Payge Rivord EngEd 370

Chapter 13

components of a basal 

Below is a list of all components of a common basal

lesson framework of a lesson in a basal

The newest basil programs incorporate lessons and activities designed to promote strategic reading and to teach strategies for making informed decisions. Some include guided reading. They encompass marginal notes, highlights, features, and extensions. 

modifying basal lessons

A commercial reading program provides a starting point for making sound instructional decisions. Teachers who rely solely on their teachers manual or not following best practice. They must make informed decisions about using, not using, and/or supplementing basal reading programs. Teachers can work with coaches to help them modify and select lessons and materials for various kinds of learners from the plethora of materials a court reading program offers. Modifying lessons personalizes reading instruction for teachers and students. The reasons behind this lesson planning are very, but the most important one is the need to adapt in order to meet the special needs of students. The nature of students as readers, and as individuals within a social situation in which language plays a large role, causes teachers to modify instruction. 

evaluating reading materials for instruction

A thorough evaluation of a program currently in use is beneficial for assessing the instructional program in relation to the curriculum goals of the school district. The steps in this process should be done before deciding whether to consider new programs; it’s important to have this information as baseline data. 

1. What is the overall philosophy of the program? How is reading discussed in the teachers guide?
2. What kind of learning environment does the program recommend? Is it child centered? Teacher centered? Literature centered? Skills-based? Scientific?
3. Describe the emergent literacy program in detail. How does it provide provide for communication between school and home?
4. Describe the instructional program in detail. How are the lesson structure to teach for mnemic awareness, Word identification, vocabulary, reading fluency, comprehension, writing?
5. Describe the literature of the program. Are the selections in unabridged form? 
6. How well does the program integrate across the curriculum? In what ways is assessment connected to daily instruction? What opportunities are there for connections between the various language arts?

Chapter 14

readability: readability formulas can help estimate textbook difficulty, but they are not intended to be precise indicators. Of the many readability formulas available, the most popular ones are relatively quick and easy to calculate. They typically involve a measure of sentence linked in word difficulty to ascertain a grade level score for text materials. 

textmaster roles in literature circles

Below is a list of textmaster roles in literature circles

idea sketches: graphic organizers that students complete in small groups as they read textbook material. The purpose of the activity is for students to read a section of the text and focus on main ideas and supporting details, adding information to the organizers as they read.

trade books: literature and informational books widely available in bookstores; used by teachers to supplement or replace soul dependence on textbooks in reading or content area instruction.

literature across the curriculum

Literature and nonfiction trade books have the potential to capture children’s imagination and interest in people, places, events, and ideas. They have potential to develop in-depth understanding in ways that textbooks aren’t equipped to. Having a wide array of literature and nonfiction trade books available for content area learning is necessary but not sufficient to ensure that children make appropriate use of trade books. Teachers must plan further use by weaving trade books into meaningful and relevant instructional activities within the context of the content area study.

schema: mental framework that humans used to organize and construct meaning. 

literature web

below is an example of a literature web

narrative informational texts: The author typically tells a fictional story that conveys factual information. This type of text often works well as a read allowed and can be a motivating lead in to a topic of study. 

expository informational books: these do not contain stories; they contain information that typically follows specific text structures such as description, sequence, cause-and-effect, comparison and contrast, and problem-solving. In addition they often contain features such as a table of contents, glossary, list of illustrations, charts, and graphs.

mixed-text informational books: these are sometimes referred to as combined text trade books, narrative stories and include factual information in the surrounding text.

previewing: establishing purposes and priorities before reading to help students become aware of the goals of a reading assignment.

skimming: involves intensive previewing of the reading assignment to see what it will be about. To help students get a good sense of what is coming, have them read the first sentence of every paragraph.

organizer: Provides a frame of reference for comprehending text precisely for this reason: to help readers make connections between their prior knowledge a new material. There’s no way to develop or use an organizer they may be developed as written previews or as verbal presentations whatever format you decide to use, and organizer should highlight key concepts and ideas to be encountered in print. They should be prominent and easy to identify in the lesson presentation.

graphic organizer: any diagram of key concepts or main ideas that shows their relationship to each other.

anticipation guides: A series of oral or written statements for individual students to respond to before they read the text assignment. The statement serve as a springboard into discussion. Students must rely on what they already know to make educated guesses about the material to be read.

point-of-view guides: questions presented in an interview format. Students are instructed to role-play, writing in the first person to ensure that different perspectives are being taken, elaborating whenever possible with information from their experiences. In answering The interview questions, students actively contribute their own experiences to the role, which ultimately enhances their recall and comprehension.

idea circles: small peer lead group discussions of concepts fueled by multiple text sources. Idea circles are similar to literature circles in that they are composed of 3 to 6 students in our peer lead, with interaction rules explicitly discussed and posted. In idea circles students discuss a concept. Because the students read different informational books they bring unique information to the idea circle.

curriculum-based reader’s theater: this strategy involves having the students read sections of the text, working in small groups, and rewrite the main ideas in the form of an entertaining script. The benefits of a curriculum-based readers theater or threefold: increased fluency, enhance understanding of content, and motivation to read. 

I-charts: these were created to organize note-taking, encourage critical thinking that builds on students’ prior knowledge, and increase metacognitive awareness. Using I-charts help students identify what they want to know, organize the information, and determine if they have adequately answered their research question.

internet inquiry: an instructional strategy designed to help students engage in research on the Internet based on the questions they raise or their interests in various topics of study.

WebQuest: and electronica model in which Internet inquiry is organized to support student learning.

Classroom application

I enjoyed that chapter 13 emphasized that basals should not be explicitly taught from. Instead, they are more of a guideline or starting off point. The questions the chapter that are asked when analyzing lessons, will be very helpful and useful in my future classroom! 

Payge Rivord – EngEd 370

literature-based reading program: instructional practices in student activities such as independent reading, sustained reading and writing, social interactions, and read aloud‘s using literature, books, novels, short stories, magazines, plays, poems, and electronic books that have not been re-written for instructional purposes. 

community of readers: literature-based reading programs create a community of Warners. this is characterized by House students, in alliance with their friends and teachers, work together in classrooms in which school reading becomes like adult reading, where adults are motivated to read. Students in formally and spontaneously talk over their experiences with books and recommend books to each other.

how to hook students on books

selecting a classroom collection of books

A major classroom characteristic that brings children and books together is many carefully selected books. These books come from many different sources. Although the core collection is permanent, many of the borrowed titles change frequently so there’s always something new to encourage browsing. You may also include a selection of e-books. Books chosen for a classroom collection, no matter what type, should not be chosen for the sake of quantity. Rather book should be carefully chosen for a variety of reasons.

how to choose classroom literature

     A teacher needs to be familiar with children’s literature, to be able to choose literature for their classroom collections. Because children’s literature has expanded extensively in the past 20 years this is a big task. There are several strategies that can be used to help choose classroom literature there are some tips below.

