After reading this article I realized that when I was younger I had to look up a lot of words in the dictionary to find there meanings. This was an assignment by my teacher. I have seen this activity last year but have not seen it this year in my second grade classroom. I think that this did help me but I think it would have been more helpful being able to use the words in context. I think it is important to not only have the children free read to learn words but also read to them and look at vocabulary throughout the reading. It is important to stop and discuss a word when it is new. I also think it is important to talk about morphemes of a word. If a student learns a word they also need to know that when a morpheme is added the meaning may also change. The chart was really helpful when looking at morphemes. This definately can help with comprehension and should be used with upper grades. I like how they have four different ways to teach morphology because I never really thought of how to individualize this. I also never realized that Spanish would confuse a student when they were reading. Roots are very important. I was tested on stem words in middle school and I feel that they can be very helpful when it comes to breaking down what a word means.

I agree that readers should not be pushed to read books that are at a level above their ability. This will only led to frustration and make the child not want to read. I remember I hated to read because when I was younger I was not very good at it. I also couldnt read very fast and it made me hate when teacher assigned more pages than I could possibly get done. Although the more  you read the faster you read, if a teacher makes you read something you do not understand because it is too hard then you will not read any faster.

I wish that my teachers would have followed these assessment to make sure that we were reading at our instructional level. This would have helped so that I wouldnt have felt frustrated with reading. I am a good reader now, but I still don’t belive that I am a very fast reader. If I would have been given special attention maybe I would be a faster reader.I think that by digging deeper for the students to find books that are at their level with the same content area is definatley the best way to go about it. If there are three different levels of readers in your class then maybe they can be split up and read three different books for the same topic. This will help them to develop in areas they are weak in. They may also feel less frustrated working with students who are at their same level.

I really like the way this article gives ways to pick out good books for students. This could be used with my classroom to make sure that when  I am picking out books they meet the needs for my students. I also like the charts that are shown to ive books for reading ans how they are categorized by genre with other details.

Shared reading is a way to get students to interact when reading. This can include echo reading, choral reading 0r cloze reading. It can also be modeling and supporting the use of cues to self monitor reading strategies. In order to see if these methods really did help students with achievement they did a study with different teachers. First the teachers were observed while they did shared reading and then they were interviewed to understand the process they used. They then analyzed the data.

I found it interesting that the most common thing that teacher focused on when doing shared reading was comprehension, THis makes sense but I thought it might have been focussing on words or maybe taking a picture walk. The teachers used this in grades 3 and 6. One teacher said that the reason more than one strategy is used with a book at a time is because that is how they read in real life. When looking at vocabulary the teachers used context clues, word parts, and resources. This is because teachers dint want to just give away a definition or ask the students to only tell the definition. They wanted to know why? Some ways to use word parts are prefixes, suffixes, word families, roots and bases. I remember learning these and they are very helpful still today. I also learned stem words in middle school.

It was interesting to learn about text structures because I have never really thought about it before. This is the way things are organized in a story such as problem/ solution, compare/contrast, and compare/contrast. Some text features are captions, illustrations, boldface words, graphs, etc. These help students to figure out things about a story. Modeling is something that should go on a daily basis and that should be used with all age students.

After reading this article I really started to how this pirate unit could be effective with children. I really like how she used centers with artifacts to get students interested. THis was a good way to engage them because they probably didn’t know much or have only heard stories until this point. I also liked how she did this before she did the KWL chart. Many teachers would use the chart before doing any type of activity, but I find that this way might be more effective. This also allows the students to have more questions to ask in the What I want to Know column. THey will become curious about the artifacts and actually want to know more.

Using two types of text fiction and nonfiction is also a really good way for students to learn. I dont think I have seen this before, but after reading this and looking through the books I understand why. I think that by giving them the facts they can understand the information but by having them read a story based on facts they might become more interested. They can see the similarities and differences in the different genres. They will also be able to use the non fiction book to figure out the meaning behind some other things in the fiction book. i also really like how they created a pirate dictionary, which we are also doing. It is  a way for them to remember definitions because they write them down and it can also be used if they do not have a book. This article cleared up some things for me and the unit.

I like this book because it uses poetry to describe how poetry is used. It was really interesting to read a book in this format. It shows that anything can be poetry. The story was funny and it explained how a little boy learns to love poetry. He learns about poetry and learns how to write his own poetry. He becomes comfortable showing his work and puts his name on poetry. I think that children would like this book because it is an easy read.

I thought his poem My Sky was really sad but it might have been a way for him to get some of his emotions out. This shows that poetry can be used to help children express themselves. I really liked the way they wrote poetry using creative designs. Children may become more interested in poetry if they can write it in any format they choose. Sometimes structure is not a good thing. I would recommend this to teachers and students to learn about becoming comfortable in your own writing style and in your own way of expression.

      In the Pullout article I liked the idea of a double entry diary. It seems like a good way for students to pick out meaningful ideas in the story. They can also write their own thoughts in the right column. This way they can express what they think about the book and feel that there is no right or wrong answer. The individual pirate project is also very useful and I like how there is a chart(Data Retrieval Chart) for stusnets to use when they are researching their pirate. This guide will keep them focused and also help them when they get stuck. Overall this unit seems very good because not only are they focusing on pirates but they are learning about colonial America.

a hammer

a fork

This was a very interesting type of poetry book. I like the pictures but I am really not exactly sure how I would use it in my classroom. The ideas I have would be to read poetry to my students and then have then try and write their own poetry based on experiences they’ve had. I could also use it to teach diversity or to teach Black History Month. It would be good to have a books in the classroom that shows about other cultures.

The things I like about this book are the pictures and that they are real photographs. It makes the book more authentic. I also liked that most of the poems are short because children would have an easier time reading them. My favorite poem in this book is Jeannie Had a Giggle. It was very descriptive and fun to read. Children would probably like this book because it only has short verses on each page and because of all the pictures.

My name is Heather Sholar and after researching I found that their are three other people in the U.S. with my name. This is kind of a weird thing and it makes me curious to what their middle names are. I also found that my first name means avariety of small shrubs with pink or white flowers which commonly grow in rocky areas. I knew that I was named after a flower since I was really young but I thought that it was purple. My first name is the 104thmost common first name in the U.S. which is relatively popular. Although my first name is so popular, my last name is not so popular being the 16,260 most popular. I also researched my families names. Since my parents are divorced I researched both of their names. My mom is the only one with her name. I may have to due with the last name Bralley. My dad on the other hand was one of about 8 people with his name. It makes me wonder how far down the line these people are related to me. I know that their are two sets of Sholar’s who are not related but at one time were. I also researched my brother and sister. They are each on a different side of my family and no one has thier names. The last thing I found really interesting was my cousins name because her last name Bhambri. There are only about 140 or so people in the U.S. This would probably be alot higher in India.

I find blogging in elementary school and interesting idea. I see the plus side to students using this technology since more and more people are using it and it is something they will need in the future. I like the different ideas of writing reflections. This is a good way to make sure students read and they can write what they feel without having to say it in front of the class. The News blog is probably my favorite because it is a way for parents and students to keep up with activities and grades at any place that has a computer. This is not a substitute for paper though because some students may not have access to a computer. That’s probably the one thing that bothers me is that some students may not be able to blog if technology is not available. If this is the case it is important that students do blogging in the classroom. Showcase blogging also seems  like a good way to give children praise by posting their work on-line if they did a good job. This article gave me some great ideas for how to use blogging and I feel that even though I may not like it many things in the classroom are changing. If students learn how to use this resource the correct way they may actually have fun with it. They may like doing their homework online. This gives them a chance to be on the computer while doing something productive.