Week 12

Chapter 9:  Understanding Literacy as Social Practices

In this chapter Kucer relayed the connections of various social groups and the impact of these groups on literacy. Literacy when looked at cognitively and linguistically, operates within a common set of rules that govern the language and guides the forms that are taken on.  The focus of this type of view is on text as it is read is “cracked” or “coded.” Kucer encouraged the reader to look beyond cognitive and linguistic views only to see see the social dimensions of written language. This view of literacy lead Kucer to explain literacy in three ways literacy event, literacy practices, and literacy performances.  Literacy moves beyond the individual possessing it to a particular group and the purpose and views of literacy in that group.

The exercise Dr. Beach had us complete and the text expounded on, was a great connection to the groups that we each see our literacy tied too and how those groups overlap.  Kucer continued and gave examples of a professor’s literacy events and an artists.   It was interesting they were a part of a group together (the university), but their purposes for each literacy event was quite different.  The professor saw many of his literacy events overlapping between work and continuing education.  The artist saw distinct areas where literacy was for her job versus her work.  

As we see ourselves and our students as a part of various social groups, it is important to remember that the identity of the individual in the group is dynamic and changing.  One social group can take precedence over another.  Social groups are also dynamic and evolving since they are comprised of people and influenced by culture. This leads us to what is meant by discourse with a lower d.  It is a spance of language that is unified and meaningful to a social group.  Discourse with a capital D shows the appropriate way(s) to use discourse in a social group.  

Keeping all of this in mind, they way students see literacy can vary greatly from a school definition of literacy.  The culture of the family, as well as, socioeconomic  status can affect the child’s view of literacy.  Cultural modeling can be a valuable tool in the classroom to connect what is known about literacy to support academic learning.  It is important to understand what cultural groups are in the classroom in order to plan appropriate literacy events, practices, and performances.  Socioeconomics is not the only factor affecting literacy.  Cultures within that group also affect the views of literacy.  

I used to teach first grade in an inner-city school.  The primary population was African-American students.  At first I always wanted them to raise their hands in the class and be quiet to show respect for the speaker. (I did teach them how to do this!!)  But, I had to connect learning activities that were heavily contextualized.  Each student was a part of the class in a more vocal manner.  Some groups would have considered it chaotic, but learning was taking place.  

1. What did you learn from examining your own literacy practices?  How could this affect your view of literacy as a reading teacher?

2. What cultures do you see represented in your classrooms or classrooms you have seen if you don’t teach in the classroom?  What types of literacy events, practices, or performances are a part of those social groups?  Given that knowledge, what would be some appropriate cultural modeling you could use in the classroom?

Chapter 10: The Authority of Written Discourse

In this chapter Kucer is observing the individual as a text critic and text user.  Text is created and used within social groups.  That information is reflected and is a part of sociocultural dimensions of literacy.  In the classroom materials are considered a power relationship within society.  The creators of the texts are sponsored by certain social groups thus giving them a portion of power.  On a practical level, this reminds me of history books that provide only a partial view of a particular event in history, or there is a particular slant one direction or another.  

Power and control are at the center of the Common Core debate. Children are not one-size-fits-all in education, though standards can help guide that instruction.  Kucer says that some ideologies conflict with appropriate ways to teach young children how to read.  Specifically, he says that different groups, such as the Christian Coalition, have conflicts over how reading is taught due to their perspective of the Bible being interpreted through exegesis.  I am an Evangelical Christian and totally disagree with this statement.  As a teacher I can teach kids using research proven methods, and yes I still use exegesis to read my Bible.  Just because I am a Christian doesn’t mean I can teach kids to read in a way that is critical in nature.  (I am stepping off of my soapbox now.) I will relay that my prior statements do support the discussion of the chapter about being a part of social groups.  In Social Constructionism the key to understanding of any text always involves power and control.

As teachers we need to be aware of the background of our students and what they bring to the reading of a text.  As teachers we need to help them discover the various implicit meaning found within and teach critical responses.  Reading critically is a necessity for students.  Kucer concluded say that the authority of written discourse varies as the groups involved with the discourse vary.

