Phonics

I'm taking a Linguistics class as I work toward my ESOL endorsement {the happy part is my district provides the books and reimburses me! Yippee!!} After muddling through about 5 chapters, I finally got to one that has something I think I can use - I'm just not sure how yet!

Two quotes from this book:


"Many struggling readers focus too much on phonics."
"Unfortunately, when students experience reading difficulties, the first response is often "They need more phonics."

First of all, I am SO seeing this at my school. We had the embarrassing distinction of scoring way low on our mid-year AIMS testing. So we are being asked: what do we do with phonics? How do you teach it? Are you following the basal reader's teacher guide? And we're a grade level that actually helped our school. I feel for some other teachers in our school. 

Second, in retrospect, I'm noticing this in one of my lowest readers especially. I was very surprised when this boy didn't move up when I tested his DRA level before Christmas. His reading had been so fluent, I just knew for certain he'd move up, maybe even two levels. But even though he can read pretty well, he isn't comprehending what he's reading. 

One thing my textbook says is that proficient readers don't depend on phonics skills; instead they use context. And the reverse is true of struggling readers - they depend almost solely on phonics skills. 

What I'm realizing is that I've got to figure out how to encourage my students, especially my struggling students, to think about context - is what they are reading making sense. 

I sorta skimmed over the chapter in this book:
 
that talked about that. Definitely need to go back and highlight some things in there. 

So what about you? What do you do to help your struggling readers get past just reading the words? I'm looking for clues :)

A little change

Have you ever read anything - like on a blog - and said to yourself, "Yeah, that's something I need to be thinking about?" 

 

Well, Tammy at Forever in First has had several posts about transitions, but this one really hit it. She speaks about all of us wanting more time in the day, and that we need to make every minute count. And then she talked about transitions. {crickets} Yup, I probably need to tighten up my transitions, and other lag times during my day, but I just don't want to think about it. 

And then this year, I got some extra time, just because of something I didn't do. You see, in the past, I've had my attendance on my Smartboard. It was really fun. I'd put their special number on an object and they would move that object to show they were at school. I had snowmen for January, and pumpkins for October, and when we were studying dinosaurs,you got it - they had little dinosaurs with their number on them. So this was all good - and the kids liked the cute little objects. But I would notice that it was kind of slow going. And as they were waiting to come into the room to move their object, the back of the line would start getting silly and maybe loud.

But this year, because of the way my life was going {big smile} I just didn't get that done before school started. I thought to myself I'd just do it later and introduce it then. But I realized, I got everyone in the room WAY quicker. And after everyone got in their seats, I just quickly scanned the room for absences and asked if anyone brought a lunch from home. 

I remember when I was reading Teaching with Intention, Debbie Miller said, "Once I developed my belief statements, the next step was to align them with my classroom practices." I'm not 100% there, but one of my beliefs is that I want readers in my classroom. Now I have this extra 10 minutes at the beginning of the day {before we go to reading interventions}. And I remembered something I read in The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller - well, I can't find it exactly, but she said that instead of finding something for kids to do - like workbook pages, or practice pages, etc., she just had them read. What?!? What an idea!

 

 So I've made this 10 {extra!!} minutes of the day a reading time. I'm a little more relaxed during this time and let the kids share things from their book with their buddies sitting close to them - as they transition into the school day.

I've been wanting to share this idea for a while, and since I woke up at wee morning time today, and already got all my cutting done on the cutting board {what a teacher nerd}, I just had to share. Have you changed anything this year? Has it made a big difference?