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OBSERVATIONS:
- Teachers must be qualified and have the correct skills to
successfully teach children to read
› National study of 1,000 school districts showed that with
every extra dollar given towards highly qualified teachers,
there was an improvement in the achievement levels of
the students
- Structure of language is divided into seven components:
› 0honology- study of sound structures of oral language and
includes both understanding speech and producing speech
› Orthography- refers to patterns linking letters or
graphemes to sounds or phonemes in spoken language to
produce conventional word spellings
› Gorphology- refers to the study of word structure
› Syntax- refers to the rule system of how words are
combined into larger language structures, especially
sentences
› Semantic- component of language that involves connecting
oneļs background experiences, knowledge, interest,
attitudes, and perspectives with spoken or written
language to comprehend the meaning of that language
› Etymology- the study of how word meanings and language
meanings change over time in popular culture
› 0ragmatics- the study of how language is used by people in
societies to satisfy their need to communicate
- Children learn how to read and speak by different elements,
including their social interactions, homelife, etc.
 - Explains that proper assessment in good in the classroom, so the
teacher can understand what the next step for the students
should be
- Gake sure the emphasis is always on what the child can do,
rather than what they cannot do

CONNECTIONS:
In my coop class sophomore year, I witnessed the teacher using
characteristic 4 of this chapter, which is, ľHighly Effective Reading
Teachers Know How to Adapt Instruction to Geet the Needs of
Learners with Special Needs.Ŀ Gy teacher used a system of reading
with a 0VC pipe, so the children could read to themselves, in order
to help their individual needs. Also, in the class there was a child
with ADHD, and instead of excluding him from the reading circles or
discussions, he was just helped along by an assistant throughout,
which calmed him down some and allowed him to focus more on
what he was being taught, rather than the behavior he normally
exhibits.

WONDERINGS:
- What are helpful assessments that can be given to students in
order to test their reading knowledge/comprehension?




OBSERVATIONS:
- 0honics: how alphabet spellings relate to speech sounds in
systematic and predictable ways
- Graphophonemic knowledge: letter-sound relationships
- Word identification: has to do with the skills students learn that
help them to figure out the pronunciation of a word in print
- Word recognition: has to do with connecting a printed wordļs
pronunciation with its meaning
- Consonant digraphs: two consonants that produce only one
speech sound
- Vowel digraphs: two vowels together in a word that produce only
one speech sound
- Segmentation: the ability to pull apart spoken words and attend
to the individual phonemes
- Alphabetic 0rinciple: the concept that letters or letter
combinations represent speech sounds in whole, spoken words
- Instructional strategies are made to help children learn the
following:
› Speech is made up of individual speech sounds that are
represented by specific letters or letter combinations
› The 26 letter of the English alphabet represent certain
sounds
› The spelling of most words remains the same across the
various books and texts students will encounter
- Scope and sequence of skills help:
› Teachers approach decoding instruction systematically
› Coordinate instruction across the state
- The single most efficient phonics generalization to teach has to
do with identifying beginning consonant sounds in words
- Important 0honics 0atterns:
› Beginning consonant sounds in words
› The C Rule
› The G Rule
› The CVC 0attern- when a vowel comes between two
consonants, it usually represents what is referred to as a
short vowel sound
 › Vowel Digraphs- when two vowels come together in a
word, the first vowel usually carries what is referred to as a
long sound and the second vowel is silent
› The VCE 0attern- when two vowels appear in a word and
one is an e at the end of the word, the first vowel is
generally long and the final e is silent
› The CV 0attern- when a consonant is followed by a vowel,
the vowel usually produces a long sound
› R-Controlled Vowels- vowels that appear before the letter r
are usually neither long nor short but tend to be
overpowered or ľswallowed upĿ by the r sound
- Consonant digraphs: two consonants that produce only one
speech sound
- Consonant blends: two or more consonants coming together in
which the speech sounds of all the consonants may be heard
- Vowel digraphs: two vowels together in a word that produce only
one speech sound
- Diphthongs: two vowels together in a word that produce a single,
glided sound
- Structural analysis: a type of word identification that uses a
readerļs knowledge of meaning ľchunksĿ in words

CONNECTIONS:
In this chapter, it discussed how children sound out letters using
their sounds, in order to be able to spell. I have had experience with
this exact concept in my field placement this year, because the second
graders are still trying to conquer the skill of spelling. I constantly hear
them at their desks making noises and sounds to try and figure out
which letter will come next in the word, and most of the time they
prove themselves to be right.
WONDERINGS:
- What are some effective exercises to practice with students in
order to go over their phonics?
- When is the appropriate time frame that you should become
concerned with a student not being able to sound out words?



