Blog 7- Planning for Content Literacy

Summary

Planning for a lesson should start with focusing on the big ideas that students should know. These ideas can then be further discussed by using open ended questions which allow the students to take time to comprehend and work out their thoughts. Students and teachers will have a more meaningful lesson if the main goal is stated and everyone involved can see the big picture. It is important that teachers have an organized plan put together before teaching their lesson so that this can be achieved. Reading and writing activities should be used to help students learn the content and teachers should be aware of which strategies will be needed/taught in order for the students to fully comprehend a text. Planning a lesson also involves taking into consideration the diverse capabilities of students. Not every student will be at the same reading and comprehension level, so using instructional scaffolding and in-class grouping can help students. Another strategy for planning a literacy lesson for diverse learners is to use reciprocal teaching. This involves the teacher and students interacting with each other, answering and asking questions in order to construct meanings from text.

Critical Reflection

        Reciprocal reading is a lot like student-owned strategies, which were described in the module 5 lecture. Both of these strategies allow the student to take control of their own learning and really analyze a text. Making predictions, self-questioning and answering, reflecting, and retelling are all components of these two strategies. The one difference is that the teacher is involved in reciprocal teaching, and students communicate out loud through discussion with one another. Student-owned strategies happen individually. These two strategies can be very effective with helping student comprehension and should be incorporated into the lesson plan.

Implications for teaching

        In the music classroom, I will definitely have to plan out how I can incorporate more reading into my everyday lessons. Students usually come to music class expecting to play their instruments the whole time, and do not usually think of reading texts. The goal is to find texts that relevant to what the students are playing with their instruments. These can include stories about composers, musical time periods, and histories of certain pieces. Once the students are given a text, I will make sure use strategies such as reciprocal teaching to make sure my students comprehend the text. Having discussions about how the musical pieces relate to the texts and summarizing histories can be fun when the whole group is involved.

Connection to standards

        Sub-strand B for music education standards states that “students will use a variety of strategies to expand reading, listening and speaking vocabulary.” Using strategies such as reciprocal teaching and student-owned reading meets this standard because students are able to expand their comprehension by having discussions, summarizing, and predicting with each other and their teacher. 

Course Blog 6: Struggling Readers

Summary

This week we learned about diverse and struggling readers. I found the article, Resistance, struggle, and the adolescent reader, to be quite interesting for it discussed the important issue of resistant adolescent readers. These are readers who can read, but choose not to due to reasons such as texts that are uninteresting, not relate-able, and forced. The lack of engaging textbooks is a big component to creating resistant readers. “Textbook reading has the tendency to diminish reading pleasure” (Lenters, 138). Many students will just briefly scan the material and look for answers to assigned questions without even comprehending the text. As I was reading this article, I realized that there were many times in my past schooling that I was a resistant reader. I had assigned texts that were extremely lengthy and uninteresting so I would just scan through them or not even read them at all. Lenters explained in her article that many students go through elaborate lengths to avoid readings and some students state that they could pass tests without even reading the accompanying text (p. 138). What is the most concerning about resistant readers is that they can turn into struggling readers. This can happen when the lack of reading prevents the child from developing necessary reading skills. In order to prevent resistant readers, teachers should choose texts that are interesting and engaging to the students. Students should “be given the change to engage critically with the text” (Lenters, 142). This could include having discussions where students can give personal responses, explaining to students how the text relates to their own lives and using verbal and visual techniques to teach a lesson.

Critical Reflection

It is important for teachers to know their students interests so that they can choose texts that will be engaging and motivate their students so that they do not become resistant readers.  I think it is necessary for teachers to always give a context for why their students should know the material. If students have a purpose for learning a new concept, they will be more motivated to engage and study it.

