Week One: Introduction to course: Hi and welcome to our course! Please remember that one of the benefits of a blogging course is to have communication between participants. Be remember to respond to other participants' comments each week.
Assignment #1: Introductory paragraph. Please post your introduction to the course blog in the blog archive under the posting: Week One: Introduction - Please tell us a little about yourself. Where do you teach? What grade and how long have you been teaching? How many students are in your class and do you have instructional support? What does your current literacy program look like? (If you aren’t currently teaching let us know what your educational background and experiences are.) What is your knowledge/training in the area of literacy? Does your district provide literacy training? If so, what exactly have they offered? Also, let us know a little about you outside the classroom: Interests/ Hobbies/ Family Life.
Also please read: Classroom Instruction that Works - Chapter 1 – Applying the Research on Instruction: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Sign in to the blog (follow directions below)
o Click on the comment link below. If you do not have a Google account you will need to create a free one. Underneath the “leave your comment” box – click where it says “no Google account? Sign up here.” Then follow the direction to create an account.
o After you create your account you can just type in your user name and password from when you created the account and then click the button “publish your comment” and it will be posted. You should post Assignment # 1 explained below as your first comment.
(Please Note: In addition to posting your first assignment (Introduction) to the blog, please email it to us. This is to enable us to contact you individually should the need occur. Please also make sure that you label your assignment with your name when posting to the blog to ensure that you receive proper credit for your work.)
14 comments:
Hello! My name is Cassie Russell, and I just completed my 4th year as a 5th grade teacher in the Sherwood School District. This coming year, I will have about 23-24 students in my classroom. We are lucky to have instructional support for reading, with IA's conducting intervention reading groups daily for students in need of the service. Currently, the interventions focus largely on fluency, with DIBELS being used as a measure to identify students who may be at risk in reading. Programs used with my students are generally Read Naturally or Corrective Reading.
In the classroom, we use the Houghton Mifflin Reading curriculum, and my 5th grade team and I am been using the Daily 5 model during our literacy block for the past two years. We love it!
I have attended the initial training for Daily 5, GLAD training, and have received some curriculum training for Houghton Mifflin through my district; those experiences, as well as some continuing education classes taken, make up my additional literacy training. I look forward to learning more strategies to implement in my classroom!
My husband and I love to hike, mountain bike, camp/backpack, and spend time together with friends, family, and our "baby" (puppy) Mac. We seem to always be on the move!
My name is Heidi Gatlin, and I teach 6th grade Language Arts/Literacy at West Orient Middle School in the Gresham-Barlow School District. I have been teaching 15 years. This next year, I will have 2 blocks of Language Arts/Literacy with (hopefully) less than 30 students. I will also have a class of struggling readers, and another class of struggling math students. These two classes will be co-taught with the special education teachers.
I am very lucky to work in a school district that has instructional coaches. For the last 4 months, I have been working with one of the coaches to re-work my writing and literacy program. He introduced me to Writing and Reading Workshop. Because of this introduction, I want to totally redo my literacy program focusing on the workshop method.
Most of my knowledge/training in the area of literacy happened as a part of my teacher training in college. However, my district has started offering some literacy training in Reading Workshop that I have had the opportunity to attend.
My life outside of the classroom is very busy with my two soccer-playing sons and my husband. My oldest will be starting middle school (yikes) in the fall and my younger son will be a 4th grader. When I am not driving to and from soccer, I enjoy reading and taking pictures. As a family, we like to hike and play at the beach with our dog.
My name is Gina Martinich and I’m originally from Wisconsin. I’m currently living and teaching in Harare, Zimbabwe and am en route to a new teaching post in Cairo, Egypt. My husband, Jeff is also a teacher and we’ve been married for 19 years this year. We have taught in the US (Wisconsin & Oregon), Turkey, Malaysia and for the last two years, Zimbabwe. My main subject that I teach is French, although I’ve also taught ESL and am certified for other areas too. I am a secondary teacher, having taught both middle and high school students.
