April’s Teaching Blog

I feel like as I read articles for class now, I’m looking to be able to spot the “deficit thinking” and when position papers are pushing their point of view on me as a reader.  I must just be a ding-dong.  I’m sure that the NAYEC/IRA position paper is just chock full of their own agenda, but I just don’t see it!  I want to be critical!  I want to be able to say, “Oh, see there?  That’s where the IRA is really lobbying to the government for such and such.”  Oh well, hopefully I’ll get better at this as I continue in grad school.

I must not be very good at spotting deficit thinking, either.  In reading “N is for Nonsensical” I see that they are saying what children from lower SES homes have a deficit in, (access to books, highly educated parents, etc.) but it is hard for me sometimes to not know the “deficit” (HATE THAT WORD!) and then create a plan to get the end product.  What I mean is that as a teacher, I like to see where a child is coming from, and then that helps me to see what I can do best to get that child to where we would like them to be.  This includes knowing the home situation, both what IS in and what IS NOT in the home.  I know that it is possible to address these concerns without deficit thinking, but admittedly, sometimes it is hard for me.  I have to choose my words carefully.  Deficit thinking is such a harsh word.  Maybe we can call it…”getting to an even playing field thinking” I don’t know, I’m up for suggestions.

On to what I would use from these articles in my classroom….The “Interactive Storybook Reading” article was a good reminder of what a read aloud is all about.  I myself am guilty of using a read aloud as a filler for when I may need to run an errand and my assistant is with them alone or about 5 minutes, and I am also guilty of using a read-aloud for all sorts of wonderful activities and enrichments.  I, however, would argue that children can be exposed to both ways of interacting with a book and come out of kindergarten academically unscathed.  I think it is important for children to interact with high quality literature in a teacher-led, thoughtful manner with extension activities, focus on vocabulary, and “book talking”.  AND I think that is also good for children to sit quietly after lunch and listen to a story read just for the sake of enjoyment.  I read tabloids, and I read research.  You can do both!  One is for enjoyment purely, and the other is to further my education.  I see the merit and value in both in my own life, and I see the same merit in my kindergarteners lives with both types of read-alouds. 

I would love to read an article that had tons of examples of high-quality children’s literature with examples of activities do with each story.  Maybe one day I could create that resource.  Like I have stated in my other posts, I love love LOVE to have concrete examples to go with the research and theory behind them.  The “Interactive Storybook” article has a short list of kindergarten read-alouds (all of which I think are wonderful) but it would be wonderful to have a super-huge list of these.  My favorite activity to do with each story that we read (if the story lends itself) is to act it out.  I think this gives the kids a chance to be introduced to drama as well as it helps them to comprehend the story through retelling.  With or without props, this is one of my favorite activities within my own classroom.  I really believe that books are not just a vehicle for learning, they are the “tour bus” and “tractor trailer” of kindergarten…they let the children see things they may not be exposed to in real life and they expose them to new vocabulary.  Just like a tractor trailer they carry loads and loads of information, and just like a tour bus they are one big party!

This is why I love Grad school- it gives me new ideas and encourages me to reflect on old ones.  I really enjoy reading the articles that we are assigned because they keep me thinking about new strategies, how to “tweak” old ones, and constantly has me thinking deeper about my instruction.  I am in a different situation this year by not teaching, but I feel like as soon as I set foot in my new classroom in August, I am going to have an unmatched arsenal of ideas and strategies supported by best practices research. 

I have to say that the “Life of Ms. A” sounds ideal.  Half day?  Awesome!  I think that half day programs are really wonderful in that although you have a short amount of time to instruct the children it can be spend so productively, and I think that the time Ms. A has is spent well.  I love how they encourage literacy through play, and I firmly believe that in early childhood classrooms (as well as kindergarten, although since it is in Elementary School is tends to not be considered “early childhood”) this is a wonderful way to supplement small group and one on one instruction.  Small group activity works best in kindergarten, and if support exists (assistants, volunteers, etc) this is the most fabulous way to spend instructional time.  Ms. A’s class seems a lot like my classroom last year as far as a lot of questioning (Ms. A’s question of the day), rhyming, and her use of poem charts.  Last year I also had a sign in sheet, a place to put your materials at the beginning of the day, and center choices, as well as a full-time and very helpful assistant. It was very ideal.