Lenters brought up a point about English teachers that I found to be interesting. She states that “English teachers naturally tend to be those who love reading and who have experienced success with it…they may easily overlook the irrelevance their students may perceive and the struggle they may experience” (p. 140). I think this is a relevant point, but all the English teachers I have had were all very aware of the different reading abilities in the classroom and used techniques such as annotating, reading aloud, listening to audio books, and discussing difficult passages to help struggling readers. English teachers are usually more passionate about reading than some of their students, but showing their enthusiasm about a certain text sometimes helps student become more excited and motivated to read it.

Implications for teaching

I have witnessed many resistant readers in the music classroom. A teacher will choose a musical piece to learn and sometimes not everyone is excited to play it. I was observing a 4^th grade trombone class last year and there was a student that just straight up chose not to play along with the group. When the teacher asked why he wasn't playing, he said that he didn't like the song. It is important, even for music teachers to not only choose pieces that interest students, but to also explain why they choose a particular piece, and explain to them what they can learn from it. If a new piece of music is being introduced to the class the teacher should give a background of the piece and tell a bit about the composer as well as the time period. Sometimes playing a professional recording of the piece helps them get a better understanding of it too. This will grasp the students’ attention and engage them more in the music.

Connection to standards

Sub-strand D. Literature states, “the student will actively engage in the reading process and read, understand, respond to, analyze, interpret, evaluate and appreciate” a wide variety of texts. This relates to the topic of resistant and struggling readers because if teachers are able to identify and help improve the reading skills of struggling readers, their students will be able to accomplish the goal listed in sub-strand D. 

Lenters, Kimberly. "Resistance, Struggle, and the Adolescent Reader." Journal of Adolescent &                           Adult Literacy 50.2 (2006): 136-44

Blog 5: Assessment

Summary

Assessment is a popular, yet challenging topic in education. There are many methods of assessment as well as many differentiated views on how it should be done. Alvermann explains that school administrators see assessment as a way to show the effectiveness of a program and demonstrate accountability, while teachers view assessment as a way to see the progress of their students and themselves (pg. 126). Many types of assessments were explained in the chapter, but authentic and performance interested me the most. Authentic assessments include journals, portfolios, and hands on activities to demonstrate how much a student has learned. These are usually more time consuming, but give a better representation of student achievement. Performance assessment is similar to authentic in that they both involve using the same activities, but performance usually include rubrics; benchmarks or criteria for judging student performance (Alvermann, 133). This type of assessment includes an instruction that is more focused because students know what is expected of them, and why they need to learn it.

Critical Reflection

            Assessment is an important because when done correctly, it is beneficial to both the student and the teacher. With an assessment such as a journal or portfolio, the student can reflect on what they have learned, as well as share any concerns. The teacher can get to know the student better, find out how they feel about the class, and also reflect on how to improve lessons to make them more engaging. One downside to authentic assessment is time. Writing in a journal, performing, and doing hands on activities do usually take more time than filling out a quiz or a test.

Implications for teaching

Many students sign up for music class because they think it is an “easy A.” In my experiences, it has been true. It is very difficult to assess, let alone give a critical grade to a student learning how to play an instrument. If you give them a low grade, they may get discouraged and quit playing. For my future music classroom, I plan to use a lot of authentic assessment. I have seen music teachers that have used student portfolios and have found them to be very effective. The journal will be graded on the use proper grammar, good organization and completeness.  Having students perform etudes and scales on a regular basis is also an effective way to assess. This way you can see the progress of the student and grade them off of that. I will give my students a rubric that explains to them what they will be tested on (intonation, expression, technique) along with a scale, so that they will know what is expected of them.

Relation to standards

        An authentic assessment such as a student journal or portfolio meets the Sub-strand C standard for music education which states, “the student will understand the meaning of informational texts using a variety of strategies and will demonstrate interpretive comprehension.”

