My Teaching Philosophy

While I still don't know a lot about what I believe, here is a list of things I've learned about what my own teaching theories this semester. 

• Children learn best when they are motivated.

• Children are motivated to learn when there is a purpose for their learning.

• Children’s learning should be guided by their own innate curiosity.

• Children should be encouraged to explore the world around them, and my job as a teacher is to guide this process – not to direct it.

• Children can surprise us if we raise our expectations about what they are capable of.

• The student-teacher relationship crucial. Mutual trust and communication are key to success in the classroom.

Specifically regarding literacy, I believe: 

• Children should both read and be read to every day from authentic, meaningful texts. “The most important discovery that children make about books is that they serve meaningful functions.” (Owocki & Goodman, 38)

• Children should write every day in authentic, meaningful ways with a purpose and audience in mind.

I will assess children using mainly informal assessments, such as portfolios of their work and observation of their activities. I believe that conferencing is key to assessing and teaching literacy, so I will be doing reading and writing conferences during independent reading and writing time with as many students as possible. I will do some formal assessments such as a Gentry Spelling Analysis now and then, I would like to use them sparingly and not attach any kind of value to them - they will be used only for instruction. 

I cannot believe that my time with these wonderful students is almost over. I hope to see them again one day, and that when I do, they've become the wonderful readers and writers I know they can be. 

Guiding Questions Revisited

As the semester comes to a close, I decided to revisit my guiding questions from the beginning of September and investigate what I've learned.

1. Which literacy theory is best for me to use in my future classroom? How will I discover this? How will I modify it to best suit the way my students learn?

I believe that with experience I'll eventually discover a way in which I believe teaching is most effective, and how to best modify it to fit my students needs. I think this is something I cannot read in a book, or as someone else about, it is something I need to discover on my own as I grow and learn as a teacher. I already have so much more of an idea of what I want my classroom to look like in the future (see my next post) because of everything I've seen this year. I now realize that keeping this guiding question was immensely important to my growth as a teacher. The choices I made regarding my instruction of not only Leo, but how I interacted with the children and their classroom environment revealed many opinions I didn't know I had regarding literacy instruction. I believe literacy teaching should be child-centered, meaning it should be based on a child's interests and goals - leading to motivation. It also needs to be authentic and purposeful for a child. Without these things, I do not believe children will learn to love reading and writing, and I think that children who love reading and writing are probably going to be better at reading and writing. 
2. How do children's ideas about literacy and self-efficacy regarding literacy affect their learning? How do they develop this efficacy and can it be changed later in life?

I was not able to focus on this aspect of my guiding questions. It still interests me - but since my target child had reasonable self-efficacy regarding his reading and writing skills (he knew he couldn't read, but it didn't seem to bother him) I wasn't able to examine how if affected him.
(Added October 5th)
3. How do I help children who lack motivation? How do I get a child excited about books and open their eyes to the wonder of reading?

As I learned with Leo, motivation is key to learning. I now believe that children's choice in what they read and write is absolutely crucial to their level of motivation. Leo would not exhibit the same enthusiasm he has for Star Wars books or books about cats if they were basal readers like Dick and Jane. I believe this motivation also comes from a purpose to their learning, and when it comes from real and authentic sources. 

What's Missing From This Classroom?

I think it would be helpful to think about what I want in a classroom by describing Leo’s classroom – because it is not what I want. While it’s not the opposite of the kind of class I want to teach one day, it’s missing many characteristics I’d want to include.

First of all, as I’ve stated before, this classroom does not use invented text. The children are aware of most of the features of print, and are learning high-frequency or “no excuse words.” They also are gradually learning phonics and word-solving strategies, such as “stretching out” words to hear all the sounds. This last technique is the most often used in our classroom and is best described in the next chapter: “Say the word slowly, listen to the sounds, write the sounds in order with each sound represented by one or more letters.” I have seen it taught and witnessed the children using this strategy multiple times. The most important skill I believe these students need to learn and are not being taught is “risk taking” with their spelling. Snowball states, “If children are not allowed to attempt words they do not know, they may become safe spellers rather than good spellers.” (Snowball 11). I am worried that the lack of encouragement of inventive and “fearless” spelling has already had an effect on many students in our class. When the students went outside to observe their playground the other day, they were expected to label their pictures with words. While I saw many wonderful spellings, I was saddened by the many children asking me incessantly, “is this right??” One little girl who I know is quite bright but very preoccupied with being “correct” spelled only words that I knew had been used in previous shared writing lessons. When she asked me how to spell something she didn’t know and I told her to try her best on her own, she ended up switching the word to one she did know. Another child wrote strings of no-excuse-words on her paper that obviously did not relate to the picture she was drawing. However, noting these issues has not led me to a conclusion about what I could do to help them get the idea our of their heads that being “right” isn’t important if it keeps them from writing what they want.

Another aspect missing that is probably my favorite aspect of writing instruction is a Writer’s Workshop. I don’t know if it’s because this is the beginning of the year and they’re only in kindergarten, but my field classroom only has about 15 minutes of independent writing per day. Children can write and draw whatever they want, but to my knowledge, their drawings and labels will stay within their bound notebooks – and will remain the same. I believe, like Katie Wood Ray, that children need to see their work validated in some way in order for them to feel validated as writers. I sincerely hope that some time this year they have an opportunity to further develop their work, and that they will have more time to work on it. I know that my teacher has using a skills-based approach to teaching the children, so it’s possible that more open curriculum like free reading and free writing has been given a lower priority. I understand that skills are important, because many of the children are behind, but I still think that writer’s workshop can be nothing but beneficial to children. They are still writing, aren’t they?

             

Book Choice : Do Students Know Best?