1. Do you see power and control at work with the curriculum provided for you to use in your classroom?  Do you agree with what and how it guides your instruction?  (If you are not a teacher- just observations that may apply to you.)
2. How do we teach young children to think critically about texts that are read?  How does this look in the classroom?

Week 11

We have so much to cover this week so I hope to hit on the highlights and ask a question about each. I have read all the material so I am going to post on everything but those that split up the chapters please expand the chapters you read so we can all benefit.

B&M 5
Meaning making now comes in multiple modes, not just the written word. Now we have photography and movies that dominate all else with action packed stories and ideas. We know that writing is not  simply writing down what we say. Written expression is a different art. With media having advanced so much we have many different ways of expressing our thoughts and ideas. Language has also changed with out acronyms and short phrasing while texting and emailing.

Question: How are going to change our teaching styles in the new age of technology and how are we going to want our students respond to this change? What are our new parameters and how do we assess them?


B&M 6
Using media to teach language, receptive and expressive. Using media has been found to improve reading and vocabulary word usage and meaning. It is thought that we all use dual decoding. We take in verbal and non verbal cues to create meaning in the environment around us. When watching a movie or video that is telling a story our minds can take in the words of the story and the images portrayed. It was found that for Ell learners (English as a second language) that using this method greatly improved their vocabulary since they received the information that their minds could respond to in more that one aspect. This is especially helpful with low language learners and those that are at risk. We know that using more than one teaching method helps to gather more students in the (teaching net) and reach more students at the same time. Using things like children's television shows also creates synergy. You can watch Dora the Explorer and have meanings and information be repeated to you by watching the show again, going out in the community like Wal-Mart and seeing the character popularized. These repetitive images and ideas will promote remembering and therefore learning.

Question: Can we create learning environments with media or is it for entertainment only and therefore we are creating nonlearning environments ultimately.

S&H 8
Dual coding can broaden or breadth and depth of a subject. We now have multimedia to promote learning.
Videos

• Have been found to show better learning in ELL learners
• Content matters
• Videos can be good for receptive learning

Digital Texts

• Can be used in whole classroom settings when there is a great diversity of students such as race, language, at risk children and special needs children
• Promotes better expressive language when used with videos as apposed to static imagery

Computer Programs

• Not a lot studies done on computer software programs
• when used with oral language students assessed better than oral language alone

Question: How to determine good media from bad media? List any that you have tried and worked for the benefit of us all!

V&F 5,6,8
The purpose of these chapters was to give us an idea of how technology can help improve us as teachers and educators. Today everyone must be proficient in technology to be considered literate. We cannot only be readers and writers anymore. Kids where taught to use pod casts and decipher things such as commercials. Why we are drawn to things, what makes something attractive in imagery and wording. Children where also taught to satisfy their whims using email and looking up information at the speed of email and internet.

Question: Is it possible to teach someone to use information communication in a meaningful way vs. a non meaningful way?

Digital Storytellling
Digital storytelling article shows us the benefits of scaffolding teaching using technology. Technology can minimize the digital divide and promote diverse teaching. You are showing children to take and give meaning in multiple ways to make the greater independent thinkers.

Week 9: Teaching comprehension, fluency, writing and critical literacy

V&F Chapter 1: Setting a Context for Exploring Critical Literacies Using Technology

New technologies provide many more opportunities for students to interact with texts via critical literacy, but can also serve as another limiting factor as not all students have equal access. Technology can also provide the opportunity for students to construct multimodal texts with a purpose and to distribute their works to the appropriate audiences. For early elementary students, technology can be a new and exciting way to explore the world around them in a way that they may not be able to via traditional methods. 

Critical literacy is composed of principles which include having a critical perspective when interacting with texts and lessons and incorporating students' diversity and backgrounds within the classroom. Another principle is understanding that all texts have purpose and are constructed with perspective so that none are neutral but all connect the reader to the world. And, just as texts are constructed with perspective, the reader brings his/her own perspective to the reading, so there is always discourse occurring, there are always sociopolitical systems working, and there is always an opportunity for change and transformation through critical literacy. Texts are designed (created) in order to convey information through social interaction and can be written in ways that promote change; change occurs when texts are redesigned (analyzed/rewritten) in response to an analysis of the problem and to the creation of a possible solution.