• Read and enjoy children’s books yourself 
• Read children’s books with a sense of involvement
• Read a variety of book types
• Read books for a wide variety of ability levels
• Share how your students respond to particular books with other teachers or other university students

determining good literature

     A teachers first priority is to choose books that students will like and will read. It is important to take into consideration students diverse backgrounds, academic abilities, and interests. Teachers must be knowledgeable and enthusiastic about children’s literature. Consider the following:

1. The collection needs to contain modern, realistic literature as well as more traditional literature.
2. The collection needs to contain box that realistically present different ethnic and minority groups and non-traditional families as well as mainstream Americans. 
3. The collection needs to contain books with different types of themes and books of varying difficulty.
4. The collection needs to include non-fiction, as well as fiction.

multicultural literature

In a multicultural society made up of diverse groups to maintain their own cultural to traditions and experiences, books help us celebrate our distinctive differences and understand our common humanity. Stories are told through poems, folklore, picture books, realistic and historical fiction, biography, and nonfiction. Culturally diverse books, also represent the literature of the regional religious groups. All culturally diverse books portray what is unique to an individual culture and universal to all cultures. 

designing a classroom library

access to books in classroom library‘s affect students reading. Students will read 50% more books in classrooms with library’s than those who don’t have such access. A wide range of books on various reading levels is essential. As a classroom collection is compiled, the science, math, art, social studies, and musical curricula needs to be considered. Pay attention to the area of the classroom that houses the library. Specific physical features of classroom library as can increase students voluntary use of books. The classroom library should be highly visible; this communicates that it is an important part of the classroom. Clear boundary should set the library area apart from the rest of the classroom, the library is a quiet place for five or six children to read away from the rest of the classroom. Books in the library are organized and labeled by genre, theme, topic, Auster, reading level, content area, or some combination of these features. Literature oriented displays such as flannel boards, puppets, book jackets, posters, and talking books boost interest and enthusiasm.

Listening to literature

Children learn that literature is the source of pleasure from hearing Literature read to them. When they listen to literature, children especially those from a culturally and Luke linguistically diverse background, are exposed to stories and poems they cannot, or will not, read on their own. Often, once children are excited by hearing a selection, they want to read it for themselves. Through hearing stories and poems, students develop a positive disposition towards books. Cumulative experiences with hearing stories and poems are likely to improve reading comprehension and vocabulary development. Listening to stories and poems can also provide a basis for group discussion, which often leads to shared meanings and points of reference. Being read aloud to to help students develop literacy and language skills and interest in reading, and provides opportunities for social interactions.

reading aloud

teachers tend to read to children 10 to 20 minutes a day. However only 34% of the time spent on these read aloud‘s is related to units of study. The amount of booktalk following read aloud‘s often lasts fewer than five minutes. Students rarely encourage in exploring their response to literature during a read aloud.

helping students choose just right books

One trait of independent readers is the ability to select books they can enjoy from which they get personally important information. Good readers know how to select literature relevant to their interest in reading level, where is struggling readers do not. Teachers can tell exciting anecdotes about authors, provide previews of interesting stories, show videos about stories, suggest titles of stories that match students interests, encourage authors searches on the Internet, share level books listings, or compile teacher and/or student annotated book lists. Children also need to be shown how to choose books. Children should be asked to choose and read books of three different difficulty levels.

core books: A collection of books that forms the nucleus of a school reading program at each grade level; usually selected by a curriculums committee (like a basal). 

literature circles: A discussion or study group based on a collaborative strategy involving self selection of books for reading; each group consists of students to independently selected the same book.

reading workshop

reading workshops provide an organizational framework that allows readers to demonstrate their use of reading strategies by responding to books and sharing meaning with others. Reading workshops have several key features:

• sparking interest
• Minilessons 
• Status of the class report: helps monitor progress
• Sustained silent reading 
• Individual reading conferences
• Group sharing time 

roles in literature circles

responses to literature

Every reading event or transaction involves a reader in the text; meaning that results from the transaction are dependent on both entities. When I read her approach is a reading event within efferent dance, attention is focused on accumulating what is to be carried away from the reading. Teachers create responsive environments in their classroom by inviting students of all abilities and from diverse backgrounds to react to literature through various symbol systems and modes of expression: art, movement, music, creative drama, talk, writing.

read-response theory: A theory that proclaims that the reader is crucial to the construction of the literary experience

Classroom application 

the section of the text on creating your classroom library was the most interesting for me! It gave real tips, like making it a separate part of the room, or adding book posters! these are tips that I will actually take and use! 

Payge Rivord – EngEd 370

relationships between reading and writing and what the research states

Reading and writing have been described as two sides of the same process. Supported by new knowledge about literacy development, today’s teachers recognize that when young children are engaged in writing, they are using and manipulating written language. In doing so, children develop valuable concepts about print and how messages are created. There is compelling evidence to suggest that writing and reading abilities develop concurrently and should be nurtured together. Literacy development demands that students engage in reading and writing concurrently for a variety of reasons (pg. 381).

how to create an informal writing environment

Informal learning environments increase the volume of reading and writing elementary children do. Children must have numerous occasions to write about things that are important to them. The teachers positive attitude attitude towards invented spelling’s contributes greatly to chill children’s writing development. Concerns for the form and mechanics of writing matter but must be viewed from a developmental perspective. It is equally important that teachers provide middle school students with opportunities to write freely in any form they choose. In order to develop their writing skills, they need a chance to develop a writing voice.

suggestions to encourage classroom writing

1. Use students experiences, and encourage them to write about things that are relevant to their interests and needs. Students must choose topics they care about.
2. Develop sensitivity to good writing by reading poetry and literature to all students. All writers need to listen to written language.
3. Invent ways to value what students have written. Students need praise and feedback, the two main stays of a built in support system for classroom writing. Sharing writing in progress is an important way to ensure a response, or feedback.
4. Guide the writing personally. As students are writing, you Should circulate around the room to help and encourage. Conferencing then becomes the primary means by which to respond and to give feedback in the writers environment.
5. Write stories and poetry of your own and share them with your students. Sharing your writing with students or discussing problems you are having as a writer signals that writing is as much a problem-solving activity for you as it is for them.
6. tie in writing with the entire curriculums. Content area activities may provide the experiences and topics that can give direction and meaning to writing. Writing to learn will help students discover and synthesize relationships among the concepts they are studying.
7.  etc start a writing center in your classroom. A writing center is a place where young writers can go to find ideas, contemplate, or read other students writing. The center can be equipped with lined paper of various sizes and colors, drawing paper of all sizes, envelopes, indexed boards, etc. 
8. create a relaxed atmosphere. ELL . students benefit from learning environments in which the teacher provides “smiles and humor to lighten the intensity of learning experience“. Although students need challenging and motivating assignments, they must feel comfortable with making mistakes.

