Literacy in the classroom

This has been my favorite module so far! I continuously found myself saving pictures and screen shots of various ideas I want to print and use in my classroom now and in the future. Videos: Goals for differentiated instruction This video was very informative. I loved how it addresses strategies for differentiated instruction. I use the strategy of differentiated instruction in my own classroom, but I learned a lot from this video. It is important to remember that differentiated instruction is about engaging and challenging your students. It’s about creating flexible and varied approaches for students to meet the learning outcomes. In my classroom, I group my students in various ways and then choose an activity with a goal in mind to best fit the needs of that particular group. I love the idea of allowing students to choose the method they will use to present their learning. I will have to see how well this works in pre k. The story of differentiated instruction Thi...

Struggling Readers Video This video discussed the importance of helping students who are struggling readers and giving suggestions to help students grow and develop in reading. Many great ideas were presented that I am excited to use in my classroom. For phonological awareness, the nonsense word game is a great activity that will grab students’ attention. Students will not feel that they are learning, but just playing a game. The vocabulary sketch was also a great idea. I teach prek and I would love to use this as large group activity or even a small group activity to begin helping my students develop strategies to tackle unknown words. The sundae organizer is my favorite. This visual gives students a fun and fresh way to look at the parts of the story. Expository Texts PowerPoint Students often have trouble understanding expository texts because they are unable to identify the text structure. This PowerPoint gave specific examples of how to use graphic organizers to help ...

Describe what you found most interesting during our trip to Hawaii The Trip to Hawaii presentation was very attention grabbing. I enjoyed how the theme of the trip was carried throughout the presentation from beginning to end. I was very intrigued by all the different types of graphic organizers. I have used several of the organizers including the venn-diagram, problem-solution, beginning, middle, and end, and web. I mostly use graphic organizers during reading and writing so I was interested in seeing how graphic organizers could be used in other subjects, especially the math setting. Graphic organizers would also work great for science (vocabulary) and social studies. Another aspect I enjoyed was the use of the animal pictures to give students a key for how they should read; slowly, quickly, or scan. This is a great way to teach students different ways of reading when looking for different types of answers or information. Some answers we need to focus in and read slowly to under...