Questions:

How can educators best balance incorporating new technology into the classroom, responsibly engaging in critical literacy, and encouraging text design and redesign without overshadowing traditional instruction?

What is the best way for technology to be responsibly incorporated into the classroom so that students understand the bias, perspective, and validity of texts?

B&M Chapter 12: Real Books, Real Reading: Effective Fluency Instruction

Fluency is a combination of three factors that combine to enhance comprehension, and it is imperative that the three aspects of fluency are emphasized so that one or two are not developed at the expense of the other. Accuracy and automaticity are important components as they require students to recognize words quickly (automatically) and accurately so that they are not mired down in decoding thereby losing the ability to comprehend what is being read. Prosody, however, is as equally important, but it often focused on less frequently than the other two because the majority of reading assessments such as DIBELS and AIMsweb focus on reading rates. Prosodic ability, reading with with proper intonation and expression, plays a vital role in comprehension as well because it allows students to become more engaged and connected with the text which leads to deeper levels of comprehension as well as more motivation to read.

Accuracy, automaticity, and prosody cannot be taught independently with the expectation of increased comprehension, and modeling, scaffolding, and practice are the most effective ways to teach them equally. Prosodic readings encourage comprehension and demonstrate what good reading sounds like. Read alouds are beneficial and should be continued into the upper grades, but they should also be balanced with plenty of opportunities for students to read independently with proper scaffolded instruction such as echo and choral readings. Students must be exposed to a variety of challenging texts and given plenty of opportunities to explore and interact with them as well. Oral Recitation, Fluency-Oriented Oral Reading/Wide Fluency-Oriented Oral Reading (FOOR/WIDE FOOR), and Repeated Readings are three effective, researched-based instructional strategies that will increase fluency.

Questions:

How do you ensure you balance teaching accuracy and automaticity with teaching prosody? Are there other techniques that you use besides the ones listed above?

Short, challenging, interesting texts should be used for repeated readings. Should these readings be from a grade level higher than they typically read? What genres of texts do you have the most success with?

Reading Comprehension: What Every Teacher Needs to Know

Comprehension comes when a reader is able to successfully read and interact with a text, make connections to and with the information it contains, and construct meaning through social mediation. Good readers actively participate in reading and construct meaning by implementing metacognitive and reading strategies that allow them to monitor and question their reading, decode unfamiliar words, and use text structures to their advantage. Good readers are motivated and engaged; they read more frequently, read a wider variety of texts, and read for more reasons than unmotivated readers. They also want to learn and and can make connections more easily with the text. 

Effective teachers know that comprehension is of the utmost importance and that their role is to assist students' engagement with the text through strategic lessons incorporating explicit instruction, scaffolding, and student participation. In addition, effective teachers know (and believe) that all students are able to learn and provide differentiation, motivation, and the correct texts to encourage learning and that it is important to have extensive opportunities for students to interact with texts and writing in a print-rich environment. They also apply their students' needs and interests to their extensive literacy knowledge so they can create diverse lessons with a variety of purposes and modify their lessons as needed as they monitor via formative assessments. Finally, they use formative assessments to drive and differentiate student instruction. These can take the form of observations, discussions, informal responses, and others.

Comprehension strategies (previewing, self-questioning, making connections, visualizing, knowing how words work, monitoring, summarizing, and evaluating) must be explicitly taught through gradual release of responsibility, scaffolding, and appropriate differentiation. In addition to comprehension strategies, vocabulary strategies must also be taught explicitly and independently through context clues. Vocabulary development can be influenced by the amount and frequency of reading a students does, teacher read alouds, multiple exposures, and opportunities to use words multiple times. Vocabulary words should be intentionally chosen and should be cross-curricular and categorized as often as possible, and students should learn both denotation as well as the contextual meaning of words.