OBSERVATIONS:
- Fluency:
› Accuracy and ease of decoding
› Age of grade level appropriate reading speed or rate
› Appropriate use of volume, pitch, juncture, and stress in
oneļs voice
› Appropriate text phrasing or ľchunkingĿ
- Skills that make a fluent reader:
› Automaticity: translating letters to sounds or words
effortlessly and accurately
› Expression: using proper intonation in oneļs voice
› Rate: attaining appropriate reading speed according to the
readerļs purpose or the type of passage
› 0hrasing: reading orally large chunks of text such as
phrases or sentences smoothly without hesitating,
stopping to decode, or rereading
- Fluent readers can decode the words in text accurately and
effortlessly, and read with correct volume, phrasing, appropriate
intonation, and a reasonably rapid rate so that they reading as
become ľautomaticĿ
- Gost prominent theory that explains how readers become fluent
is the Automaticity theory
 › Explains how reading fluency develops in the way that the
human mind functions like a computer, and that visual
input is sequentially entered into the mind of the reader
- Challļs Stages of Reading Fluency
› Stage 0: Children engage in a pseudo-reading; will retell a
familiar story with the aid of pictures
› Stage 1: Begin to focus on the text on the page
› Stage 2: Consolidate what they have learned about reading
in Stage 1 (the connections between letters and sounds) by
reading easy books that are familiar or well-known
› Stage 3-5: In stage 3, children read for knowledge and for
information; stage 4 readers gradually become able to look
beyond the literal meaning of text and consider content
from more than one single point of view; stage 5, readers
are self-directed and have learned to read many genres of
text
- Fluency involves a process that looks different over time:
› Begins with fluent letter and sight word recognition
› Goves to fluent decoding or automaticity
› Fluent access to vocabulary and comprehension strategies
- Fluency practice is most effective when:
› The reading practice is oral
› It involves repeated readings of a text
› When studies receive guidance or feedback from teachers,
parents, volunteers, and peers
- Seven characteristics of effective fluency instruction and practice
drawn from evidence-based research:
› Explicit instruction
› Godel
› Reading 0ractice
› Access to Appropriately Challenging Reading Gaterials
 › se of Oral and Silent Reading
› Gonitoring and Accountability
› Wide and Repeated Reading
- An effective teacher always maps our her lesson plan well before
implementing it
- Decodable text: usually short books that use common spelling
patterns (orthography)
- Logographic reading: words can be recognized as wholes without
analysis of the parts
- 0honological recording: words can be recognized through
recoding each letter into a sound, holding the sounds in
sequence in short-term memory, and then blending the
sequenced sounds together
- The drastic strategy:
› Teacher storytelling
› Child storytelling
› Scramble, Sort, and Find
› Take A 0icture and Write It
› Fill in the Blank
› New Text Close Reading
- 0artner or paired reading- a student read aloud with a more
fluent partner or one of equal fluency

CONNECTIONS:
Throughout this chapter, I noticed many things that modeled
how my second grade classroom works. In regards to teaching
reading fluency, my cooperating teacher makes sure to provide the
students with plenty of explicit instruction, and they know exactly
what is expected of them, and what they are supposed to be doing
at all times of that specific lesson. Then, the teacher makes sure
that there is a model present within the lesson, to serve as an
 example for the kids to go after. Then, of course there is plenty of
practice, and the students are more willing to grab reading material
when they are not instructed to.

WONDERINGS:
- What are examples of effective fluency lessons (besides just read
alouds)?
- How many times should repetition occur to successfully gain
reading fluency within your students?



