My Name is Erin

I am the oldest and only daughter in my family. My younger brothers name is Andrew, but everyone calls him Drew. My name, Erin Nicole, was picked solely on the reason that my mom thought that together, they sounded nice. Erin is an Irish name that means Ireland. With a last name of McCarty, which is also Irish, Erin seemed to fit. Erin go Bragh is a popular saying which means Ireland forever. 228,212 people in the United States share the first name Erin with me and it is the 290th most popular name. Oddly, only 95% of people with the first name Erin are female. There are only 30 people in the United States named Erin McCarty!

Reflection for the week of November 23

1. Since this was a short week, there were no sets of spellings words. When we arrived at school, students were partner reading A Turkey for Thanksgiving. After each page, the person who was reading would ask the other person one question about what they just read. This was to make sure that students were following along with the story and understanding it. When they were finished reading, they went back to their desk and wrote five questions in thier notebooks about the story. Once everyone had done that, they passed their notebook to their neighbor who wrote down the answer to the questions.

2. They were making turkeys for Thanksgiving on Monday. In order to do this, each student had to trace their hand 10 different times to make the feathers of the turkey. They also had to trace each foot to make the “gobblers” of the turkey. After tracing, they wrote on 8 hands they wrote the characters in the story A Turkey for Thanksgiving and on the other 2 they wrote sentences about the story. I also assisted with the math lesson on Monday. Students were learning how to add with regrouping. They used base ten blocks to make three digit numbers and add them together by starting with the smallest numbers and adding to the biggest.

3. For the second time sinces we’ve been at the school, there was a fire drill. Students did not switch classes like normal today because Mrs. Vance was out for the day. Because students took so long to make their turkeys, there wasn’t much time for any other language arts or math during that time, but they were very content to finish what they had started.

4.

Rasinski Article

1. What are the three dimensions of fluency? How can you assess each dimension?

• Accuracy in word decoding-sounding out words in a text with minimal errors. Can assess by calculating the percentage of words a reader can accurately decode on grade level material. An accuracy level of 90-95 is adequate.
• Automatic processing is expending as little mental effort as possible in decoding aspects. Can be assessed by looking at students reading rates. Calculate number of words read correctly in 60 seconds on a grade level passage. Readers who fall 20-30% below target rate will require additional instruction.
• Prosodic reading is when you parse the text into syntactically and semantically appropriate units. Can assess by listening to a student read grade level passages and then judge the quality of the reading using a rubric that scores a student on the elements of expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness and pace.

2. Rasinski refers to fluency as a “bridge” between decoding and comprehension. What does he mean by the bridge metaphor?

• This means that there is a process to get from decoding to comprehension. There is no way just to jump from one to the other so fluency is what takes you from one side to the other.

3. What instruction methods does Rasinski suggest for students with difficulties in automatic and prosodic reading?

• Assisted and repeated readings: to hear what fluent readers sound like and how fluent readers interpret text with their voices
• Orally read a passage with a partner of the same level
• Have a more fluent reader read a passage with a less fluent reader
• Do repeated reading such as poetry and scripts that are meant to be read orally
• By modeling prosodic reading in the classroom, students will get a better idea of how they are supposed to read and speak.

4. Multidimensional Fluency Scale is used to measure prosodic quality of oral reading. List components of the MFS and describe what each refers to.

• Expression and volume

1. Quiet voice, doesn’t make it sound like natural language
2. Uses voice to make text sound like natural language, focuses on pronouncing words, quiet voice
3. Makes sound like natural language, slips into expressionless endings, voice volume appropriate
4. Good expressions and enthusiasm, varies expression and volume

• Phrasing

1. Monotone, reads word by word
2. Reads in two and three word phrases, choppy reading, improper stress, fails to mark end of sentences
3. Reads a mixture of run ons, mid sentence pauses, reasonable stress
4. Reads with good phrasing, adequate attention to expression

• Smoothness

1. Frequent extended pauses, hesitations, false starts, repetitions, multiple attempts
2. Several rough spots
3. Breaks smooth rhythm because of difficulties with words
4. Reads smoothly, resolves words and structure difficulties quickly, self-correction

• Pace

1. Slowly and laboriously
2. Moderately slow
3. Uneven mixture of fast and slow
4. Conversational pace, appropriate rate

Reflection for the week of November 16

1.  On Monday, they started off with a new week of spelling words. The first groups spelling words were the sounds “e” and “eh” using long and short e sounds. Some of their words were: bed, dead, sweet, meat. The second groups spelling words were words that you change the y ending to -s,- ies or -ing. One of their examples was cry which was changed to crying, cries and cried. Then Mrs. Whisnant did a read aloud of the story Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving to the whole class. They made predictions as they went along. Then each group did a word sort in their homework notebooks with the weeks spelling words. The lower level reading group first did a picture walk of Mina’s Day individually, then Mrs. Whisnant read it aloud and students wrote a story about their days. On Wednesday, the lower level group of readers went through Mina’s Day again and got in partners. Each person read a page out loud to their partner and they read the entire book three times. Mrs. Whisnant also did a read aloud for A Turkey for Thanksgiving. Before each page, she would have students raise their hands and make predictions on what was going to happen.