what can students write about & writing activities

dialogue journal: this emphasizes meaning while providing natural, functional experiences in both reading and reading. Student and teacher use dialogue journal is to converse in writing. A teachers response to children’s entries may include comments, questions, and invitations for children to express themselves.

buddy journal: this is a variation of the dialogue Journal. It is the same concept, except between students.

key pals: this is email communication between students with others in the same learning community, at a neighborhood school, or anywhere in the world. This is the electronic equivalent of penpals.

double-entry journal: A double entry journal provides students with an opportunity to identify text passages that are interesting or meaningful to them and to explore, in writing, why. Students fold sheets of paper in half lengthwise, creating two columns for journal entries. In the left-hand column reader select quotes from the text they find interesting. Then they copied the text verbatim and identify the page from which each text is taken. On the right hand column readers enter their personal responses and reactions to the text quotes.

reading journals: Reading journals provide students with more structure and less choice in deciding what they will write about. The teacher often provides a prompt to guide students writing after a period of Sistine reading. Reading journals are usually use with a common or core text that everyone in class is reading or listening to.

response journals: response journals invite readers to respond to literary texts freely, without being prompted.

writing notebooks: Students gather observations, students gather observations, thoughts, reactions, ideas, unusual words, pictures, and interesting facts that might later spur them to write.

multigenre projects: is a collection of genres that reflects multiple responses to a book, theme, or topic. Students are given choices about which genres to use as they experiment with writing in a variety of ways.

plot scaffolds: an open ended script in which students use their imaginations in creative writing in a playful manner. The open ended scripts include characters, a setting, problem, and resolution with spaces for the students to read additional descriptions and problem-solving dialogue.

Traditional writing process

1. Brainstorming 
2. Drafting thoughts 
3. Revise thoughts after input from the teacher or peers
4. Edit writing for errors 
5. Publish 

Writing process according to authors

1. Discovery 
2. Drafting/getting thoughts on paper
3. Revising 

brainstorming: This is everything that writers do before the physical act of writing brainstorming is a time to generate ideas, stimulate thinking, make plans, and create a desire to write. Brainstorming is what writers do to get energized and to explore what to say and how to say it.

writing workshop: this provides students with the structure they need to understand, develop, or use specific writing strategies or by giving them direction in planning their writing or revising drafts.

minilessons: A brief, direct instructional exchange between the teacher and the writing group. This is not a substitute for individual guidance; instead it is meant to get students started on a writing project or to address their specific problems or needs.

group share sessions: writers reflect on the days work. “Process discussions“ focus on concerns and implicit questions like how did your writing go today? Did you get a lot done? Did you write better than yesterday?

guided writing: An instructional framework in which teachers scaffold students as they write. Guided writing involves teaching skills that are needed by students based on actual observation, engaging the students in conversations as they write, and using prompts

How to use technology to teach writing

Technology integrated into the curriculum for meaningful learning can be a powerful tool in a students literacy development. email conversations phone reading and writing skills by putting students in communication with other students. Electronica texts on the Internet or CD software are constructed and displayed on a computer screen. Teachers can provide instruction in these new literacy is by helping students recognize significant questions as they search for writing topics online. Today’s technology is re-defining the sense of community as students communicate with others worldwide and participate in community based projects. Using computers to construct electronic texts helps students examine ideas, Organize and report information and inquiry findings, and communicate with others. Word processing, desktop publishing, and authoring software programs allow students to use and develop literacy skills to publish riding in creative ways and prepare multimedia reports and presentations.

Classroom application

I found this list of writing activities very beneficial for my future instruction. There were many activities on the list and many activities I had never seen! I am excited to utilize some/any of these. 

Payge Rivord – EngEd 370

scaffolding instruction: Teachers model strategies step-by-step and explicitly demonstrated the processes of thinking before, during, and after one reads. Next, teachers provide the students with guided practice in the strategies, followed by independent practice and application. Scaffolding is considered a transactional strategies instruction. 

literal questions: students answer by using information explicitly and directly stated in the text.

inferential questions: students answer by using their background knowledge along with information from the text. 

evaluative questions: students answer by making judgements about what they read. 

active comprehension: when students are engaged in a process of generating questions and making connections throughout the reading.

ReQuest (reciprocal questioning): this encourages students to ask their own questions about the material being read. Below is an example of question prompts for this strategy. 

QAR (Question-answer relationships): these help learners know what information sources are available for seeking answers to different types of questions. Readers become more sensitive to the different mental operations and text demands required by different questions. Teachers and students become cognizant of the three-way relationships that exist among the question, the text to with your refers, in the background knowledge and information at the readers disposal.

QtA (questioning the author): this strategy models for students the importance of asking questions while reading. It demonstrates the kinds of questions students need to ask in order to think more deeply and construct meaning about segments of text as they read. It places value on the quality and depth of students responses to the authors intent.

reciprocal teaching: this is an approach to scaffolding reading comprehension in which teachers introduce for strategies, model the strategies, and gradually encourage independent use of the strategies in small groups as students take on the role of the teacher. These four strategies are:

1. Predicting what the text is about
2. Raising questions about the text
3. Summarizing the text
4. Clarifying difficult vocabulary and concepts

Think-alouds: A strategy where teachers and students share their thoughts, discuss what they wonder about and what confuses them, and make connections as they are reading. A common time to utilize a think- aloud is during a read aloud.

story map: A way of identifying major structural elements, both explicit and implicit, underlying a story to be taught in class. Below is an example of a story map. 

general comprehension questions: questions that can be applied to any story. EX: “Where did the story take place?”

specific comprehension questions: questions created from a specific text. EX: “Why was CharacterA upset when they began the test?”

Schema: prior/background knowledge

building a schema for stories

There are many resources available to teachers for locating quality children’s literature for teaching comprehension. There are three activities and suggestions that will help students build a sense of story and reinforce their awareness of story structure.