The other day, the Scholastic Book Fair came to our school. The students were extremely excited, running into the library with their slips of paper to write down the books they wanted to buy. Leo wanted Star Wars books (of course) and wrote down several titles, some of which came with a lego Luke Skywalker. While I'm not exactly sure these were the most interesting or enriching books he could have chosen, he was interested in them, and that's what matters.

A chapter we read in the beginning of the year came to mind when thinking of the appropriateness of popular culture in the classroom. Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones: Six Literacy Principles Worth Fighting For, by Thomas Newkirk, discussed the trend children have to appropriate pop culture. They create "permeable curriculums" in which they draw upon their lives, our of school resources, etc. while doing school tasks such as writing. Newkirk makes the point that it is important to allow and even encourage children to bring in media such as Star Wars and items from their lives to school. There is an unfortunate trend for teachers to ban popular culture and material that middle class deems as "low class" or "uncultured" from the classroom. Personally, I see no reason not to let children bring popular culture into the classroom, if it's what they're interested in. When cultural resources familiar to children are dismissed over the middle class/professional class type of "literature," the result is alienating. Children use familiar cultural themes to feel at home in the classroom, and if they're not able to do that, they will feel out of place. In my opinion, if a child wants to read Spongebob books, let him read Spongebob books. At least he's reading!

In fact, reading familiar texts that remind a child of their home life or reflect their interests can be beneficial. Reading from Johnson and Keir's Catching Readers Before They Fall, I came across this quote by Junko Yokota: "Books can be mirrors into our selves, our culture, our life experiences, and our community. Seeing oneself represented in literature engenders a sense of pride." (Page 102). If we want our students to be confident with themselves and their abilities, letting them choose their own books is a necessity.

Choosing appropriately-leveled texts is another issue. I believe that children do not always have to read at their own level. If they are interested in a book, and it's not wildly out of their range of ability, let them pick it up! It could serve as a motivational tool for them to practice their reading. However, it appears that many people don't share this opinion. An article we read the other week, among other things, said that "students need to be matched with books they can read" (Routman, 2). While I agree that students need appropriate texts during instruction, I don't think teacher should discourage children from choosing books beyond their skill level for recreational reading. At this same Scholastic Book Fair, I witnessed a student, very much like my own target child in ability and personality, pick up a book, clearly excited about it. He had heard about it before, as it was a known title, and he wanted to read that book. But his teacher told him, "Can you read that? You need to pick out books you can read." He sadly put the book back. Besides the fact that I think he could read that book, what message does it send to kids when a teacher tells them they can't do something? Aren't we supposed to be telling them they can do whatever they set their minds to? I was amazed at the effect that comment had on this boy, and it greatly saddened me. I believe that he could have read that book, if he practiced enough. I'm sure he would know some of the words in it. And if he didn't, eventually he would be able to.

This semester, I also learned that children like to reread books. The amount of times that Leo has read "There Are Cats in This Book" is staggering at this point, and he never gets bored of it. But he loves it! And he really is learning. Read it Again, by Brenda Parkes states, “During repeated experiences they deepen their involvement in many ways as they notice details in illustrations, internalize the rhythm of the language, enter into a dialogue with the books, and relate the content to their own experiences.” (Parkes, 63) I now know that a revisited text is not a waste of time because it's familiar, and that a student gets something out of each reading. In addition, rereading familiar texts boosts children's confidence, as they sometimes begin to recognize words and "read" them. This is absolutely crucial to their identities as readers. 

Lesson Reflections

After my guided writing lesson plan, I was fairly nervous to get feedback from my host teacher. Not only had I not exactly followed her directions, I hadn't extended the lesson to a point that I believed was enriching for the children. However, after discussing the lesson with her, I felt much better about taking the liberties I did with her suggestions. She told me, "you didn't do exactly what I told you, you made it your own. You took the initiative with the kids and went with your gut." While I know if it had been my classroom, the students would have been using inventive writing instead of copying sentences, I was heartened by her words. It's possible that this classroom isn't quite as schooled-literacy based as I'd thought, and I appreciated the freedom to go further than a worksheet.

Even though my lesson didn't exactly push me to my creative limits, planning it gave me a lot of insight into what I think teaching should be about. Looking at those worksheets my teacher had given me and trying to plan a lesson with them felt wrong. I just couldn't do it. It wasn't fun for the kids, and it wasn't relevant to them. I now know that I believe that reading and writing needs to be interesting and relevant for children. Without this, they are not going to be motivated to learn anything.

Reading Mem Fox's Radical Reflections: Passionate Opinions on Teaching, Learning, and Living, over Thanksgiving break also brought me to several realizations about my own beliefs on literacy. Many things Fox pointed out, I hadn't thought about, but immediately clicked with me. In the beginning of the book, she explores why people write. What drives writers? She investigated her own feelings towards writing. First of all, she discovered that she wanted to demonstrate worthiness to those who asked her to write. She wanted to create a reaction in her audience - these people she was writing for. She used the phrase "ache with caring" to illustrate the way she felt about this - she ached with caring about what she was sharing and the response she was trying to achieve.

After reading this book, I realized what I wanted my own students to feel was similar to this. I wanted them to "ache with caring" about what they were writing, and the response they wanted to gain from their audiences. In order to do this, they need an audience. In this way, writing experiences must be authentic. Whether they are a letter or a story, children need to be writing with someone and some purpose in mind.

This lesson didn't sit well with me because it didn't hold with my own beliefs about writing. It did not have these four elements. If I had designed the lesson exactly the way I wanted in my own classroom, it would have been interesting, relevant, authentic, and purposeful. The students would be writing for someone, if only themselves. And because of these aspects, I believe they would have enjoyed the lesson and learned much more than they ever could from a worksheet.