2. On Monday, Ashley and I gave two students who were absent the first day the spelling test. On Wednesday, we helped a student work on her writing the spelling words three times, making predictions on a book she was reading, and finishing her math worksheet and grammar worksheet. I also helped a student finish her word sort with her spelling words. Then, one of the students read a book about Cheetahs to me.

3. To this point, I have not seen a social studies or science lesson in the classroom. There have been days when reading books, different countries are mentioned and students briefly review them, but other than that, no social studies. There was one day when they listened to a song about solids, liquid and gasses, but again, that is all the science I have seen. Reading and math take up a majority of their day, along with different pull out things like P.E, Art and Library time.

4. I think it will be very hard for me to just teach reading and math when I know how important knowing science and social studies is. Even if it is just a few minutes a day, I feel like I will be doing a short science/social studies lesson when I become a teacher.

Reflection for the week of November 9

1. On Monday, students were beginning new books for the week. Each of the three reading groups had a different book: Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, Alexander Who Used to be Rich last Sunday, and If You Bring a Mouse to School. Mrs. Whisnant read the book with each group and then had all students make a poster about their favorite parts of the book along with captions underneath explaining. They also had silent sustained reading (SSR) and accelerated reading tests during SSR.

2. On Monday, I helped a girl echo read her book, If you Bring a Mouse to School. I would read a page and then she would read it after me. After reading the whole book, she would tell me sentences that I wrote down, then she practiced reading them.

3. I’ve noticed that Mrs. Whisnant always tries to integrate reading into the math lessons and math into the reading lessons whenever possible.

4. When helping this week, I found it hard to understand why the girl I was helping was actually in 2nd grade. She got very frustrated with easy reading passages and is always pulled out of the classroom.

Reflection from week of November 2

1. Each group went over their spelling words. There are three spellings groups and their words this week focused on the long e sound, changing y to ies and beginning consonant blends. They again practiced reading the Breman Town story for one last time before the “production” that night. On Wednesday, they started spelling as a class by changing the word day to pay, then pay to pail, then pail to sail, then finally sail to say. Mrs. Whisnant did a read aloud while the children followed along in their books. Then, with each of their spelling lists, they sorted them in alphabetical order.

2. On Wednesday, I did the word flash and reading passages with my selected student. I also helped out whenever was needed by checking answers when students were doing things as a class.

3. I love the way the school is set up and the murals on the walls. Everytime I walk in, I see students walking around turning things into the office or going to the media center. It is a school that seems very safe when it comes to students.

 

Reflection from week of October 28

1. This day was different because they had the math assessment that threw them all off schedule. Later in the day, they read a story that the class had been working on for a while. They were going to  read it at parent night so they were practicing their roles.

2. On Wednesday, we gave the class spelling assessment to the 2nd graders. Since things were so off schedule, there wasn’t much time for us to do anything further.

3. I like how Mrs. Whisnant and Mrs. Vance do a team teach. For reading and math, some students switch classes depending on their group or level. This allows for a less generalized lesson as the teacher can focus on the individual level.

4. I know how hard is it for me to do something that is off schedule so I’m sure it is even harder for 2nd graders. During their math assessment, there was an unplanned fire drill. Why would a principal do this knowing that students had been taking a test and that this fire drill would distract them and get them completely off focus?

How Big is a Foot?

1. Rolf Myller

2. 1991

3. How Big is a Foot?

4. 0-440-40495-9

5. Grade 1

6. The King wants to give the Queen something special for her birthday. The Queen has everything, everything except a bed. The trouble is that no one in the Kingdom knows the answer to a very important question: How Big is a Bed? because beds at the time had not yet been invented. The Queen’s birthday is only a few days away. How can they figure out what size the bed should be?

7. This book is a great way to include mathematics in a reading lesson. You can have the students measure their own feet and height to see how big of a bed they would need!

Froggy Eats Out

1. Jonathan London

2. 2003

3. Froggy Eats Out

4. 0-142-50061-5

5. Grade 3

6. Froggy Eats Out is about a little boy frog who is very mischevious. His mother and father try and take him to a nice restaurant for their anniversary and everything ends up going wrong. All Froggy wants is to eat burgers and flies! See if his wish comes true while reading Froggy Eats Out!

7. This would be a great book to have students make a movie to. You could divide students into groups and have each group role play a different section of the book, video tape it, and then put it all together as a class.

Fancy Nancy: The Show Must Go On!

1. Jane O’Connor, Robin Preiss Glasser, Ted Enik

2. 2009

3. Fancy Nancy: The Show Must Go On!

4. 0-061-70372-9

5. Grade 1

6. Nancy enters in a talent show with a parter. Nancy soon realizes that her parter and her are very different and do not have many talents in common. What is she to do with a partner who can’t do the same things as her? Find out if Nancy ever finds an actto do when reading this book!

7. This is a good book to show that everybody has their own special talents. Even though some people may be best friends, doesn’t mean they always like to do the same things. Our talents are what makes everyone an individual.