1. Read, tell, and perform stories in class: these types of experiences with stories are as paramount in the middle grades as they are in the beginning grades.
2. Show relationships between story parts: flow charts reflect best practices for mapping relationships that exist between events in the story. flowcharts give children a visual image of how stories are organized.
3. Reinforce story knowledge through instructional activities: children’s understanding of story structure can be extended through very instructional tasks. Two activities are suggested: macrocloze stories and scrambled stories.

macrocloze stories: A teacher constructs cloze material by deleting single words from a passage. Children are then given copies of the cloze passage and are required to supply the missing words.

scrambled stories: A story is separated into its parts and jumbled. Students must then read the scrambled story and re-order it.

story frames: A story frame provides the student with a skeletal paragraph: a sequence of space is tied together with transition words and connectors that signal a line of thought.

circular story map: hey circular story map uses pictures to depict the sequence of events leading to the problem in a story. This strategy is useful for students who strengths include visual representation.

DR-TA (directed reading-thinking activity): this activity builds critical awareness of the readers role and responsibility in interacting with the text. The strategy involves readers in the process of predicting, verifying, judging, and extending thinking about the text material.

KWL: this strategy helps students think about what they know or believe they know about a topic, what they need to find out by reading the text, what they learned by reading, and what they still need to and want to learn about the topic from other information sources.

discussion webs: these require students to explore both sides of an issue during discussions before drawing conclusions. The discussion web strategy uses a graphic aid to guide students thinking about the ideas that they want to contribute to the discussion. Below is an example of a discussion web.

story impressions: this strategy helps students anticipate what stories could be about. As a pre-reading activity, this strategy uses Clue words associated with the setting, characters, and events in the story to help readers write their own versions of the story prior to reading.

text connections 

text to self: this is a text connection that asks the student to share what a piece of fiction or nonfiction text reminds them of personally.

text to text: this is a text connection that asks the student to recall another text that reminds them of the one they are reading.

text to world: this type of connection is more inferential in nature because it asks the student to make connections beyond the story. What world issues does the story bring to mind?

Classroom application

Before reading this chapter I had never heard of a discussion web. I thought this idea was very neat and I will definitely be utilizing it in my future classroom. I think discussions can sometimes be intimidating for students and I think this web does a really good job of breaking discussions down into a simple and fair format, and allows students to explore multiple perspectives. 

Payge Rivord – EngEd 370

aptitude hypothesis, knowledge hypothesis, and instrumental hypothesis

Vocabulary: The breadth depth of all the words we know: The words we use, recognize, and respond to in meaningful acts of communication. Breadth involves the size and scope of our book vocabulary and depth concerns the level of understanding we have of words.

components of vocabulary: There are four components of vocabulary 

1. Listening 
2. Speaking
3. Reading 
4. Writing 
5. New literacies (additional component) 

Principles to Guide Vocabulary Instruction

1. Principal one: select words that children will encounter while reading literature and content material. Introducing vocabulary that students will find while they are reading is likely to significantly enhance comprehension. It includes
   1. Key words that come Directly from the basil, literature, Internet, or content text selections.
   2. Useful words that are relevant. Children encounter useful words repeatedly in a variety of contexts.
   3. Interesting words spike the imagination and create enthusiasm, and excitement, and interest in the study of words. Words that have unique origins, tell intriguing stories, or have intense personal meaning for students make good candidates for instruction. 
   4. Vocabulary – building words. Classroom instruction should include words that lend themselves readily to vocabulary building skills. Vocabulary building skills allow children to seek clues to word meetings on their own. Word should be selected for instruction that will show students how to inquire into the meaning of unknown words – through structural analysis.
2. Principal 2: teach words in relation to other words. Vocabulary words are often tied to basic concepts. Students develop definition or knowledge when they are able to relate new words to known words. When words are taught in relation to other words, students are actively drawn into the learning pride process. They must use background knowledge and experiences to detect similarities and differences.
3. Principal three: teach students to relate words to their background knowledge. When learning new words students use what they know to make initial predictions about the meaning of the word and then refine the meaning. Teaching students to relate words to their background knowledge is important for all students, especially for English learners.
4. Principal 4: teach words in pre-reading activities to activate knowledge and use them in post reading discussion, response, and retelling. Through pre-reading activities, vocabulary words can be focused on before students read to help activate background knowledge in activities involving predicting. Pre-reading and post reading vocabulary activities that connect vocabulary words to content are more desirable than isolated vocabulary exercises especially for English language learners. English language learners have more difficulty applying knowledge that they’ve gained through isolated trail.
5. Principle 5: Teach words systematically and in-depth. Vocabulary knowledge is applied knowledge. Knowing and teaching a word in depth means going beyond having students parrot back a definition. It means more than having students do something with the definition such as fighting is an antonym, fitting the words into a sentence blank, or classifying the word with other words. In order for students to process vocabulary in depth, they must generate a novel product using the term: they could restate the definition in their own words, compare the definition to their own experiences with the concept, or make up a sentence that clearly demonstrates the words meaning.
6. Principal 6: awaken interest in and enthusiasm for words. promoting students’ interest and engagement helps to develop rich vocabularies, especially for less advantage students. The teacher’s attitude towards vocabulary instruction can be contagious and what teachers do to illustrate the power of words is vital in improving children’s vocabulary. Get excited about learning new words, share words of interest to you with your students, and tell stories about the origins and derivation of words. 

Strategies for Vocabulary and Concept Development

1. Relating experiences to vocabulary learning. Students experiences will vary and technology such as talking book or virtual field trips can be useful for this strategy. 
2. Using context for vocabulary growth. Students need to hear the new words used in different contexts. Defining a word and using the word in a sentence or a context is a common and useful practice.
3. Developing word meanings. Definitional knowledge, or the ability to relate new words to known words, can be built through synonyms, antonyms, and multiple meaning words. 
   1. Synonyms are words that are similar in meaning to other words. Synonym instruction has value when a child has knowledge of a concept but is unfamiliar with its label.
   2. Antonyms are words that are opposite in meaning to other words. For teaching antonyms, consider strategies that challenge students to work with antonyms in various print contexts.
   3. Multiple meaning words are words that have multiple meanings these words give students opportunities to see how words operate in context.
4. Classifying and categorizing words. When children manipulate words in relation to other words, they are engaging in critical thinking. Vocabulary strategies and activities should give students the experience of thinking about, thinking through, and thinking with vocabulary. Through the aid of categorization (categorizing based on similarities) and classification strategies, students recognize that they can group words that label ideas, events, or objects.
   1. Word sorts is a form of categorization. The process of sorting words is in her growly involved in concept formation. A Word sort of simple yet valuable activity doing i Word sorts is a form of categorization. The process of sorting words is integrally involved in concept formation. A word sort of simple yet valuable activity to initiate. 
   2. Categorization activities can help students form relationships among words in much the same manner as open and close sorts. Children receive less assistance in the activities involving categorization
   3. Concept circles are a versatile activity appropriate for students at a wide range of grade levels, concept circles provide still another format an opportunity to study words critically and to relate words conceptually to one another.
   4. Semantic mapping is a strategy that shows readers and writers how to organize important information. Semantic mapping can also revolve around vocabulary learning by providing a visual display of how words are related to other words.
   5. Analogies are comparisons of two similar relationships. On one side of the analogy, the words are related in someway; on the other side, the words are related in the same way. Analogies probably should be taught to students beginning in the intermediate grades. If they are not familiar with the format of an analogy they may have trouble reading it successfully.
   6. Paired- word sentence generation can spur students into using these words in their speaking and writing. Paired word sentence generation is a task that could be used to test students’ understanding of difficult concepts. In using this strategy, the teacher gives students to related words. The goal of the strategy is to generate one sentence that correctly demonstrates an understanding of the words and their relationship to each other.