Blog #4: Fluency

Blog 4- Reading Fluency

Summary

Reading fluency is made up of three main elements: “accuracy in word decoding, automaticity in recognizing words, and appropriate use of prosody or meaningful oral expression while reading” (Rasinski, 2006). If students are not successful in obtaining these elements of reading fluency, they may get discouraged and feel a sense of failure or lack of enthusiasm. With proper reading fluency comes successful comprehension, and it is our job as teachers to make this a goal for all of our students. Rasinski also states in his article that “repeated reading is one of the best ways to develop fluency” but if it is not done properly with effective texts and instruction, it can result in faster reading with little comprehension (p. 705).

One way teachers can assess reading fluency is to listen to students read aloud (Hudson et al, 2005). While the student reads aloud, the teacher can keep time and record any errors that were made. After the passage is read, it is important for the teacher to work with the student and discuss the errors as well as set a goal for the next time. Another interesting method for assessment is having the student record themselves reading. This is not only helpful to the teacher, but also to the student because he or she can hear themselves and judge/create goals for the future.

Critical reflection

I strongly agree with Rasinski’s opinion of repeated reading. It is so easy for students to get into the habit of just reading to get through a text. There have been many times where I have just sped through a passage of text and then had to reread it again to comprehend what it was actually saying. It is important for teachers to choose repeated readings that are meaningful and allow for “oral interpretation or performance of text” (Rasinski, 2006). These are the readings that will engage students and allow for successful comprehension and fluency.

Implications for teaching

Rasinski states that interactive texts like poetry, song lyrics and chants are effective for fluency instruction and appropriate for repeated reading. As a future music educator, I was very excited to read this. When teaching a new song to elementary music students, reading through the lyrics and talking about them is one of the first steps to learning the song. It is easy to get lost in a tune of a song and not even think about the lyrics, but if you take time to read through them and discuss the meaning behind the text, the students have a much better understanding. Reading and performing texts such as poetry, plays and songs is a fun way for the students to improve their fluency.

I would also like to use self-recordings for assessing reading fluency in the music classroom, but in terms of note reading. Often in orchestra classrooms, playing tests are given in which students are to play a scale or a short piece on their instruments. If I allow them to record themselves first, they can assess themselves on how well they kept a steady (or fluent) tempo, and if they played all their notes correctly and used the proper expression.

Relationship between readings and music education standards

Sub-strand B of the music education standards state that students will use a variety of strategies to expand reading. Repeated reading and self-recording are two different strategies to improve reading fluency. Sub-strand C also requires that the student will understand the meaning of texts and will demonstrate interpretive comprehension. Reading poetry, plays and music lyrics all allow for performance opportunities which demonstrate interpretive comprehension. 

Sources:

Hudson, R. F., Lane, H. B., & Pullen, P. C. (2005). Reading fluency assessment and instruction: What, why, and how? The Reading Teacher, 58(8), 702-712.

Rasinski, T. (2006). Reading fluency instruction: moving beyond accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. The Reading Teacher, 59(7), 704-706.

Blog # 3

Summary

        One interesting thing that I learned in the lessons this week was that there are two different categories for academic vocabulary. The first category is brick, and it refers to technical words in certain content areas. A few examples would be crescendo, atom and molecule. The second category is mortar, and it refers to general academic vocabulary that holds content area words together. Examples of mortar words would be analyze, summarize and predict.
        It is important for students to understand words from both of these vocabulary categories in order to successfully comprehend text (Module 3). Students should be able to read and write with academic vocabulary as well as include it in their oral discussions, summaries, and questions.

        The best way for students to enhance their vocabulary through practice, and a lot of it. Teachers should provide many opportunities for vocabulary practice in their lessons. These can include word games, vocabulary worksheets, and speaking exercises/discussions that include academic vocabulary. Teachers must constantly be using academic vocabulary as they teach so that their students can be exposed to it on a regular basis.

        Most of our vocabulary knowledge comes from " incidental" learning. This type of learning happens from reading books, watching tv, talking to people, listening and writing. A small percent of vocabulary knowledge comes from direct instruction through schooling.


