Elementary Education Essay

Reading Comprehension -The student uses a variety of strategies to comprehend grade level text; Strand: Reading Process Listening and Speaking – The student effectively applies listening and speaking strategies. Informative – The student develops and demonstrates technical writing that provides information related to real-world tasks. Benchmark: LA. 2. 1. 7. 3. The student will summarize information in text, including but not limited to main idea, supporting details, and connections between texts; LA. 2. 5. 2. 4. The student will listen politely to oral presentations by classmates. LA. 2. 3. 1. 1. The student will prewrite by generating ideas from multiple sources (e. g. , text, brainstorming, webbing, drawing, writer’s notebook, group discussion, other activities); LA. 4. 4. 2. 5. The student will write simple directions to familiar locations using cardinal directions, landmarks, and distances, and create an accompanying map. Grade Level: Grade 2 Objectives: 1. Using the book The Trumpet of the Swan, the class will understand the main idea of the story by reading, listening and students discussion. 2. Basing on the journals of Louis in the Trumpet of the Swan, the class will come up with their very own journal writing. 3. Using the given information in the book The Trumpet of the Swan, the class will make a map of the main character’s travels and adventures. Activities: Before reading: 1. Ask the class if they know what a journal is and if they have ever written one. 2. Tell the class you are going to read them a story entitle The Trumpet of the Swan. During reading: 3. Read the Trumpet of the Swan. 4. Show a map of Canada and point important spots that are mentioned in the Trumpet of the Swan. 5. Show a sample journal and explain how to write and what to write. After reading: 6. Ask the class to read Sam’s poem and summarize the text and identify the main idea of the poem (Reading). 7. Ask the class to write a journal about nature (Writing). 8. Have the class make a map of Louis’ travels and adventures including all the important spots in Canada, Montana and the Northeast (Visually Representing). 9. Have the class discuss the book by having them share their favorite part and ask questions like the following: How to behave in the woods if you want to appreciate nature, what are their stand on the ethics of Louis’ father, why is there a need for Serena to hear the beautiful song of her mate, does anyone identify with Applegate Skinner? Or have someone recite a part of Sam’s poem (Talking/Speaking). 10. Ask the class to listen when a classmate recites a poem and identify the main idea of the poem (Listening). Assessment of Writing Development: The 2 ways of assessing a student’s writing development are Rubrics and Portfolio assessment. ? â€Å"Rubrics are tools teachers and students use to evaluate and classify writing, whether individual pieces or portfolios. They identify and articulate what is being evaluated in the writing, and offer â€Å"descriptors† to classify writing into certain categories (1-5, for instance, or A-F). Narrative rubrics and chart rubrics are the two most common forms† (UNL|FLWI, 2008). ? Portfolio assessment is the collection of students’ work over time reflecting their progress, efforts and achievements and teachers based it on the following items: â€Å"students’ Projects, surveys, reports and units from reading and writing Favorite poems, songs, letters, and comments, Interesting thoughts to remember, Finished samples that illustrate wide writing, Examples of writing across the curriculum, Literature extensions, Student record of books read and attempted, Audio tape of reading, Writing responses to literary components, Writing that shows growth in usage of traits, Samples in which ideas are modified from first draft to final product, Unedited first draft, Revised first draft, Evidence of effort, Self-evaluations, Writing that illustrates evidence of topic generation† (Hurst, 2009). Assessment of Grammar Skills: You can informally assess children’s grammar skills by: ? Reviewing children’s work on relevant pages in their Student Books, handwriting sentences they copied during Daily Routines, and especially their own independent Quick Writing. ? Another method is by â€Å"formal graded assessments such as quizzes, selected homework activities, and in-class tests† (Porter and vanDommelen, 2005). Assessment of Spelling Skills: The two ways of assessing the students’ spelling skills are observation and analysis of the work samples. ? Observation can be done in the classroom by observing the students as they write and as they try to use words that are beyond their ability level. It is important that observation be supplemented later with the students’ work samples and it should be done in a systematic way. ? Analysis of the work samples is an assessment of students’ â€Å"spelling ability from examination of samples of their unaided writing† (Westwood, 2008). These â€Å"samples can be taken from students’ exercise books, test papers, and language arts portfolios† (Fiderer as cited in Westwood, 2008). THE SPELLING PATTERNS: 1. Blends: are 2 or 3 letters combined to form a distinct spelling sound. Examples are : -br- in brown and break and -fr- in fry and freeze 2. Digraph: A group of two successive letters whose phonetic value is a single sound. For example, EA in BREAD, CH in CHAT, or NG in SING. 3. Diphthong: the union of two vowels, pronounced by a single impulse of the voice; as, ea in beat, ou in sound. 4. R-controlled vowels: When a vowel is followed by an r, it makes a special sound. These are called r-controlled vowels, or r-colored vowels. Examples are /ar/ sound as in car, /er/ sound as in butter. 5. Long vowel: a sound which is the same as, or very similar to the letter name of one of the vowels. Examples are /a/ as in gate, /e/ as in need. 6. Short vowel: Are vowels of shorter duration. Examples are short /a/ as in bat, short /e/ as in bet. 7. Contraction: is a word made up from a verb and another word where an apostrophe takes the place of any letters that are left out. It can be positive contraction or negative contraction. Examples are: aren’t – are not and here’s – here is. CUING SYSTEM: 1. Semantics — the study of the development and changes of the meanings of speech forms. Semantics is also a study of the process by which meaning is derived from symbols, signs, text, and other meaning-bearing forms. 2. Syntax — the conventions and rules for assembling words into meaningful sentences; syntax varies across languages. 3. Graphophonic — Refers to the sound relationship between the orthography (symbols) and phonology (sounds) of a language. 4. Phonological awareness — The understanding that speech is composed of sub-parts — sentences are comprised of words, words are comprised of syllables, syllables are comprised of onsets and rimes, and can be further broken down to phonemes. Cuing Strategies â€Å"Used by effective readers to figure out unfamiliar words and to make meaning, cuing strategies include knowledge of syntax, semantics, words and word meaning, and graphophonics (letter/sound associations). Teachers can guide students to use cuing strategies by reminding them to ask themselves, did it sound right? Did it make sense? Did the word look right? † (Teacher Resources, 2002). References † Advice for Teachers: Assessing Student Writing. † UNL | FLWI. 2008. 03 Apr. 2009 . Porter, Patricia, and Deborah VanDommelen. â€Å"Integrating Assessment with Grammar-for-Writing Instruction. † CATESOL: California Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. 2005. 03 Apr. 2009 . Hurst, Carol Otis. â€Å"Portfolio Assessment in the Reading-Writing Classroom. † Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site – Reviews and teaching ideas for kids’ books. 03 Apr. 2009 . Westwood, Peter. What Teachers Need to Know about Spelling. Aust Council for Ed Research, 2008. â€Å"Teaching Reading: Lens on Literacy. † Teacher Professional Development and Teacher Resources by Annenberg Media. 2002. .