think sheet: below is an example of a think sheet

Predictogram: Story elements – including the setting, the incidence in the plot, characterization, the characters problem or goal, how the problem or goal is resolved, and the theme or larger issue to which the problem our goal relates – can be used to develop students meaning vocabulary with the predictogram strategy. Teachers choose words from a story that they feel will be challenging to students. The words and their meanings are discussed in class, and students relate their personal associations with the words. Finally, students work in groups to predict how they think the author might use each term in the story. Below is an example of a predictogram.

self-selection strategy: words for the self selection strategy can be drawn from Basal readers, literature, content area instruction, or incidental learning experiences. Children select the words to be studied and explain why the word should be studied. These words can be used in activities such as word sorts, analogies, synonym matching, or any of the other activities that have been described.

word knowledge rating: A way to get students to analyze how well they know vocabulary words. Words chosen by the teacher or by the students in the self selection strategy are written on a worksheet or on the board. After students have read them selves on their knowledge of the words, the teacher should lead them in discussing using questions such as “which are the hardest words?”

Classroom application 

Before reading this chapter, I had never heard of the strategy of using a predictogram! I think that this could be a very fun strategy to use in my future classroom! It allows students to discuss and collaborate, using their prior knowledge to make inferences. I will be using this! 

Payge Rivord – EngEd 370

fluency: The ability to read it easily and well, with prosody and automaticity 

prosody: reading with appropriate and accurate expression 

effective fluency instruction: this has three parts: instruction, practice, and assessment. Fluency instruction should incorporate the teaching of basic skills such as the mnemic awareness and phonics. Fluency practice includes the use of the codable text and other independent level texts to strengthen the sounds and spelling that are taught in the classroom. Strategies such as repeated readings, covered later in this chapter should be utilized. The assessment portion includes assessing fluency and this can be done relatively easily and requires little time.

mediated word identification: This implies that the reader needs more time to retrieve words from a long-term memory. Readers use mediating strategies when they don’t have in place a well developed schema for the word.

automaticity: The automatic, almost subconscious recognition and understanding of written text

prosody: to read with appropriate expression

predictable text: literature that is distinguished by familiar or predictable characteristics of setting, storyline, language patterns, or rhyme, and consequently can promote fluency.

types of predictable texts:

• chain/circulatory story
• Cumulative story
• Pattern story
• Question and answer
• Repetition of phrase
• Rhyme
• Song books

strategies to assist with fluency: 

• choral reading: oral reading, often of poetry, that makes use of various voice combinations and contrasts to create meaning or highlight the tone or qualities of a passage. Teacher and students read together. 
• echo reading: A method of modeling oral reading in which the teacher reads a line of a story and then the students echo by reading the same line back, imitating the teachers intonation and phrasing.
• fluency-orientated reading instruction (FORI): this was developed for whole group instruction with a basal. This incorporates the research- based practices of repeated, assisted reading with independent silent reading within a three- part classroom program. These three components are a reading lesson that includes teacher lead repeated oral reading and partner reading, a free-reading period at school, and a home reading. 
• readers’ theater: This is an oral presentation of drama, pros, or poetry by two or more readers. This differs from orally reading a selection because several readers take the individual parts of characters in the story or play. Instead of memorizing or improvising their parts, the players read them.

repeated readings: this involves having the student read a short passage from a book, magazine, or newspaper more than once with differing amounts of support.

paired repeated readings: students select their own passage from the material with in which they are currently working. The passage should be about 50 words in length. Students grouped in pairs, read their own passage silently and then decide who will be the first reader. The first reader than reads his or her passage out loud to a partner three different times. After each oral reading, the reader evaluate his or her reading. 

fluency development lesson (FDL): and instructional framework designed to develop oral reading fluency. It incorporates the use of various repeated reading techniques such as choral reading and paired reading routines.

automated reading: A reading approach in which students listen individually to audio recorded stories while reading along with the written text.

oral recitation lesson (ORL): this provides a useful structure for working on fluency in daily instruction. ORL has two components: direct instruction and student practice. The first component incorporates comprehension, practice, and then performance. The second component incorporates indirect instruction and involved practicing until mastery is achieved. 

support reading strategy: this is over a three day period, it emphasizes specific aspects of reading, training and intergrate the teaching of fluency with other important aspects of reading, like comprehension and word recognition. 

cross-age reading: A routine for fluency development that pairs upper grade readers with younger children.

what parents can do at home to help their student become a fluent reader

children become fluent readers through lots of practice; they need a lot of opportunities to read and be read to at home. 

• read more: research tells us the best way to become a better reader is to spend more time reading. Anything parents can do to encourage their children to spend more time with print will help make them better readers.
• Read aloud: express the importance of parents reading aloud to children of all ages. Suggested they read aloud while their child watches the page. Encourage them to use free, online e-books while the child follows along.
• Re-read familiar texts: while it may not be interesting to parents, re-reading favorite books helps children become fluent and therefore should be done frequently.
• Echo read: echo reading is a re-reading strategy designed to help students develop expressive, fluent reading. The teacher or parent reads a short segment of text in the student echoes back the same sentence or phrase while following along in the text.
• Use predictable books: to build fluency parents should read books for children that have predictable, rhythmic pattern so the children tend to hear the sound of fluent reading as he or she reads the book aloud.

assessing fluency

reading rate: The rate at which a student reads

WPM or WCPM: and assessment in which readers read aloud for one minute from materials used in the reading lessons. The teacher notes words read incorrectly. The assessment tracks changes in reading rates and accuracy overtime and assesses the appropriateness of the texts difficulty.

