Week 3: January 22

Although I do not see much English Language Arts instruction in the time that I am in my placement, I know that my mentor teacher has restricted morning rituals and activities to primarily literacy development.  Just when I arrive at my placement, my students are either in groups or by themselves in an area of the room of their choice with piles of books next to them.  Many of my students are exposed to very few forms of literature at home, and many times, none at all.  For some students, allowing them to simply become familiar with books has improved their understanding of the concepts of print, has exposed them to multiple types of texts (i.e. expository, narrative), and has helped them to better decode words.  Many of my students are below grade level in reading, and many of the kindergarteners specifically, have little to no understanding of the concept of a letter and can identify very few words.  My mentor teacher frequently tells them that you can read a book multiple ways, and one in particular, seems to have stuck with many students; many of them read books by looking at the pictures and make up their own story.  Many days, I work with these students to help them identify high-frequency words and easily decodable words while they are doing picture walks.  

In addition to the independent reading time, my mentor teacher does many read-alouds with our students.  After lunch, she reads a chapter from Junie B. Jones books while the children put their heads down and relax.  When they are in group and she does a read-aloud, she typically summarizes the book as soon as she is done reading it and begins a discussion with questions that only have "one right answer".  This was discussed heavily in the Langer reading.  I believe that doing multiple read-alouds throughout the day promotes a multitude of literacy concepts; however, I think that group discussions can be improved.  This was heavily discussed in the Langer reading; teachers often do not ask enough "thought tapper" questions to aid in students' meaning-making of a certain text.  According to Langer, there are four types of thought tappers:

1. Initial understandings - the teacher begins with final envisionment questions that encourage students to share their responses to the piece
2. Develop interpretations - help students explore motivations, causes, and implications
3. Reflecting on personal experiences - connections between reading and personal knowledge
4. Elaborating and extending - students become critics of the text

As stated before, although many of my students have not yet developed a deep understanding of the concepts of print and have little exposure to different types of literature outside of school, I believe that encouraging them to analyze the texts that they read and to make deep connections between the texts and their personal lives will help them to become better readers, and also writers.  Although the books that they read are quite simple and the students are still quite young, analyzing and connecting are important parts of literacy development.

In terms of multimodal texts, the books I have seen and read in my classroom are rather traditional, and do not particularly classify with the features of multimodal texts discussed in the Hassett and Curwood reading.  However, she does use the SmartBoard provided in the classroom every day, but not for literacy instruction.  If it is possible to download digital texts and do read-alouds using the SmartBoard, it would be easier for the students to examine the images of the text, follow along with my mentor teacher as she read, and interact with the text and illustrations using the pen feature.  For example, my mentor teacher could circle or underline the word of day in the text or the letter the students are currently learning about.

The Internet would also be something that my classroom could utilize more frequently to add variety to literacy instruction.  It seems as though many of my students are more familiar with how to operate a computer than how to write with a pencil as I observe them in the classroom and during computer time.  I believe that instruction should be attuned to and parallel to the constant developments and discoveries in technology; if students are constantly exposed to traditional instruction with little use of technology, they will be disadvantaged when it comes time for them to enter the real world.  As discussed by Tompkins, the Internet is "rapidly changing what it means to be literate".  Today's children are using various forms of technology to read rather than looking at actual books or printed text.  Therefore, similar to what was said about the SmartBoard, it may be beneficial for my students to practice reading using texts provided on the web, or playing online games that improve different areas of literacy development.  In turn, they will be better prepared for the ways of instruction in higher grades, in college, and in the work force if they have early exposure to one of the most used tools in our society.