The IRA position statement was less interesting to me, but it did help to clear up the confusion that I had about phonemic and phonological awareness.  This article also encourages “play with spoken language as part of the broader literacy program”, and in my classroom we spent a good amount of time with Dr. Jean.  Dr. Jean is a singer/songwriter that has about 12 CD’s that are designed for what I would think are Pre-k to first grade learning.  If you’ve never listened to Dr. Jean, I personally would recommend her.  Her songs are designed for calendar time, rhyming, counting, letters and sounds, weather, etc.  The kids really enjoy them, and some of her silly songs are just too funny, while ALSO teaching play with words and sounds. 

The third article, “Supporting Phonemic Awareness Development in the Classroom”, was my favorite of the three.  It gave a chart of the definitions of terms used, such as ‘phoneme’ and ‘auditory discrimination’, and also included examples of the terms. I love charts, so I found the charts throughout the article helpful.  It gave concrete examples of phonemic awareness instruction, and also gave examples of activities that focus on rhyme, syllable manipulation, onset-rime manipulation, and phoneme manipulation.  I thought that all of these were useful, and I would definitely use the majority of these in my own classroom.  Theory can sometimes be hard for me to understand, but when I have concrete examples of how to use the theories I begin to understand the theory much more clearly, thus why I particularly enjoyed this article. 

Woot woot for new ideas!

Blogging is definitely a “new” endeavor for me.  I read blogs from time to time (mostly celebrity gossip…Pinkisthenewblog.com has been a favorite of mine for a while), but I have never written my own blog.  Guess ive never really thought that I was that interesting.  I love to share crazy stories about my class and this gives me a whole new audience besides my husband and my friends!

Last year I taught kindergarten in Wilkes County, NC.  It was my first year teaching and it was the best experience I could have imagined.  I really liked the girls that I taught with, the administration was pretty easy to get along with (a rarity I hear) and my kids were just so excited to learn and come to school.  The school was in a pretty poor area of the county, and most of my kids were struggling with home situations as well as adjusting to the new idea of coming to school everyday and following the rules.  We had a blast the whole year and I honestly can say that I miss them dearly.  I went back to visit a month or so ago, and hugged all of the ones I saw and was so happy to see that they were just as happy to see me.

Around Thanksgiving that year, Garry and I found out that I was pregnant!  We were so excited but I was worried how I would balance being a first year teacher and raging hormones.  Luckily it all worked out, my kids were so excited to see my growing belly, and I was blessed with a wonderfully understanding assistant who let me vent when I needed to.  The school year ended, and Ava was born on July 29th!  Best day of my life. 

Garry and I decided that we would move back to the Triangle to be closer to our families and that I would take the year off to take care of our baby girl.  Its been a hectic 6 months, and around October I started feeling cut off from the academic/working world, so I decided to apply to graduate school at UNC and was accepted.  So here I am, blogging about my journey up to now. 

I miss teaching, and I cant wait to get back to it next year.  I don’t know where I will be teaching yet, but I do hope that I am teaching Kindergarten.  I consider literacy to be my “specialty”, although only teaching one year hardly makes me a specialist.  Watching kindergartners come in to my classroom not knowing any of their alphabet, rarely having held a book and then turning into readers makes the job all worth it.  Watching the proud looks on their face when they read the book with one word on each page is not just a sense of accomplishment for the child, but a huge sense of accomplishment as a teacher.  I look forward to all the knowledge I am going to gain through this class and hope it brings me one step closer to being a literacy “specialist” in my next classroom!

Welcome to your brand new blog at Edublogs.

To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options available to you.

Also, please consider becoming an Edublogs Supporter – you can remove ads from yours and other blogs, upload up to 5GB or audio, video and every other sort of content and access great features under your ‘Plugins’ menu.

Supporters are what keeps Edublogs running and providing free blogs for education, so give it a go today

For assistance, take time to view our some helpful introductory videos, read through our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) or stop by The Edublogs Forums to chat with other edubloggers.

You can also subscribe to our brilliant free publication, The Edublogger, which is jammed with helpful tips, ideas and more.

And finally, if you like Edublogs but want to be able to simply create, administer, control and manage hundreds of student and teacher blogs at your school or college, check out Edublogs Campus… it’s like Edublogs in a box, all for you.

Thanks again for signing up with Edublogs!