read & write

Words-on-the-move 08#3

Synopsis of four sessions I attended at WSRA 08

The Economy of Words in Action by Linda Kuhaupt, a Reading Recovery Teacher Leader.
The session explored “teacher talk” during a Reading Recovery Lesson. As I listened I realized this would apply to all teachers in all curricular areas and at all levels of education. Teachers like to listen to themselves talk. This session helped me to realize that letting students struggle and not providing those verbal cues may help the student achieve independency sooner. Kids have learned that teachers like to help them by jumping in and telling them the word or a clue. “If I just wait they will tell me the answer” is what I sense goes on in many students thinking. Success is theirs because teachers are “helpers.”

Changing the Friday Spelling Test: Challenges of Spelling Instruction by Robin Umber, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire
This session took a look at the program, book, Words their way: Word Study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction by Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton &Johnston, 2008
Discussion centered on the developmental nature of spelling rather than grade level designation, and the use of the inventory to determine where students were on the continuum. I really like this program from a personal experience aspect in that I have used it with students I tutored and have presented it to classes. With the latest edition there is a disc that has all of the sorts, and games included so printing them out is easy. Students learn words rather than just how to spell a word. This is as much a part of the reading program as the writing instruction. If one has studied the word as to its origin and meaning, it will be beneficial whenever one wants to read a similar word.

Into The Book: Multimedia Reading Comprehension Resources by Kristin M. Leglar, Peggy Garties, Maria-Christina Jackson, Marini Pingel, Cathy Burge.
Into The Book a series of nine programs (15 minutes each) focusing on comprehension strategies: prior knowledge, making connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring, summarizing, evaluating, synthesizing and one program using the strategies together.
Supported with Strategy posters, Bulletin board/desk strips, Into the Book and Behind the Lesson DVDs ($99), and the web site http://www.reading.ecb.org

iPoetry: Encouraging Visual Literacy in the English Classroom by Jen Scott Curwood and Lora Cowell
Provides a way for students to study poetry and add the media component that they are using in everyday life in a meaningful way. By first studying poetry as to form and nature first, the students are then asked to add the media visuals to help support and deepen the meaning of the poem. They use iMovie, iPhoto, and Garageband on the Mac platform but this could be done on the PC platform with similar tools. – A session that was ripe with ideas for my own teaching.
For further resources shared at the convention go to http://www.wsra.org and look under convention. They have several handouts published there for your download. I wish this part was a little more robust.

The music for the podcast was from Soundzabound Revelation IV 1

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 4:05 pm and is filed under reading and Tagged reading, spelling, technology You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.