Importance

        Vocabulary knowledge is important because it increases comprehension, which promotes strong readers. Having a wide range of vocabulary knowledge benefits a student in many ways. It will help them throughout their many years of schooling as well as help them succeed in job fields and everyday life. Teaching vocabulary doesn't have to be bland and boring. Teachers can find ways to creatively include vocabulary practice into their daily lessons.


Implications

        In the music classroom, I will make sure to provide many opportunities for students to use both brick and mortar academic vocabulary. For example, I may have the students look through their parts and ask them to find all the words that describe tempo (accelerando, allegro, etc). These words would be the brick words. I also may ask them to compare two movements of a symphony. Compare would be the mortar word. I will also use games such as "Jeopardy" and "Bingo" (for the younger kids) that will test and review academic vocabulary with the students in a fun and engaging way.


Readings and content standards

        The standards for music educators require them to have "the ability to develop and
implement effective vocabulary strategies that help students
understand words including domain-specific words." This speaks true to what we learned in the lessons this week. Vocabulary is an important subject that needs attention in all content areas. Teachers should include it into their lessons daily in creative and fun ways.

Blog 2- Reading Comprehension

Brief Summary

The main topic this week is reading comprehension, which is the interactive process between text, reader and instruction. When comprehensive reading is expected, many students are taught skills such as finding the main idea, looking for details, or drawing conclusions. These are supposed to help the students better understand what they are reading. According to the media and texts from our lesson this week, it takes more than just telling our students to do these things. Teachers engage students in comprehensive learning through motivation, choosing topics that interest students, giving a purpose, and considering students’ prior knowledge (Alvermann, 165). Teachers must model how to read comprehensively. As the article Literacy Instruction for Adolescents states,  “Students need to witness a skilled reader explaining the various ways that he or she makes meaning from the text” (Wood, 355). I remember many of my teachers in school doing just this. They would read a passage and then talk through it out loud to the class. It was very effective because I always had a better understanding by the end of it. Modeling how to use reading graphs and charts is another important strategy in enhancing reading comprehension. After a teacher has modeled for their students, they must allow their students to practice the behaviors with a little guidance, and then eventually independently. One other strategy for comprehensive reading that is discussed in the article is reciprocal teaching. This involves the students acting as leaders and working with their peers to read. Students read texts together and then summarize, question, clarify, and predict (Wood, 338).

Critical reflection

The information and strategies about comprehensive reading instruction discussed in the course readings and minilecture this week is all very valuable. It is very important that students have the proper instruction and guidance on how to comprehend texts. Students will be more likely to engage in reading if it is interesting to them and they know how to properly sort out their ideas. Using background knowledge to enhance comprehensive reading can be a difficult task, especially if there is classroom that is very diverse culturally as well as academically. If this is the case, teachers will have to make sure they give a bit of a background on the topic to the students so that they can all be on the same level.

Implications for teaching

In my future classroom, I will be sure to always make sure that my students know the purpose for why they are reading on a certain topic. For example, if my string orchestra is playing a piece by Strauss, I may have them read a paragraph or two about Strauss’ life and the history that happened during his time. I would tell my students that the reason why they are reading the text is because it will help them to better understand why Strauss wrote the piece the way he did. Or if we were playing an arrangement of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, I would have the students read the poems that go with the piece. This would help them to better understand and visualize what the music has to say.

I also will use modeling, specifically showing them how to make diagrams. I feel that this is especially helpful when sorting ideas from a text. Venn Diagrams are a great way to compare and contrast two concepts.

Relationship to Standards

This weeks readings and media relate to a lot of what is expected in the music education reading instruction standards. Strand 1 in the standards requires that the music teacher understands how motivation, background knowledge, motivation and interest impacts comprehension. These are the topics that were discussed in course readings. Students are expected to use a variety of strategies to expand their reading, writing and speaking skills. These strategies such as teacher modeling, reciprocal teaching, and creating graphs were discussed in detail in the course readings.

