Science Inquiry- Google Presentation

Cara's Science Inquiry Project: Popcorn Wars-Google Presentation

Mesmer and Mesmer on RTI and testing

While reading Mesmer on RTI, I can see that students are given a variety of tests from grades K-3. These universal literacy practices can be tied to federal funding and assess the student at least initially on speed, word identification, and phoneme awareness. Using this testing and running records, the teacher can begins to get an idea of the students' accuracy. "If the benchmark score does not meet the grade-level minimum, then additional diagnostics are administered and collected."(Mesmer, p. 284) Response to Intervention is a great way to get special education students the help they need while the assessments are being administered, instead of "admiring the student's reading problem-discussing the problem, and collecting data on it months before they can do anything about it " (Mesmer, p. 289) as in the current discrepancy model. I can see two points of worry here. First, is what about ELL students who may even after exiting ELL not perform well on standardized testing, are we pushing them into special education when they need the syntax and word meaning backgrounds to increase their comprehension? Also, I worry about the lack of acceptable testing for reading comprehension and too much reliance on standardized testing with too little time for informal assessments. Routman says that "we need to make sure we are documenting student's progress at the classroom and school level. We must balance formal assessments with informal assessments." (Routman, p. 111) It is a fine balance to have to walk between the meeting the needs of our students and assessing them as the state, fed and districts tell us to. RTI provides another way to help our students sooner than later, and that is probably a good thing.

Here is the link to Kristen's blog at http://kristen-bringonthebooks.blogspot.com/.
I found Kristen's questions on how RTI can help older students in middle school and high school to be thought provoking.

Tovani on Strategies to help reluctant readers

Reading Cris Tovani this week in I read it, but I don't get it; I have a better understanding of what is happening inside the heads of reluctant readers. I can also see that simply asking students to re-read isn't too helpful to them. Just like sounding out the word is only one of many strategies to teach word identification; re-reading is only one of many strategies to help students develop their reading comprehension. Tovani tells of her own experience with her fifth grade teacher, " We were doing fractions, and I was struggling to learn how to find common denominators. After many incorrect attempts, I asked for help. My teacher knelt down beside my desk and through clenched teeth said, " Think harder! Thinking harder about something that I didn't understand was a strategy that I couldn't sink my teeth into, and neither can my students"(Tovani, p.50) If our students aren't comprehending what they are reading they need alternate methods of how to understand better. As teachers, it is our responsibility to demonstrate and model how we read for comprehension and guide our students until they can begin to comprehend more fully and independently. By teaching our students how to make predictions, connect text to your real life and retell, we are helping make connections for students to read with better meaning.

Math Conversations

In reading Ballenger Chapters 4 and 5 and thinking about my students, what comes to mind is our calendar mini-sessions using Calendar Math. My MT brought all the kiddos to the carpet and had them discover the calendar for January on the first day back from break. What patterns could they see? What number groupings? Could they count by 7's? Which way did the pattern emerge. They must of talk with each other and come up with 40-50 different patterns or observations. Some of them didn't always make much sense at the time. My MT is very experienced at asking for clarifications and asking leading questions. I wish I had taped that session. After reading Ballenger, I am sure there was so much more going on. " This conversation and many of the others explored in the book, demonstrate, I believe, that when one shifts the kind of talk encouraged in classroom discussion, a different pattern of talent and achievement emerge."(Ballenger,p.79) By approaching this as a class together and letting the students come up with their own understandings, such a nice moment happens in the classroom. Students are making sense of the math meanings through their own lens. The students get very excited. In reading this and thinking about applying it, I think of our science methods class. Our professor is video taping us and reflecting on it later. I can see that now, that this would be a great way to understand us all better.