Frequent interaction with multiple types of texts also increases comprehension. Students should be able to interact easy and independent-level texts on their own, with instructional-level texts with some teacher guidance, and with frustration-level texts via read alouds, books on CDs, and other scaffolded approaches. Students should be encouraged to read increasingly difficult selections especially when taking their interests into consideration. Students' responses to texts also increases comprehension, and responses should include oral, written, and alternative options that appeal to student interests and learning styles.

Finally, deeper-level comprehension should be encouraged through critical literacy. That is, students should be able to understand more than just the words on the page by actively questioning the text and the author's purpose. Critical literacy is the deep analyzation and evaluation, not passive acceptance of, a text by examining and questioning the relationship between the reader and author. This process is taught by modeling critical reading and questioning and ensuring students interact with a wide variety of critical literacy texts.

Questions:

How do you incorporate critical literacy in your classroom? What have you found to be the most effective way for students to interact with and question what they have read?

Do you incorporate thematic units into your classroom as a means to introduce a variety of texts, cross-curricular vocabulary, and a variety of responses? How do your students respond? Is there a higher rate of comprehension and vocabulary success?

List of strategies:
Here are a list of some strategies listed in the readings. I do not have experience in the elementary classroom, but I've listed a couple of the strategies that I use in the hopes that maybe they'd be applicable to the elementary level.

Oral Recitation (fluency)
FOOR/Wide FOOR (fluency)
Repeated Readings (fluency)
Draw and Write Retelling (summarizing)
Think alouds (comprehension strategies)
Bookmark Technique (formative assessment)
Concept of Definition Map (formative assessment)
K-W-L (formative assessment)
GIST (summary)
Summarize a story/section in a picture
5-Finger summary
Vocabulary Squares
Annotating text (metacognition)

Week 8: Comprehension and Writing Processes

Connecting academic vocabulary: 

Background knowledge is the knowledge that a reader brings to their interpretation of a text. Often a reader’s background knowledge can support their comprehension, or it can alter their understanding in a way that hinders comprehension. Background knowledge can also be lacking, which hinders comprehension. There are two forms of background knowledge that Kucer discusses: content knowledge (how much you know about horses, for instance) and process knowledge (how to prepare and train a horse for a horse show, for example). When content knowledge and process knowledge intersect, they often make up disciplinary knowledge, which is the combination of content and process knowledge for a particular discipline, such as science or history. Often, background knowledge is influenced by one’s cultural experiences, which act as a larger network of background knowledge that includes content knowledge and process knowledge, as well as particular societal standards and customs.

Related to the role of background knowledge, comprehension has a “situated nature” in the sense that it is situation within the context of a transaction. Comprehension occurs through the interaction of ideas from the text, ideas from the reader, and the “environment in which the text is read” (Kucer 195). One’s interpretation of a text varies when any of those three factors differs. The transactional perspective explains how different readers interpret texts differently and how a single reader can interpret a text differently when reading it multiple times. This situational dependency also applies to the writing process. The context of a writing event determines the function, content, and form of a piece of writing (204).

Questions to Consider

• Did you have any connections among the vocabulary words that I did not make?
• Did you understand any of the terms differently than I did?
• What examples can you think of for the connections among the words?

Thoughts on Table 7.1 in Kucer:

I thought that Table 7.1 was a really good exercise for illustrating the role of background knowledge in comprehension, so I’d like to discuss it. Below, I’ve provided the notes I took while I went through the process described in the text for Table 7. 1. Make sure you’ve also gone through the activity before you read my notes or my thoughts.

At first, I felt fairly confident that it was about a gymnastics tournament or something similar. I’ve been to several gymnastics tournaments throughout my life, since my best friend went to them for at least a decade and now coaches gymnastics teams. I fixated on the word “mat” and couldn’t think of another situation in which it would be relevant, except perhaps yoga, which didn’t seem to fit with the text. Upon reading the second section, I was very excited that I simply knew what it was about. With my experience working at daycares and babysitting when I was in high school and college, the language seemed to be a playful way to talk about time-out, and since I was familiar with this situation, I felt pretty confident about the way that the text fit with my guess. The “reader’s background also influences the saliency or prominence of the ideas in the text,” and I think that was definitely what was going on here with me (Kucer 183).