OBSERVATIONS:
- Students learn their new vocabulary by:
› Conversations
› Independent reading
› Gedia
- Four types of vocabulary:
› Listening vocabulary: made up of the words we can hear
and understand
› Speaking vocabulary: comprised of words we use when we
speak
› Reading vocabulary: words we can identify and understand
what we read
› Writing vocabulary: words we use in writing
- Sight words: occur frequently in most texts and account for the
majority of written words
- Structure words: carry little meaning but do not affect the flow
and coherence of the text being read
- Lexical words: actual meaning of the text depends on the ready
knowledge of less frequent words
- Key vocabulary: lexical words that emerge from the childļs
experiences
- Idiomatic expressions: combinations of words that have a
meaning that is different from the meanings of the individual
words
- Word map: a graphic rendering or a sketch of a wordļs meaning
- Before and after word knowledge self rating: an efficient way to
survey student vocabulary knowledge
- Cloze passages: short passages from books commonly used in
the classroom in which certain words have been deleted
- Gaze passage: a modification of the cloze passage, but they tend
to be less frustrating to students than cloze passages because
they are provided three possible answers to choose from in filling
in the blank
- 0rinciples of Effective Vocabulary Instruction:
› 0rinciple 1: vocabulary is learned best through explicit,
systematic, instruction
› 0rinciple 2: teachers should offer both definitions and
context during vocabulary instruction
› 0rinciple 3: effective vocabulary instruction must include
depth of learning as well as breadth of word knowledge
› 0rinciple 4: students need to have multiple exposures to
new reading vocabulary words
- Word banks: used to help students collect and review sight
words
- Specific word instruction: can deepen studentsļ knowledge of
word meanings, and in turn, help them understand what they are
hearing or reading
- Synonyms: words that have similar, but not exactly the same
meaning
- Antonyms: word opposites or near opposites
 - Euphemisms: words or phrases that are used to soften language
to avoid harsh or distasteful realities, usually out of the concern
for peopleļs feelings
- Onomatopoeia: the imitation of a sound in a word
- Recasts: build directly on sentences just read that contain a new
word the teacher (or parent) may want to teach the child

CONNECTIONS:
In this chapter, it teaches you many strategies on being able to
teach students about vocabulary. They mention word walls, which I
have come encounter with throughout my experience in elementary
school, and they seem quiet useful. In a second grade class this
year that I saw, the teacher has a whole wall designated to words
that they come across throughout the course of the year, and they
then post them in alphabetical order on it once they find it.

WONDERINGS:
- How should a word wall be initiated?
- How often should word banks be utilized?



OBSERVATIONS:
- Eight comprehension strategies that provide a firm scientific
basis for instruction:
› Comprehension monitoring
› Cooperative learning
› Graphic organizers
› ´uestion answering
› ´uestion generating
› Story structure/text structure
› Summarizing
 › Gultiple-strategy instruction
- Schema theory: theory that explains how information we have
stored in our minds helps us gain new knowledge
- Schema: can be thought of as a kind of file cabinet of information
in our brains containing related:
› Concepts
› Events
› Emotions
› Roles
- Readers can remember text without learning from it
› Example: Gight remember learning the definition & might
be able to recite it but could not apply it to anything
- Surface code: printed text that preserves in the readerļs memory
for an extremely short period of time with the exact letters,
words, and grammar or syntax of the text
- Construction-integration theory: explains the complex cognitive
processes used by readers to successfully comprehend a text
- Situation model: what the text is really all about: ideas, people,
objects, processes, or world events
- Teachers are aware that they need to explicitly teach
comprehension strategies to children
- Benchmark standards: minimum expected outcomes
- Oral story retellings can be elicited to children by:
› Involving the use of pictures or verbal prompts related to
the story
› sing unaided recall, so students can retell the story
without picture or verbal prompts
- K-W-L process:
› Step K: What I Know
› Step W: What Do I Want to Learn?
› Step L: What I Learned
 - ´uestion-Answer Relationships: a strategy for teaching students
how to answer questions asked of them
- Elaborative interrogation: a student-generated questioning
intervention
- Getacognition: the act of monitoring oneļs unfolding
comprehension of text
- Strategies for use by readers to experience comprehension
failure:
› Ignore the problem and continue reading
› Suspend judgement for now and continue reading
› From a tentative hypothesis, using text information, and
continue reading
› Look back and reread the previous sentence
› Stop and think about the previously read context; reread if
necessary
› Seek help from the environment, reference materials, or
other knowledgeable individuals

CONNECTIONS:
In this chapter, I was able to connect with the strategies for use
by readers who are having comprehension failure. In my second grade
classroom, the students are always having trouble reading and getting
frustrated about it. I think that these strategies would be very helpful
when it comes to those times, and that all students should be taught
what to do.