Blog # 1

Brief Summary

Chapter 1 of “Content Area Reading and Literacy” defined three different types of readers: active, independent and fluent. It is important that we as teachers can guide our students so that they will be successful at one, or all three of these reader types.

Active readers are constantly asking questions about the content they are reading, as well as monitoring (checking for understanding). A successful active reader knows how to separate the important information from unimportant information. Active readers also are great at open-forum discussions, in which they can interact with their peers. 

The independent reader is one who is also an independent learner. They are able to make connections from their own experiences to what they are reading and make judgments about the quality/value of what they read. Independence takes time and guidance from both peers and teachers to help interpret, clarify, and explain texts that are read. Lastly, fluency in readers is determined by the ability to comprehend texts based on "speed, accuracy, and appropriate expression" (Alvermann et al, 9).

This chapter also introduces the term "content literacy." Content literacy is "the ability to use reading and writing strategies to learn new content" (Alvermann et al, 10). Writing strategies can include personal response, journals and diagrams to reflect on text.  If the students are successful in accomplishing the reading types above, they are more likely to be successful with content literacy. Module 1 explains that reading in the different content areas usually applies for middle and secondary levels because these students are reading to learn versus learning to read. Motivation and reader interest was also an important theme in helping students to better comprehend texts in content areas. 

Critical Reflection

The ideas/terms above are important because there will be many different readers in a classroom. It is important that the teacher is aware of this and can create activities that will foster the growth of each student's reading skills. I also think that the statement made in Module 1 (students in the secondary and middle levels are reading to learn) is an important thing to keep in mind. Teachers need to realize that even though this is what they expect the students at those ages to do, they may actually not be at that level yet. Teachers may have to guide them and teach them the skills and strategies to effectively read to learn. 

As I was reading about content literacy strategies, I found myself disagreeing with the claim that "educators who teach from a reader response perspective put too much emphasis on personal and individual interpretation" (Alvermann et al, 16). I believe that a student's input and interpretation is extremely important because it allows the student to really think about a topic. They can relate it to their own experiences and get their thoughts down on paper (if they are journaling). It is also a good way for the teacher to get to know the thoughts and ideas of his/her students. Teachers can still show their students how to think critically of a text, but to think critically, you must know where you stand first. 

Module 1 explained how motivation is a strategy that should be used to help students comprehend subject areas better. I agree with this. When a student is motivated, they are reading because they are interested in the topic and feel that they have the ability to complete the task. Module 2 talked about how many textbooks are not well written or not engaging, and this is an important thing to think about as a teacher. When deciding on a textbook, make sure that it is also visually appealing and a good fit for your students. 

Implications for Teaching 

In the music classroom, students don't necessarily read textbooks on how to play music, but they do use method books and read music notes off of scores. I can definitely use some of the strategies listed above to help my future students to better comprehend and read in my classroom. The first, and most important in my mind, deals with motivating the students. I can do this by finding out what their interests are, what kinds of music they like and include those things into my daily lessons. For example, if I were teaching a middle school string orchestra, I would find an arrangement of a popular song on the radio for them to play. This would get them excited to learn it, and because it is an arrangement, it will be suitable for their playing level. I could also go further and teach them about the history of American pop music. In this lesson I would use the active reading strategy of having the students read about the history and then make a timeline or diagram of important events/artists/musical characteristics. 

Relationship 

This week’s readings and modules speak true to what the standards for Music Education state. Music teacher are expected to understand the methods of motivation and using reader interest to impact comprehension. Both the media and Chapter 1 of Alvermann talked about the importance of these two things. The second standard listed in the Music Education document is the ability to use a wide range of instructional practices to support reading and writing. Chapter 1 of Alvermann explained a few approaches to help comprehension such as peer discussion, self-reflection, and generating questions/monitoring.