Classroom Application

I really liked that this chapter touched on what caregivers can do to help their students become fluent readers. I can take this information later and relay this exact list to my students’ caregivers! I can see myself either printing out this list and putting in my students’ “take home” folders, or posting the list to the google classroom/classroom website! I think this is an awesome resource and I want my students’ caregivers to have it!

Payge Rivord – EngEd 370

word attack and word analysis: these terms suggest the act of translating print into speech through analysis of letter-sound relationships.

word recognition: immediate identification of a word

decoding: The conscious or automatic processing and translating of the printed word into speech

phonics: anything written 

prealphabetic phase, partial alphabetic phase, full alphabetic phase, and consolidated alphabetic phase

The table below gives a brief description and example of each phase

onsets: The initial part of a word that proceeds the vowel

rimes: The part of the letter pattern in a word that includes the vowel and any continents that follows

analytic phonics instruction: A whole-to-part approach to word study in which the student is first thought a number of site words and then relevant phonic generalize Asians, which are subsequently applied to other words. It usually involves these steps:

1. Observe a list of known words with a common letter – sound relationship
2. Begin questioning about how the words look and sound the same and how they are different
3. Elicit the common letter – sound relationship and discuss
4. Have the learners phrase a generalized Tatian about the letter – sound relationship

synthetic phonics instruction: A part-to-whole phonics approach to reading instruction in which the student learns the sounds represented by letters and letter combinations, blends the Sounds together to pronounce new words, and finally identifies which phonics generalizations apply. The sequence of instruction usually goes like this:

1. Teach the letter names
2. Teach the sound or sounds each letter represents 
3. drill on the letter – sound relationships until rapidly recognized. Discuss rules and form generalize Asians about relationships that usually apply to words
4. Teach the blending of separate sounds to make a word
5. Provide the opportunity to apply blending to unknown words

linguistic phonics instruction: A beginning reading approach based on highly regular sound Dash symbol patterns, temporarily substituted for the term phonic in the early 1960s. This approach emphasizes learning to decode words through regular letter patterns. Linguistic programs include stories that are written with numerous words that repeat specific letter- sound relationships. This instruction is considered traditional and it’s purpose is to assist beginning readers in applying phonics instruction during text reading.

decodable text: text that is written with a large number of words that have phonetic similarities; there is typically a match between the text and the phonics elements that the teacher has taught

digraphs: two letters who sounds blend together to make one word

consonant blends: two or three consonants grouped together, but each consonant retains its original sound

dipthongs: sounds that consist of a blend of two separate bowel sounds. 

EX: /oi/ as in “oil” 

syllables: A vowel or a cluster of letters containing a vowel and pronounced as a unit

analogy-based instruction: this is sometimes referred to as analytic phonics, students are taught to use their knowledge of letters representing on sets and rhymes in words they already know how to pronounce, rather than their knowledge of letter Dash full name correspondence to pronounce unfamiliar words.

developmental stages of word learning and spelling

The table below gives a brief description of each developmental stage

embedded phonics instruction: this is often associated with holistic, meaning-centered teaching. In literature- based instruction students learn phonics skills in the context of stories that makes sense.  

phonograms: another term for rimes

making words: Flipbooks make students aware of their word making capability when they substitute different consonants at the beginning of a rhyme.

word walls: words compiled on sheets of shelf paper hung on the wall of a classroom. Word walls are used by teachers to engage students in word study for a variety of instructional purposes

high-frequency words: sight words that cannot be sounded out and are frequently used in reading. These words require automaticity

cloze sentences: this is a fill in the blank method. Close activities can contain as few as one deletion in a sentence or up to 20 dilation’s in a passage. There are different dilution systems: selective or dilation, systematic or dilation, and partial word deletion. The kind of deletion system used determines what aspects of the passage student should focus on as they complete the close passages and discuss their responses

cross-checking: this involves re-reading a sentence or two to “cross – check” -confirm, modify, or reject- probable pronunciations of unknown words encountered during reading. If the sentence makes sense, the meaning confirms the readers crossed – checking; if this sentence doesn’t make sense, the reader tries again

self-monitoring: being aware of Miss cues, the pronunciation of unknown words, and comprehension processes during reading to develop the ability to correct oneself

structural analysis: A word recognition skills that involves identifying words and meaningful units such as prefixes, suffixes, and root words. Structural analysis also includes being able to identify inflected endings, compound words, and contractions.

morpheme: the smallest meaning unit of a word

inflected endings: suffixes that change the tense of degree of a word, but not the meaning

high-stakes testing: The premise of high-stakes testing is that consequences good or bad, such as promotion or retention decisions, are linked to a performance on a test. It is intended to provide the public with a guarantee that students can perform at a level necessary to function in society and in the workforce.

authentic assessment: this means that students are doing reading and writing tasks that look like real life tasks, and students are primarily in control of the reading or writing task. These two criteria often lead to a third: students develop ownership, engage thoughtfully, and learn to assess themselves.

retelling: story retelling is a skill where a student is able to not only retell this simple sequence of story events, but is also able to include understanding of the story and characterization. 

formative assessment: these assessments are used to gather information. A formative assessment is when the information gathered is used to adapt instruction to meet students’ needs. It is on-going to determine students strengths and how learning progresses. this helps to identify specific learning needs of all students.

self-assessment: this is when students assess their own learning. Students will answer questions such as “where am I going? “Or “where am I now?” These questions lay the foundation for students to identify their strengths and weaknesses and help provide a plan for intervention. 

formal assessment: formal tests maybe norm referenced or criterion referenced. Many of the recent standardized tests give both norm referenced and criterion referenced results of students performance. Norm referenced test results, in particular, appeared to meet stakeholders needs for making comparisons. 

standardized tests: these are machines scored instruments that sample reading performance during a single admission. Standardized test scores are useful in making comparisons among individuals or groups at the local, state, or national level.

norms: Norms represent average scores of the sampling of students selected for a testing according to factors such as age, sex, race, grade, or socioeconomic status.

Reliability: this refers to the stability of the test. Does it measure in ability consistently over time or consistently across equivalent forms? The reliability of a test is expressed as a correlation coefficient. 

validity: this refers to how well a test measures what it is designed to measure. The test should have construct validity, to establish construct validity the test developer must show the relationship between a theoretical construct such as reading and the test that proposes to measure the construct. It should also have content validity, that reflects how well the test represents the domain or content area being examined.

types of test scores: there are two types of test scores, they are percentiles and stanines.