WONDERINGS:
- How is the K-W-L process implemented?
- When are oral story retellings appropriate?



OBSERVATIONS:
- Standards for reading instruction:
› Standards-based movement
 Began as an outgrowth of a growing public debate on
the rather tepid performance of school children on
measures of reading, not to mention in other
academic areas like math and science
› Content Standards
 Broad descriptions of knowledge and skills that
students should achieve in particular objects
› 0erformance Standards
 Examples and definition of knowledge and skills in
which students need to demonstrate proficiency
› Opportunity-to-learn Standards
 Address conditions necessary at each level of
education system to provide all students with
opportunities to mater content standards and meet
performance standards
- Basar Reading 0rogram: a collection of student texts and
workbooks, teachersļ manuals, and supplemental materials for
developmental reading
› Sometimes writing instruction, used chiefly in the
elementary and middle school grades
› Also known as Core Reading 0rograms
› The Basal Teacher Edition (TE): contains instructional
guidance and support
- In Basal readers:
› Earliest books often contain reading selections known as
decodable text, which are designed to reinforce the
teaching of particular phonic elements
 › The most used part was the workbook
› An instructional management system allows teachers to
keep accurate records from year to year regarding each
childļs progress through the programļs scope and
sequence skills
› Gost contemporary basal readers are organized into
themed units, with several selections organized around a
selected theme or topic; still others are organized into
arbitrarily divided units of instruction
- 0rograms for struggling readers:
› Reading recovery: an early intervention program designed
to reduce reading failure in first grade for the lowest
performing 20 percent of students
› Success for All (SFA): a total school reform program for
grades K-3. The goal of the program is to have all children
reading on grade level by third grade, with no retentions
and referrals to special education for reading problems
› Four Blocks (FB): a program for first-grade reading
instruction. Organizes daily reading instruction around
four 30-minute blocks of instruction
› Early Steps (ES): Early intervention program designed to
reduce reading failure in the early years
› Reading Gastery: supplemental reading program best
suited to students having severe reading problems, and for
whom traditional programs and methods have failed
› Adapting the Basal Reading 0rogram for struggling readers

CONNECTIONS:
When reading what this chapter has to offer, I really do not
witness any of the struggling readersļ techniques in the classroom,
because the children with these learning issues are taken out to learn.
It might be interesting to go to the inclusion classroom that they are
taken to to see if that teacher uses any of the above methods to teach
the students.

WONDERINGS:
- Which program is most widely used?
- How do you know which program to use for which child?




OBSERVATIONS:
î During writing workshop, we create an environment where
children are immersed in beautiful literature and various genres
that help them envision what they themselves could do as
writers
î Children need tools, time and expectations to practice their
writing
î Writing development is a way of expressing meaning on paper
î Read-alouds expose children to the English language and all
levels of it
î 0rocess model of writing: emphasis on teaching & learning
involved as children create piece of writing
› Includes the development of ideas, drafting, revising,
editing, & publishing then into the product
î HGE misconception about English language learners: if they
havenļt developed enough oral language they cannot write
î Children should have a choice in what they want to write
î They should write for a variety of purposes & audiences
î Different genres of writing should be model for students so they
can experience writing in these different genres
î Writing workshop:
 › Gini lesson 5-12 minutes
› Independent writing & conferring 20-30 minutes
› 0artner talk 5-10 minutes
› Whole-group share 5 minutes
î 0g. 130 figure 8-10 0ossible mini lessons for emergent & early
writers
î Rules students should follow for a large-group share:
 Look at the person whoļs talking
 Keep your hands still
 Be very quiet
 Listen carefully
 Think of any questions you have

CONNECTIONS:
In this chapter, it discusses about the usage of writing
workshops. Everyday in my field classroom, they have some sort of
writing workshop. I like how the teacher makes a point to mix up what
she does everyday, so the students do not get bored, and it always is a
lesson that would be very beneficial in the long-run. Whether it be
read-alouds, worksheets, or something else, every writing workshop
seems to help the students in a different way.

WONDERINGS:
î What are some interesting writing workshops to use?
î How do you know a large-group setting would work for a specific
assignment?