Blog #4 Foreign Text

I received a letter from District 11 regarding the Annual Report to the Public as required by the No Child Left Behind Act.  One side of the letter was English, the other side was Spanish.

I had no clue as to what it was trying to say in Spanish.  I began looking at each individual word and then began looking for ANY word that I could possibly decipher.  I then began to flip from side to side to try and translate the Spanish.  I was surprised to see that many words in Spanish resembled other English words what were synonyms for the English word.  An example is the word  "Accountability" in English is "Responsabilidad" in Spanish.  The Spanish translation looks more like the English word "Responsible". 

WOW!

Blog #3 Relationship between oral language and the reading process

The very early stages of reading require oral language.  Toddlers who picture walk through a book, predict and tell their own story based on the pictures is the beginning stages of reading.  Oral fluency and reading are very much related.  Words are a collection of sounds that are represented by letters.  If a child has difficulty producing sounds the child will have difficulty reading. 

Reading is initially introduced through modeling and read alouds beginning when children are babies.  If a child is unable to mimic the modeling, learning to read can be difficult and delayed.

Children who have difficulty with oral speech, may have difficulty sounding out unfamiliar words and predicting what the word.  The sounds that they are producing while phonemically producing a word doesn't sound similar to words that they hear from others. 

Blog #2 Writing instruction

I don't really remember any instuction regarding writing until I was in high school.  In elementary school I do remember having to identify the different components of a sentence, but don't recall any creative writing or journaling. 

In high school the English teacher Mr. Arthur, was the most dreaded and feared teacher in the school.  In reflection I learned the most from him regarding writing but it was strictly research writing.  It was a very formulaic system of writing and organization of thoughts.  I still use the process today when I have to write. 

All book information was placed on index cards as well as information obtained while researching.  The index cards were then sorted by topics.  Then all I needed to do was transition from index card to index card to complete the research paper. 

#1 Teaching Literacy

During lunch is when the Early Elementary teachers (1 Kindergarten teacher, 2 First Grade Teachers and 1 Second Grade teacher) discuss, topics and issues, share and socialize.  Currently we are deciding and discussing what Literacy Program our school should purchase for next year.  A representative from SRA Open Court came and spoke with us which allowed us to ask questions to determine if the program she was promoting would fit our Core Knowledge needs.  Our major literacy concerns, which reflects our philosophy, is if the program would be challenging enough, has good pacing and also promotes a sound writing curriculum.   There is also a need for the SRA program to align with Core Knowledge, Commom Core Standards as well as Colorado State Standards at the appropriate grade level.