Blog Week 7 - Entry #10

Homework Structure

Homework provides students with the opportunity to extend their learning outside the classroom. Therefore homework can be so very beneficial to students…as long as it is presented correctly and that it correlates with the information being learned in the classroom. Using homework to help students can make a HUGE difference in their learning. The following are some benefits of homework! First, homework helps students attain mastery of skills and knowledge. Next, it teaches students discipline as it makes them take responsibility for their own learning, and teaches them time management and organization. In addition, homework helps students develop good study habits for the future. Also, completing homework reinforces classroom skills and provides review, which in turn produces an increased retention of the material.

The following are my personal views on homework, or my homework policies, and what I believe are the best teaching practices for homework.

1. There will always be a clear purpose for the homework assigned. This means that I will never send home busy work or homework that is not directly related to what is happening in the classroom.

2. Assigned homework will give students the opportunity to show their learning. This means that I will never send home work designed to teach new skills, instead it will be work to reflect what they have already learned.

3., Homework will be assigned Monday through Thursday each week (unless it is a short week.) There will not be homework on weekends unless I have assigned a project your child is to work on at home over a long period of time. In this case, I will send information home far in advance so that you and your child can prepare for the time it will take to complete the project.

4. In the fourth grade, your student will have about an hour of homework each night. If your child is spending a significant amount of time more or less than this on homework each night, please contact me and we will make adjustments to your individual child’s homework. Although I try to strictly follow my homework policies, nothing is ever set in stone and I will always work with your child to help them succeed in my classroom!

5. Because I will be using homework to gain a better understanding of each students individual understanding of the material, homework will be modified to fit students individual needs and abilities. Understanding that all students are different, that they learn different and show that they have learned differently, I will create homework that will benefit each individual student best.

6. Parent/sibling/grandparent/neighbor/friend help should be minimal. Students should be able to complete their homework with little to no help the majority of the time. Your child’s homework again will cater to their abilities and therefore will be at their independent level. You should not need to sit with them each night, nor should you at any time do their homework for them. If they are struggling, I need to know this so that I can get to the root of the issue and help your child. Homework should not be too difficult and should not take too much time to complete – should not overwhelm students and they should be able to complete it on their own.

7. Feedback is also extremely important for students. Therefore, I will provide feedback on homework in a timely manner, and the feedback I do provide will be very specific as well as corrective. This means that it should help students understand how to correct their mistakes rather than simply telling them that they indeed made a mistake.

8. Your student will be given a planner at the beginning of the school year. They will write their homework in this planner EVERY night. When they have completed their daily homework, they are to show an adult (parent or guardian) that it is indeed finished, and that adult needs to sign their initials in a designated spot EVERY night. Students who come to school without this signature will miss out on 10 minutes of recess for the first offense, 20 minutes for the second offense (in a row), ALL of recess for the third offense (in a row) in addition to a call home where a plan of action will be discussed with parents. For students who bring a signed planner every day for 15 days in a row will be rewarded each time 15 signatures are accumulated without a break!!

9. In addition to their planner, students will also have a “Homework Journal.” This homework journal is EXTREMELY important, as this is where I will provide specific feedback on homework. Rather than showing corrections and suggestions on the actual sheet of homework, I will do so in this journal. This will give me more room to explain and show how to correct mistakes. I will try to be as clear and specific as possible when writing in your student’s homework journal. So when your student turns in their homework every morning, they will also be turning in their homework journal. This is also where I will communicate with and give feedback to parents regarding homework.

Ultimately, the purpose of homework is to help your students gain better understanding of what I am teaching in the classroom, which is why I am sharing my policies with you now!!! When we are working together and are all on the same page, your student is more likely to succeed!! I will at times also be assigning various educational websites for your students to visit for homework to practice specific skills. These too will give your child the opportunity to work independently at their specific level in a fun and different way!

