Expressive Writing

Cunningham and Cunningham's article really rang home for me this week.  I am finding that the articles we have been reading in class pertain to me in so many ways because I have two young children.  I think that when children experiment with invented spelling, they are definitely setting a foundation for learning to spell correctly and for reading.  I had never seen a Making Words activity before, but it sounds like it is a wonderful idea for bridging the gap between invented spelling and correct spelling.  My seven year old son would benefit from a Making Words activity.  He has always struggled with reading and spelling, and he's just now gotten to where he is reading on grade level.  What surprises me is that he still uses invented spelling when he writes for fun.  Although he is in second grade, I really feel that invented spelling allows him to write as a creative outlet without having to worry about being graded for accuracy.  At times, I start to feel bad for not correcting his spelling during these creative writing sessions, but I ultimately decide that he should have his time to develop his creative side without rules.
What do you think?  Should I let a child as old as seven write without concern for spelling or grammer?

Parts to a Whole

As a mother of a 7 year old and a 4 year old, I am very aware of how phonemic awareness aids children through the process of learning to read.  The Yopp and Yopp article about phonemic awareness mentioned the use of Dr.  Seuss to help beginning readers learn about the importance of how the slightest change of letters and sounds in a word can have a big impact on the meaning of a word.  Children who read books such as those by Dr. Seuss begin to learn that there are different parts to a word that give the word its meaning.  I used books by Dr. Seuss as a reading aid when my oldest son was learning to read, and I definitely plan on using them soon as my four year old starts to read.

In Clark's "Sound it Out" article, I really liked how she explained how teachers can coach beginning readers about words by asking them questions, rather than just telling them the answer.  In my opinion, children learn and remember significantly more information when they are encouraged to think about how they can come up with a solution to a problem on their own.  By asking students to recognize a word by piecing together sounds and combinations of letters they already know, the students learn how to figure out words by themselves, and they also know why the sounds are important to the meaning of the word.

Fluency Redefined

I honestly had never read anything before about reading fluency.    As I read the article about one-minute fluency measures, I began to realize how much we need to learn about assessing reading fluency in our students.  To me, I think that one-minute fluency measures fall short in assessing a student's real knowledge, just like many other standardized tests.  These tests only measure what the student knows at that particular moment and don't reveal much in depth information about the student's actual strengths and weaknesses.  I sincerely hope that by the time I am officially teaching in a classroom, fluency assessments will include more extensive components that measure the prosody and comprehension of a student's reading, not just the rate and speed.
I also agree that the speed at which a student reads is not nearly as important as comprehending what they are reading.  Even if a student reads at a high rate of speed, they may not be comprehending what they are reading.  THis lack of comprehension puts a student at risk for underperforming in other areas of education, so students need to be given countless opportunities to read at their own pace and to read what they find interesting, which will lead to a higher fluency level and a desire to read.

Young Readers need Change

As I read the assigned articles for this week, I kept making mental notes of the teaching methods used in the articles versus the ones currently used in schools.  I was left with the question, "How can there be so much documentation about the benefits of learning to read and write through real-life experience, but most schools are still stuck on the phonics method of teaching?" It seems logical to me that children would learn to read and write better when they possess confidence in what they're doing.  In fact, most of us, as adults, find it easier to complete tasks when we are confident in our abilities.  Therefore, instead of using a reading system that is rigid, such as learning phonics and practicing only in the context of a workbook, teachers should consider using systems similar to that in "Letting go of the Letter of the Week."  Every child has a unique background, so they should be able to use their past experiences to aid them in their journey to read and write.  As they learn the associate certain sounds to parts of words they already know, they become "readers," without ever learning the sounds of specific letters.  By using their new-found skills to complete real-world tasks, the students gain confidence and not only learn to read and write, but also learn critical life skills, such as writing letters, reading labels, etc.  I hope that in the near future, more school systems will take an open-minded approach to the way students learn to read and write.  To me, it is obvious that the research is there to support a change in the way children are taught to read and write.  What do you think children need in order to become lovers of reading/writing?