• percentiles: refer to scores in terms of the percent of a group the student has scored above. Percentile norms are developed by examining performance only within a single grade level. Percentile scores provide information that helps teachers interpret relative performance within a grade level only. They are also easily interpretable.
• stanines: this is one type of a standard score. A standard score is a raw score that has been converted to a common standard to permit comparison. Standard scores have the same mean and standard deviation, which allows teachers to make direct comparisons of student performance across tests and subtests. 

types of assessments: there are two types of tests that are addressed in the book, they are survey tests and diagnostic tests.

• survey test: this represents a measure of general performance only. It does not yield precise information about an individual’s reading abilities. Surveys are often used at the beginning of the school year as a screening test to identify children who may be having difficulties in broad areas of instruction.
• diagnostic test: a type of formal assessment intended to provide more detailed information about individual students’ strengths and weaknesses. These results are often used to profile a student strengths and weaknesses of reading performance. Some diagnostic tests are individual; others are designed for group administration.

criterion-references tests: Formal assessment designed to measure individual student achievement according to a specific criterion for preferments.

informal assessments: informal measures of reading that you’ll do you spell information about student performance without comparisons to the performance of a normative population. 

informal reading inventory (IRI): and individually administered in formal test, usually consisting of graded word lists, graded reading passages, and comprehension questions that assess how students orally and silently interact with print.

Three Reading Levels

1. independent reading level: Students can read comfortably on their own. They recognize almost all words; their accuracy rate is 95 through 100%. The reading is fluent and they comprehend what they’ve read.
2. instructional reading level: Students can read with support but not on their own. They recognize most words; their accuracy rate is 90 through 94%. Their reading may be fluent, but sometimes it isn’t. With support from the teacher or classmates students can comprehend what they’re reading, but if they’re reading independently their understanding is limited.
3. frustrational reading level: books at the frustration reading level are too difficult for students to read successfully, even with assistance. Students don’t recognize enough words automatically; their accuracy is less than 90%. Their reading is choppy and word by word, and it often doesn’t make sense. Students also show little understanding of what’s been read.

miscue: oral reading errors 

miscue analysis: informal assessment of oral reading errors to determine the extent to which readers use and coordinate graphic-sound, syntactic, and semantic information.

running record: A method for marking miss cues of beginning readers while they read.

analyzing running records: The teacher calculates the words read correctly, analyzes the student’s errors, and identifies patterns of errors. The teacher also gives close attention to self corrections. 

words per minute (WPM) or words correct per minute (WCPM): this involves children reading aloud for one minute from materials used in the reading lessons. As the student is reading the text the teacher crosses out any word read incorrectly.

Dynamic indicators of basic literacy skills (DIBELS): this includes a series of oral reading skill assessment. Short measures are used to monitor early literacy skills and provide feedback to inform instruction.

portfolios: A con pie elation of an individual students work in reading and writing, devised to reveal literacy progress as well as strengths and weaknesses.

anecdotal notes: brief, written observations of revealing behavior that a teacher considers significant to understanding a child’s literacy learning.

checklist: A checklist consists of categories that have been presented for specific diagnostic purposes. She’s a checklist vary in scope and purpose; they can be relatively short and open ended or longer and more detailed. 

interviewing: The teacher interviews students by asking questions, to get a deeper understanding of what they are thinking and feeling.

Classroom Application

This chapter had a lot of information and I kind of felt overwhelmed. However, all of it is concepts and skills that I will use in my classroom daily. Learning about surveys was interesting to me because we just learned about universal screening in one of my TED classes. It helped me learn what a survey is because I had an idea of what universal screening was! This understanding is very important to my career because universal screening will be used every year!

emergent literacy: a concept that supports learning to read in a positive home environment where children are in the process of becoming literate from birth. It assumes children are always becoming readers are writers and that they are born ready to learn about literacy and continue to grow in their understandings throughout life

scaffolding instruction: teachers model strategies step-by-step and explicitly demonstrate the processes of thinking before, during, and after one reads. Next, teachers provide the students with guided practice in the strategies, followed by independent practice and application.

storybook experiences: this includes read-aloud and read-alongs, interactive writing, rereadings of favorite texts, and independent reading and writing. These help accomplish numerous instructional goals:

interactive writing: A shared writing activity in which children are invited to volunteer to write parts of a story

 linguistic awareness: understanding the technical terms and labels needed to talk and think about reading

print awareness: this refers to a child’s understanding of the nature and uses of print. A child’s print awareness is closely associated with his or her word awareness or the ability to recognize words as distinct elements of oral and written communication.

concept of print: this refers to the awareness of ‘how print works’. This includes the knowledge of the concept of what books, print, and written language are, and how they function. It encompasses a number of understandings that allow the reading process to take place including:

• understanding that print conveys a message
• knowledge about book orientation and directionality of print, and distinction between sentences, words and letters
• knowledge of the alphabetic system and the difference between letters and words.

assessing concept of print: this is usually done by using the “Concepts About Print Test” developer by Marie Clay. It can help answer the question: “to what degree does this student possess reading-related concepts and linguistic abilities l considered to be essential in learning to read?” This is usually introduced to a child in a subtle way using basic questioning.

phonemes: The smallest unit of sound represented in written language

alphabetic principle: a principle suggesting that letters in the alphabet map to phonemes (sounds)

phonics: written language

phonemic awareness: an understanding that speech is composed of a series of written sounds

phonological awareness: The ability to hear, recognize, and play with the sounds in our language. It involves hearing the sounds of language a part from the meaning

alliteration: the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables

EX. Shelly sells sea shells

 rimes: The part of the letter pattern in a word that includes the vowel and any consonant that follows

EX. SPORT: “sp” is onset, “ort” is rime

phonological awareness continuum: phonological awareness skills that develop over time from the simplest to the most complex. These include:

• phoneme matching
• blending
• segmentation
• manipulation
• Produce groups of words that begin with the same initial sound
• Blend syllables to say a word or segment spoken words into syllables
  

orthographic system: the system of writing conventions used to represent spoken English in written form that allows readers to connect spelling to sound to meaning

phoneme isolation: the ability to isolate sounds in a word

phoneme identity: the ability to recognize common sounds in different words

phoneme categorization: The ability to look at a small sequence of similar words and identify the word that has a different or “odd” sound compared to the rest of the words

blending: the ability to string together the sounds that each letter stands for in a word

segmenting beginning and ending sounds: the ability to group the beginning sound of a word, and group the end sound of a word

Ex. SEGMENT = /s/ egment /t/ 

phoneme deletion addition and substitution: the ability to take a phoneme in a word and either delete it, add to it, or substitute it to make a new word

Elkonin boxes: an instructional method used in the early elementary grades especially in children with reading difficulties and inadequate responders in order to build phonological awareness by segmenting words into individual sounds

phonemic segmentation: The ability to isolate and identify sounds in words

schema: mental frameworks that humans use to organize and construct meaning

Classroom application

I liked this chapter a lot because it was a refresher! This content is the foundation of teaching and learning to read and write. So, I will be working with this content for the rest of my career. I need all the refreshers I can get so this becomes a second language to me!

environmental print: print that is used in the environment, this can be cereal boxes, cleaning products, stores, etc.