Student Teaching with a sub

In reading Tomlinson, I am reminded of the diverse landscape of a split classroom. In any classroom you will have very diverse learners each striving to master the subject in their own ways. The spectrum in a multi-age classroom really exemplifies this. I am currently struggling with this in my classroom. Tomlinson says, " Teachers in a healthy classroom continually invite their students to be a part of the teaching."(p.33) Yesterday, My MT was away and we had a sub. We also had 15 crayfish in tub waiting for a habitat. I am teaching the 2nd grade FOSE unit and my MT is teaching 3rd unit FOSE which includes the crawling crustaceans. I wasn't the expert, I didn't even know what I was doing, so we plunged in together and we observed, touched and figured it out together. By night fall the crayfish were nestled in their habitat eating lettuce and bacon. I didn't know they would eat bacon?!? We had all had a chance together to share our past experiences with crayfish, to pick them up safely and place them in their habitat and to figure out what kind of habitat they might like. It was chaotic, it was loud, it was fun! " While (teachers) know their leadership role, teachers in these classrooms understand that their students come in with vast amounts of tacit knowledge, a clear sense of what works in their world."(p.33) Obviously, this is not a plan for everyday, but it took this lack of planning to let me know it is less about the plan and more about the kiddos and helping them to make connections to their real life.

Reading for Comprehension

When my children were in school, reading was measured by dibels testing and Read Naturally. It was mostly about word per minute and timed tests. AR testing and AR books were a tool used to increase student's comprehension; but AR to me seemed to push kids to read and pass the test. It didn't have much to do with reading for enjoyment or a "just right" book. It certainly didn't seem to be centered on comprehension at all, especially in the primary grades. "Good readers are aware of their understanding or lack of it and always do whatever is necessary to make sense of what they are reading. You can't start teaching comprehension in grade 3. You start teaching it the day kids enter preschool or kindergarten."(Routman, p.118)

Routman asks teachers to remember their own comprehension strategies. When reading Routman for this week, I review all the headings and read all the captions and boxes. I try to get an idea of what the main idea is before reading the chapter. I like to read the introduction paragraphs and concluding paragraphs. This helps me as I read the chapter for retention. I also need to hold the book or paper and use a highlighter to mark important passages in the text. This way I can retain more of what I have read and can refer back to the reading and recapture the main idea. "Our students are more likely to increase their reading comprehension when we show them how we understand a text and model a variety of strategies ( such as asking questions,predicting, summarizing and clarifying)." (Routman, p. 122) I have not shared any of this with my students, but after reading Routman, I can see how modeling this for them as my strategy would have more meaning for them.

In my placement I have taught predicting when reading a read aloud book with my class. I will have planned out stopping places throughout the story where I can stop and ask my students what they think will happen next? It is a great way to check for their understanding of what I have just read and to get them interested in what is coming next. In reading non fiction for social studies or reading time, we monitor and clarify, did we understand what just happened in the past few paragraphs? Should re-read these passages for words that might help to convey meaning?

What I don't understand is if comprehension is so important, why are we still using dibels and reading words per minute as assessments for reading? These assessments certainly aren't telling teachers the whole story of what we need to know about a student's ability to comprehend what they read, not just read the words.

Mealworms

This week I taught the FOSE kit Insect to my second/third graders. We started out by reading a story What is Science? They drew a scientist and answered the questions: What is Science? Who are Scientists? What would you like to learn about in Science? They did an awesome job and I modeled for them with the doc cam on some ideas. I passed out three different types of gummy worms. They learned about observation and used their powers of observation to draw their gummy worm. We talked about drawing a cartoon and that good scientists make scientific drawings. They make the drawing as realistic as possible and they label their drawing. We then talked about characteristics of their gummy worm using descriptive words. After they wrote three characteristics of the worm. I asked for them to raise their hands and share. They then compared their gummy worm with their neighbors to find ways they were similar and different. We spoke of habitats for meal worms and what they need to survive. I checked for prior knowledge and they came up with a list of water, food, and habitat. We then gave them their meal worm(larvae) and pupa. Each of them got a habitat for their worms which they will keep on their desks. We will observe what happens over the next few weeks together!