I became much less sure of myself with the third and fourth portions of the text, since the language no longer fit so perfectly with any schemata that I’ve developed. While the text is vague, I no longer felt like I could connect it to my background knowledge very well. The author said that someone caught him off guard by guessing that it was about breaking a horse, which I thought was funny because I hesitantly guessed that after the third section. I have a friend who breaks horses, and I don’t know much about it. While I couldn’t definitively say that it fits with that experience, I also couldn’t definitively say that it didn’t fit. By the fourth section, I was lost and grasping for strings. I didn’t feel like “prisoner” really fit, but it was the only plausible idea that I could think of. I lacked the background knowledge and personal experiences to create a coherent interpretation of the overall text.

Questions to Consider

• What were your thoughts while completing the activity?
• How did your background knowledge and cultural experiences influence your reading of the text?
• What are the implications of this activity or for the other activities for teaching preschool or early elementary?
• What were some of your thoughts during the other activities in this week’s reading?

Similarities and differences between the models:

One similarity between the ways that the texts frame the writing process is the “substantial interrelations between components of writing and reading domains,” such as the importance of background knowledge, familiarity with purposes for texts, and “code-related knowledge” (Puranik and Lonigan 455). Another similarity is the discussion of both content and process background knowledge. A difference, however, is how it is framed. Kucer, for the most part, focuses on the implications of content and process background knowledge for forming informative, logical, coherent ideas in writing. The article, on the other hand, uses these concepts to talk about the writer’s conceptual and procedural knowledge about writing.

I feel like the articles supplement one another fairly well. Kucer discusses important concepts related to the construction of meaning through writing and the clarity, coherence, and purpose of texts. These are “big picture” ideas that students’ writing will primarily focus on later in school, so teachers need to be aware of the implications for instruction in the early grades related to these concepts. The emergent writing article, on the other hand, focuses more on emergent writing skills that need to be taught as a foundation for getting those ideas on paper. For early childhood educators, this is invaluable and should probably encompass a large portion of their writing instruction.

Also, as for the methodology, I thought they were fairly thorough. However, I would have liked to have seen a more diverse group of participants. Also, I think it would have been useful to gain more sociocultural data, since many of the participants’ parents did not return the survey. That would increase the validity of the results of the study. As for the results, on the other hand, I think the article makes a good point—most studies only focus on one or two areas of emergent writing, and they were able to encompass a broader framework than others have in the past. I think that’s valuable.

Questions to Consider

• What’s an instructional implication of one or both models for your current or future classroom?
• What is something from either model that you had not considered before (or perhaps something that you now think about differently)?
• What’s a connection or a difference between the models that I did not address?

Implications of proficiency standards for writers: 

According to Kucer, oftentimes students are not performing below standards for proficiency because they lack the writing ability, but because they misunderstood the implications of the writing situation. Kucer elaborates that “it may be the case that these students are defining or understanding the particular writing context or writing genre in ways that differ or even contradict those of the teacher” (205). The text suggests that teachers respond to this issue by helping students become more familiar with the particular types of writing situations that they are encountering and by being more explicit about expectations for the writing situation.

The emergent writing model discussed in the article seemed to focus mostly on ascertaining the student’s ability to get their thoughts on paper, including vocabulary, phonological awareness, and print knowledge. For emergent literacy, this is probably a good place to start, although it perhaps encourages writers to focus more on the physical print than the ideas that the print represents. A more holistic approach to teaching and evaluating writing might be beneficial, even when emergent literacy assessments might focus solely on these areas.

Questions to Consider

• What are other instructional implications of standards of proficiency for writing?
• Can you think of a particular example of how this would apply to early childhood or early elementary writing contexts?
• What do you think is left out of these models in terms of determining a student’s proficiency with writing?