins at reading level one, and progresses until the reading becomes too difficult.

• Spelling – The child attempts to spell a list of 15 words. Which test phonemic awareness and orthographic knowledge, if a student scores 55 and above it means that they have mid to late first grade knowledge, if they score from 39 and below, it means that they have early to mid first grade knowledge.