Assessment

In Rubin's article, he states, "The mandated tests tend to give a snapshot of a child's ability, whereas use of a variety of assessments gives teachers a more comprehensive portrait."  Rubin discusses the importance of using multiple forms of assessment with the students.

My favorite was when Rubin discussed using three different periods of assessment measures: during independent reading time, instructional time, and times of frustration.  By evaluating the students during these different times, the teacher will be able to better assess the student's overall fluency, literacy, and reading level.

In the above assessment, teachers can use a simple worksheet to review student's reading.  Rather than writing negatives, teachers can suggest goals for each individual student as well as distinguish their strengths.

By using many ways to assess the students, teachers can get a better, fuller understanding of their comprehension.  How as teachers can we monitor this more and make sure we are fully assessing students in the most fair way possible?

Guided Reading

After reading Veronica Hanke's article, "Guided reading: young pupils' perspectives on classroom practice," I learned about the importance of guided reading and how best to address it within the classroom.

"Although there are explicit rules to learn about behaviors associated with books in guided reading lessons, there were also implicit rules about interactions between pupils and between teachers and pupils."

As indicated in the article, most teachers address guided reading by having time for the students to meet in small groups.  Each student is given the same book and the teacher is able to walk through the text with them.  The nice part of being in small groups is that the teacher has the ability to create the groups based on reading level.

If the teacher's schedule does not allow for time to meet with the students in groups, there are many ideas of how to include guided reading as a center during rotational time.  On Pinterest, I found a great idea:

For the "Roll & Retell" activity, students roll a dice to see what question they must answer.  This activity would be great for groups of 2-3 students.  They can pass the dice around and take turns discussing the book they read.

Guided reading is essential in fueling student's literacy, but also a great opportunity for students to work together in team building activities and build social skills.  If you are a teacher who is dividing the class into small groups, how do you make sure that all the students are contributing equally to the group?  My concern is that one student might talk the whole time while another may barely contribute.  Also, if you did a guided reading activity like the one above for a center, is there a way to organize the books so that students are choosing from the most appropriate reading level without knowing that there is a system to classifying the books?

Vocabulary and Read Alouds

According to the National Academy of Education, "The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is aloud to children."

Why is reading aloud so important?  Lane and Allen's article discusses creating a classroom that fosters an environment of proper word use.  The article discusses modeling sophisticated vocabulary use.  One way to do this in the classroom is when reading aloud to students.  As a teacher, the students look up to you and want to model what you do.  Therefore, if you use sophisticated vocabulary and display the proper ways to read a text, students will pick up on this and want to model your behavior.

The picture above shows "whisper phones" made out of PVC pipes.  This would be a terrific activity for a center so that students can practice reading aloud while also working alone.  This individual activity may be more comfortable for the more shy students while also allowing everyone a time to practice using their reading voices.

Is vocabulary important in the success of students' literacy?  Yes, by enhancing a student's vocabulary, the student's reading ability is positively effected.

In Blachowitz's article, the author discusses ways to teach vocabulary.  One simple way is to increase the number of books available in the classroom by providing a wide variety.  With this variety, students will be able to learn new words through the incorporation of unique texts into their daily reading.

I want to know what my blog readers think...
1. With the structured curriculum teachers are required to follow, how can we incorporate reading aloud into our daily schedules?
2. Are vocabulary quizzes the best way to assess student's understanding of vocabulary?