Learning to Read in the Real World!!!

I observed in a K4 class at a local christian school. The K4 class consist of 4 to 6 year olds who will be going into kindergarten. The class only has 7 students in it so it allows for a lot of one-on-one time and specific instruction. the teacher informed me that she believes reading should be introduced as an activity and she uses very few worksheets, although they are part of the school's mandated curriculum. . I observed a reading lesson and a follow up activity afterwards.

The letter that the students were working on that day was the letter "K". The teacher did a read aloud with the book "Kangaroo goes to school". The teacher asks the students to clap every-time they hear the K sound.

After the reading the teacher draws a word web on the board with words that have been discussed during the lesson.next to each word is a picture to represent the words. The students come up one by one and write a word and draw a picture with some guidance from the teacher when necessary.



The teacher then has the kids color a kite and attach a string to it and hangs each kite from the ceiling. Each student writes the letter "K" on the kites and writes their name. After this activity the teacher tells the kids that its time for their minds and bodies to move. The students all stand up and wait on the teachers instructions. The teacher asks the students what number they are working on today. One kid says "17". Then she asks what action they can do 17 times that starts with the letter "K". Another Kid answers with "Kick Boxing". Next the class does 17 kick boxing moves while counting to 17.

The last thing that i observed was that the kids went outside as a whole and flew a large kite outside. Because this school is a christian school, the teacher brought in the bible lesson of the day. the lesson was that the wind could not be seen but it was still there much in the way God is and that the kite represents the wind moving just like actions on earth represent God.

I loved that the students did not know that they were actually doing a reading/Literacy lesson. I feel that the students were always ready to listen because the activity changed frequently and involved more than one subject or new concept. I noticed that even though these kids were very young they could sound out new words, read the appropriate sight words, and spell words that they haven't spelled often.

This activity was a good experience and was a great real life representation of the things that we have learned in class. I enjoyed this activity alot and was very inspired by how this classroom was run.

Teaching Comprehension

I have previously heard of the KWL chart that was used in this weeks reading.

What I KNOW	What I WANT to know	What I LEARNED

The chart would look something like the above chart. As a class the students would fill in each part. I have noticed that many teachers forget to go back after the lesson and discuss the "Learned" section. It is crucially that this section is discussed for proper comprehension of the story/lesson to develop.
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Also I loved the idea of "C", "v" , "squiggle". This strategy is great for use with smaller children of kindergarten age. A child holds the letter "c" up with his hand if he has a connection in the story, the letter "V" if he has a visual, and squiggles his finger if he has a question. This allows the children to stay active during the story and to understand what is going on in the story.
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Over all I feel that comprehension is crucial for a child to actually learn the material being presented. I feel that if a child has a way to connect that material to his/her lives then they will better retain the material.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is an important part of literacy development. Since I am a Deaf Education major i have seen it's importance many times. Deaf and Hard of Hearing children that have low phonemic awareness have problems distinguishing between different words.
It is an important skill that can be very boring to learn. I loved the ideas of singing and reciting poetry.

Fluent Reading

The thing that stood out to me in these readings was the importance of fluency. The readings discussed how learning fluency is a constant ongoing process. If a child can read the words and read them very fast that doesn't necessarily mean that they understand the words. I feel that Understand what you are reading and writing is a crucial part of language acquisition.


If a child can read out-loud and follow all of the reading rules are they fluent? If a child doesn't understand what they are reading, are they actually reading?

Confidence in Reading

The thing that stood out the most to me in this reading is emphasis on being able to read. Many teachers approach young children thinking that they cannot read. This article talks about the fact that they can read. Even if that reading is just from a McDonald's Bag, an M&M candy, or a Lego box.

Letters are merely symbols that go together to form words. If children know how to look at a McDonald's bag and understand that the symbol on the bag stands for McDonald's then that child has done the first step in reading.

What are other ways that adults and teachers can reinforce a child's knowledge of reading? What is another way to show a child that they can read even if it isn't a full word or sentence?

EVERY CHILD IS DIFFERENT!

It is important for a teacher to understand that even though the students in there class are going to be presented with almost all of the same material in that year. But what teachers usually don’t remember is that students come to class each and every day with different knowledge than the other students. Some students read before starting school, some have their first reading experience when their school years start. But regardless of the background knowledge that student, the future knowledge is still possible. Some ways to make this possible is to realize that reading along with knowledge can be assessed in everything you do. To do anything in life you have the chance to learn such as; reading an article, baking a cake, following directions to a party, reading a sign, etc.