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I Still Believe: A Reflection On My Personal Growth

  Looking Back: Where I Started These past 9 weeks you all have watched me learn and grow through the posts I’ve made on this blog, my blog. Time has gone by so fast, my first post was only a few short months ago, yet in that seemingly minute amount of time, there’s been a shift in me. I have a stronger sense of self, because of the challenges,  coursework,  th. Inincluded my “I Believe” statement, a declaration of my core beliefs as a [future] teacher, as I reflect on what I wrote I realize that, on some level, my ideas themselves have not changed over the course of this semester, but why I believe the things I stated, the weight and true meaning behind my words, have. In my initial statement I wrote, “I believe every student has what it takes to succeed when they enter my classroom and it is my job to give them the support, resources, and guidance they need in order to reach their goals”, and this still stands true, but knowing what I do now, what I learned over these past 9 weeks, h
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Shared Reading: An Introductory Mini-Lesson

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An Introductory Shared Reading Lesson Book Choice: Wishy-Washy Day by Joy Cowley   Script for Shared Reading Lesson:  Introducing the Text Alright class, today we are going to start reading a new book called Wishy-Washy Day by Joy Cowley. This book is about a woman named Mrs. Wishy-Wasy and all the animals that live on her farm. In the story, Mrs. Wishy-Washy is trying to give each one of her animals a bath in ONE day , but whenever she tells them to get in the tub they all run away and hide in different places. As I read the story, pay attention to the different types of animals on the farm and where they run-off to! I wonder what kinds of animals we will see and where they’re going to hide? Do we get any helpful clues from the cover page?  Great guesses! Let’s get started so we can see what happens in the story, I think it’s going to be really fun! Read the Text to Students (First Read): I am going to read the story first, as I am reading you all will need to is sit quietly and lis
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Informational and Nonfiction Texts

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The Importance of Students Reading and Gaining Experience With Informational Text Within an Early Childhood Classroom In early childhood classrooms across the United States, there is no shortage of engaging and well written fictional texts for students to read, experience, and learn from, but educators must include informational and nonfiction titles in their classrooms as well. Although the main purpose of informational text(s) is to inform and/or describe a specific topic (Robertson, 2020) to the reader, the importance of including this genre of book in an early childhood classroom is not limited to teaching students about a particular content area that an informational book may discuss. There are many benefits to having literary activities that include, and providing students with, informational texts in early childhood classrooms, the first being that “research has shown that early experiences with and instruction in the use of informational texts support students' comprehensi
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Lessons in Phonics: The Importance of Instruction Being Both Explicit and Systematic

Explicit Instruction & Systematic Instruction: Why Should Educators Utilize Both Instruction Techniques  Phonics lessons are essential for young children in early childhood classrooms, I discussed why in my previous post What is Phonemic Awareness and Why is it Important . In this post, I will focus on lessons in phonics and discuss instructional strategies that increase student comprehension, engagement, and success.  Phonemic awareness is a crucial factor in determining student academic success and teaching phonics can be done in several ways, but that does not mean that all methods of phonic instruction are equally beneficial to students. The two instructional techniques I would like to discuss with you all are explicit instruction, which means “the initial introduction of a letter-sound relationship, or phonics skill, is directly stated to students” (International Literacy Association, 2019), and systematic instruction, which includes “a review and repetition cycle to achieve m
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Lessons and Literature: Intentionally Teaching Students About Histories Different Than Their Own

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Intentional Lesson Planning: Why it is Important for Educators to Give Students Opportunities to Learn About Other Histories. Elementary educators sometimes struggle to navigate conversations about race and diversity within their classrooms, it can be difficult to summarize and discuss these topics with young learners, seeing as these parts of history involve mature content that their students have usually not been introduced to. I have met many teachers who would like to avoid discussing these topics all together, but that is unacceptable and does a great disservice to the students within those classes. It is our job, as educators, to teach our students about other histories, one’s often not taught in schools, in order to equip them with the knowledge they need to know about, and prepare them for, the world around the (Cultivating Genius, pg 139).  In order to teach any topic, educators need access to quality resources, this is especially true when teaching history, and, unfortunately
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Reading Aloud vs. Shared Reading: What’s the Difference?

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     Shared reading and reading aloud are literacy activities that are used within early childhood and elementary classrooms. Both activities assist in improving students language development, literary knowledge, and book handling skills, but the purpose of these activities are not the same. During a shared reading, teacher and students read aloud a large print book, with lots of engaging illustrations. Students will join in the reading to assist in decoding the print by using clues from the page, and will discuss the text while answering questions the teacher has prepared based on the children's needs (Team, 2017). Shared reading aims to provide students with an enjoyable reading experience, while building their language skills, enhancing their knowledge of vocabulary and phonics, and to “teach children systematically and explicitly how to be readers and writers themselves” (Mooney, 2000). Reading aloud is also a group activity with teacher and students, but unlike shared reading,
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Books About the ABC’s: Why Are These Important to Student Success?

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Books About the ABC’s: Why Are These Important to Student Success? Alphabetical knowledge, or knowing letter names and later, letter sounds which merge into formal phonics instruction (Savage, 2011), is one of the best predictors of student success when they are learning to read. The ability to look at an individual letter and recognize its sound is a skill that children are taught and must work to develop over ti me (Savage, 2011, pg. 28), they are not born with the ability, so it is our responsibility as educators to teach them these things within our classroom. This can be done through letter charts, alphabetical notecards, or, what I will be discussing in this blog post, ABC books. In this blog post I will highlight the process of how students begin to learn letters, recognize them, and associate the symbols with the sounds they make, while giving you a few examples of great ABC books that can assist in the teaching process. Pulling On Knowledge from the World Around Them: When yo
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