Invented spelling: I name given to children’s written words before they have learned the rules of spelling and signifies a major leap in writing

How Writing Develops

The common denominator for “paper and pencil kids” is a strong desire and need for self-expression and communication. Young children learn writing through exploration. most five-year old’s have learned exploring with a pencil, pretending to write, inventing messages, copying an important word like ones name, and writing labels, messages, or special words in favorite story books. The key to early writing development is found not in a child’s motor development or intelligence but in the opportunities the child has to explore print.

How Reading Develops

Children see written language all around them: in books, supermarkets, department stores, fast food restaurants, on television, the computer science, and a variety of printed materials from video games to labels on household products. The child may also see parents, brothers, sisters, and others using written language to some degree weather to read recipes, follow directions, do homework, solve problems, acquire information, or enjoy a story. The plethora of print that confronts young children on a daily basis plays a subtle but important role in their desire to understand written language and use it for social and personal means. Children begin learning about reading and writing at a very early age by observing and interacting with adults and other children as they use literature in everyday activities. Through these experiences, children construct their own concepts about the function and structure of print. They quickly discover that print is useful and can be used to get things done in everyday life.

Phases of Literacy Development

Phase 1: awareness and exploration

The awareness and exploration phase begins at birth and progresses through a child’s preschool years. Children explore their environment and build the foundations for learning to read and write. The awareness and exploration phase of literacy development marks the time when children become curious about print and print related activities. Children demonstrate logo graphic knowledge by identifying labels, signs, cereal boxes, and other types of environmental print. They also begin to pretend read during the preschool years and engage in paper and pencil activities that include various forms of scribbling and written expression.

Phase 2: experimental reading and writing

Early awareness and exploration lead children to experiment with oral and written language. Children enter the experimental phase of the reading – writing continuum right around the time they enter kindergarten. This phase reflects their understanding of basic concepts of print, such as left to right and top to bottom orientation. Young children enjoy being read to and begin to engage in sustained reading and writing activities.

Phase 3: early reading and writing

The early phase of children’s development usually ochers in first grade when instruction becomes more formal. Children begin to read simple stories and can write about topics about which they have much prior knowledge and strong feelings. They can read and read tell familiar stories and begin to develop strategies for comprehension, such as predicting. They are beginning to develop accurate word identification skills through their increasing knowledge of letter sound patterns. Children’s ability to read with fluency becomes more evident as does their ability to recognize an increasing number of words on site. Their writing shows awareness of punctuation and capitalization knowledge as they continue to engage in writing about topics that are personally meaningful to them.

Phase 4: transitional reading and writing

by second grade, students begin to make the transition from early reading and writing to more complex literacy tasks. They are reading with greater fluency and using cognitive and metacognitive strategies more efficiently when comprehending and composing. During the transitional phase, children demonstrate an ever-increasing facility with reading and writing in all facets of activity, including use of word identification strategies, site word recognition, reading fluency, sustained silent reading, conventional spelling, and proofreading what they have written.

Phase 5: Independent and productive reading and writing

as children progress from the transitional phase, they engage in a lifelong process of becoming independent and productive readers and writers. The third-grade marks the beginning of their journey into independent and productive learning as they use reading and writing in increasingly more sophisticated ways to suit a variety of purposes and audiences. From this point on in their development as readers and writers, children extend and refine their literacy skills and strategies.

 literate environment: An environment that fosters interest in in curiosity about written language and supports children’s efforts to become readers and writers.

core language and literacy skills: A Core set of skills have been identified by research as those young children must have in order to become successful readers. These are the following:

• oral language comprehension: The ability to speak and listen with understanding
• Vocabulary: used to describe the words in individual knows and can use
• phonological awareness: involves hearing the sounds of language apart from its meaning, which is difficult for most children because they must be in consciously aware of structure of language, rather than simply using language to communicate
• Alphabet knowledge: the ability to name and write the 26 letters of the alphabet
• Developmental writing: the first attempts at spelling words and composing texts
• Printer knowledge: the ability to recognize print and understand that it works in specific ways with specific purposes
• Developing early literacy skills:  research supports instructional priorities and related components that helped develop young children’s language and early literacy knowledge and skills.

shared reading: The teacher in a class of beginners partake in reading and rereading of favorite stories, songs, poems, and rhymes.

 How to Promote Oral Language Development

Oral language comprehension is important because it provides the language foundation for learning to read and write. Shared book reading, singing songs, finger plays, storytelling, and dramatic play are a few of the ways to help children explore, learn, and use oral language in early years.

• 

 Design of Classroom Environment

High quality classrooms are those in which literacy learning is grounded in all the ways that children learn and grow- physically, socially, emotionally, and cognitively. The environment in these classrooms is rich with print, representing language to children and resulting from daily activities and thematic inquiry. The following areas are effective for a supportive environment:

• Book area: a book area that is orderly and inviting with comfortable furniture for at least four children should be prominent in the classroom but away from the block in dramatic play areas. The books should range in difficulty, reflect the current classroom theme, and include both narrative and expository stories.
• Listening area: there should be a listening center where children can use headphones to listen to books on CDs, iPod‘s, iPad’s, or the Internet.
• Computer area: software and online activities should be current and relevant. There should be a place near the computer where children can display the work they’ve done on the computer.
• Writing area: the writing area should be well stocked with a variety of paper and tools.

language-experience stories: in beginning reading instruction, permit young children to share and discuss experiences, listen to and tell stories, dictate words, sentences, and stories, and write independently. The teacher can revolve language experiences around speaking, listening, visual expression, singing, movement, and rhythmic activities. I’ll language experience story is an account that is told allowed by a child and printed by another person. This activity vividly shows the relationship between speech and print and also introduce his children to the thrill of personal authorship.

Classroom Application

In this chapter, I enjoyed learning about the aspects of designing classroom environment. This is the exciting part for me, and when I read how to effectively set up your classroom, I already started designing those areas in my head!