Blog Week 6 - Entry #9

Non-Fiction:

My favorite graphic organizer to have student’s use when reading Non-Fiction is a KWL chart. I’m sure we are all familiar with KWL charts, but here is a brief description of what they are. The K stands for Know…meaning what the students already know about a particular subject or idea, the W is for Want to know…meaning what would the students want to know about the subject or idea, and the L stands for Learned…meaning what the students learned after reading about and exploring the topic. KWL charts are a great way to introduce a new idea or topic as it helps students activate prior knowledge, gives them a reason to focus on what they are reading, and shows what they have learned when they are finished reading!!! Here is why I love using them for Fiction. Again, and I apologize for repeating myself, while I have a teaching degree and license, I have not taught in my own classroom yet. However, during my student teaching, I had the opportunity to teach a 5-week unit on Non-Fiction. With the students, we read a variety of Non-Fiction pieces, and explored their purpose, how they were written, what elements each type had and so on. I used the KWL chart before each Non-Fiction piece we read as was recommended by my cooperating teacher, and it was amazing how greatly it increased understanding for the students!!

Fiction:

Again, because of the work I did with the 4^th graders I student taught, I found a graphic organizer that I thought was very useful for Fiction. In many of the Fiction books I read with the students, to the students, or that I learned about from the students, there were characters that were very important to the concept of the entire book, and therefore, I relied a lot on Character Maps. Character Maps can truly be beneficial with Non-Fiction, Fiction and Poems, however, I especially like to use them with Fiction because many fictitious main characters can be so complex and deep. Exploring who they are and why their specific features are important can be just as interesting as the book they are in and very beneficial to understanding the concepts and ideas in the book. Using the Character Map helps students to describe in great detail who the main character or characters are, thus helping them greater understand the story/book/novel they are reading.

Poetry:

I have never taught poetry nor do I know anything about teaching it. When there comes the time when I do have to teach it, I will be looking back at what I learn from all of your suggestions! So for this one, I simply looked online to see what I could find. Truthfully, I did not find a lot. The one I ended up choosing to share with you is one that I personally know would be beneficial to me when reading poetry. I am not big on poetry, and therefore I know that I would need a lot of help trying to find the meaning of a poem, and this particular graphic organizer does just that as it has the reader examining ALL aspects of a poem. Here is the link to the graphic organizer. Let me know what you think!!

http://public.doe.k12.ga.us/DMGetDocument.aspx/Grade%209%20-%20Poetry%20Unit%20-%20Poetry%20Analysis%20Graphic%20Organizer%20Task.pdf?p=6CC6799F8C1371F6C8F6D3B2C917CE78B237D1F66FB5CD14B59DCD1C61437825&Type=D

Blog Week 5 - Entry #8

In the sheltered literacy lesson shown on the videos I watched, the teacher does many different things to promote comprehension. Fist, she has prepared for the lesson by writing down the goals and instructions for the day. She begins with the students by going over the goal for the day, which is for the students to “begin to understand how to make inferences from reading a passage” and explains that it is directly related to what the students have been learning over the past week. She then explains that where the passage they will be reading is coming from and begins a discussion with the students about reading strategies that the students may need in the lesson. She writes what the students say on the board. Then she goes over vocabulary she feels the students may need help with before beginning reading the passage, and she had visuals to go along with each vocab word. She also makes relatable inferences for the students to remember the words. Once she has the students get out their books, she begins reading slowly and clearly to the students as they follow along. As she is reading, she also reminds students of different reading strategies. She goes over different sentences in the story, and talks about using background knowledge to infer what will happen next. She provides many opportunities for the students to review the vocab words and to make connections with the text with either their personal lives or other texts they have read. She constantly gives the students opportunities to talk about the text, and this gives them great practice in using the language they are learning. When the teacher is done teaching the lesson, she also reviews with the students everything they covered that day. The students are completely involved in and engaged in the entire lesson, they are participating, and they are obviously learning. They are given opportunities for clarification by the teacher, they are involved in whole group work, and they are able to participate in hands on activities which all help shelter the lesson for them. The teacher shows patience throughout the lesson, and gives the students a ton of constructive feedback and always makes sure they are on the same page with what she is doing at the time. This is a VERY well taught lesson, and I am impressed with the students levels of participation and their ability to stay focused.

Blog Week 4 Entry 7

Blog Entry #7

Context: This activity increases awareness of the struggles connected to language development as compared to literacy development for all readers.

Task Description: Conduct a running record/miscue analysis on 2 second language learners, one that speaks Spanish, and one that speaks another language. Analyze the miscues for M-meaning, S-Syntax, and V-visual cues. Are there some features of the errors that reflect the first language? Are there miscues that are universal to all readers?

What are some next teaching points based on this data? Answer these questions and discuss possible strategies or assignments to address the reading challenges you saw on your blog. Log 2 field hours for conducting running records and record the time in your field log.