Module 2 Reading Reflection

As  a brand new teacher, I have struggled with the black and white difference of phonics and phonemic awareness and it seemed that each definition varied slightly which made me continue to question myself.  I have a firmer grasp on the difference after reading the readings for this module.

The first important concept I learned from this module is the importance of reading to students.  Regardless of age, research states the by exposing students to read a louds, a higher level of language is used by the reader, thus giving the students an opportunity to a richer and deeper vocabulary and it also provides a probe for questions and answers.  I teach in a Jr. High classroom with students who have multiple disabilities and who are visually impaired or blind.  Half of my class are non readers do to their visual impairment and physical limitations and one of their favorite things to do is to go to the round table and have me read to them "for pleasure".  I've always enjoyed it and they have too, I just didn't realize how well it was supported by research.

The second important concept I learned was that the concept of learning to read could take place without a visual representation of the letters or words.  This is where, by my understanding students can learn phonemes and discover that several sounds go together to make words in speech as well as print.  I use this alot not really realizing it was phonemic awareness.  In Braille, there are in Grade 1 a symbol for every letter of the alphabet, but in Grade 2, a single letter stands for the whole word, which restrains the student from "writing out" or spelling many words.  For example, the letter "y" when written alone, represents the word "you".  So for my students learning Braille, I wasn't sure if my instruction was more phonemic awareness based or more phonics based.  After the reading, I have decided that initally it is phonics as far as connecting the letter with a particular sound and then phonemic awareness, isolating sounds and using onsets and rimes to manipulate real and nonsense words.

The third important concept I enjoyed in the reading was the "stretching word" activities.  These types of activities help support the students vocabulary as well as their imagination.  I tried this activity in which we started with our seven thematic Spelling words: water, rock, sun, moon, stars, and Earth and we used a variety of consonant blends and diagraphs to longer or compound words.  Some examples were: moonlight, sunshine, balloon(moon), rocket, start, etc.  This was an enjoyable activity and we enjoyed the nonsense words as well.  We are studying the Earth and the Solar System the next three weeks so we will revisit this activity.

After the reading I have decided that next year for my nonreaders, I will start with phonemic awareness activities.  I had attening a Reading First conference and have several activities to engage children in literacy activities.  I learned to read using phonics and thought everyone else probably would too.  I also use acronyms alot also.  This gives us an opportunity to choose words based on an inital phoneme.  Most of our activities are oral in a group initially, so phonemic activities are more appropriate for them.

The last two weeks I have been implementing the strategies from Module 2.  We tried the thinking clouds and I transcribed as they spoke their thoughts.  My guys love to be the center of attentions so this strategy was awesome.  My personal favorite was the cubing. We used this strategy following our Weekly Reader activity where fast food for young people was discourage and caloric counts were given for food they eat every week.  I contrasted the information by having fresh fruit for our snack and talking about the nutrients.  We decided we could eat 10 medium apples or 4 chicken McNuggets for the same amount of calories.  A couple of my boys said they still wanted the McNuggets.

We used the Frayer model for our vocabulary words.  I introduce two Greek or Latin root words a week and then we discover words containing those roots and they predict what the meanings are.  This week our roots were cycl and astr.  We connected these words to our science lesson and the lessons we had the last three weeks on weather. I use graphic organizers such as the Venn Diagram frequently with my visually impaired students.  With my students who are blind, I like the thinking clouds. 

This module has been very helpful to me.