My name is Jeff Martinich and I have been teaching for sixteen years. I taught two years in the Milwaukee Public Schools in special education while my wife, Gina finished her masters in French literature and ESL. After this, we went abroad for 8 years and I taught ESL, Sped, theatre and theatre tech. We then came back to the states while I pursued professional experience as a stagehand and Gina continued teaching French in Oregon. After three years, we decided it was time to hit the road again and taught in Zimbabwe (that is where I am writing from today) for two years at Harare International School. Here I taught theatre arts, theatre tech, science and math. After this job, we are staying on the continent and have a two-year contract at Cairo Egypt where I will continue to teach middle school Math, theatre arts and theatre tech.
Welcome to our course Cassandra, Heidi, Gina and Jeff!
Cassandra – I think you are one of the first people who have mentioned class size which seems compatible to what we have here in my area of the east coast. Many of the participants seem to have around 30 usually. I’m curious as to what you think about Read Naturally. We’ve been using Quick Reads, but thought of purchasing Read Naturally, but didn’t have the funds this year… Yeah for Daily 5 – I love The Sisters…do you also use CAFÉ?
Heidi – You’re actually taking the Reading Workshop course also, which is great! You mentioned that your district has been offering Reading Workshop training..I’m wondering if you guys get to do any PD using Sisters’ Daily 5 or CAFÉ as Cassandra mentioned above.
Gina & Jeff – Very cool…world travelers –how wonderful that you guys get to share such amazing adventures together! Have you been able to travel south to see any of the World Cup?…I know it’s probably quite a drive… That’s great that you were both able to get teaching posts in Cairo, I was wondering how difficult it was to get these jobs?
Currently, Read Naturally is the main intervention used with upper grade level students at my school. It really has made a huge difference in the fluency of students who participate in the program; district wide, we have seen enormous growth in rate of reading. In the classroom, I have seen many students begin to work hard to increase their reading rate (as they all know what the DIBELS test is assessing), which has caused their expression and attention to punctuation to suffer. We are now making a point to emphasize the fact that fluency means sounding natural and fluid when reading, not just reading as fast as possible!
As teachers, we are also finding that while some students are increasing in their fluency due to the Read Naturally program practice, comprehension is still low for many. While we have not found a comprehension "intervention program" that fits in our MTI model of intervention, some Read Naturally group leaders have been emphasizing the retell portion of the process in an effort to help increase comprehension in these students. In the groups that have taken this approach, we have seen comprehension growth.
Overall, we feel the program is beneficial, but of course, not without flaws and not all encompassing.
I'm trying this again, sorry.
The elementary schools were doing Daily 5. For next year, they will be doing the Rigby program.
Heidi - thanks for responding to my curiousity :) The reason that we're supposed to be helping children with fluency is to increase their comprehension....yes it's great that they read at faster rates, but the REAL reason we're supposed to be focusing on it with students is to increase comprehension. I'm finding the same thing you are using the Quick Reads, it's not really seeming to help most students with their comprehension???
Hi again everyone. Yes, we've really enjoyed our adventures overseas and are looking forward to our next one in Egypt. No, we haven't been to any World Cup games, although we are frequent visitors to South Africa and highly recommend it to everyone to visit--especially Cape Town is amazing.
My name is Rhett Hyman. I am a teacher in the Gresham-Barlow School district at East Orient Elementary. I just finished my fifth year of teaching and all 5 were in 3rd grade. This next year I will be switiching to 5th grade which I have just a little bit of experience because of my student teaching. Next year I have 28 students for the time being but probably will end up around 30, but hopefully not.:) I do have instructional support due to instructional coaches that started last year. The instructional coach has been a great support and am ready to use the coach again next year. My literacy program will be using the new district adoption, Rigby which I am very excited to use. I will also being using the Daily 5 program within my literacy. I have been married for twelve years, tomorrow, July 12th to my lovely wife Jessica. I have one daughter, Reese, who is 4 and a brand new 3 week old baby girl, named Riley. That is why I have been so late getting on the blog. I have also had trouble finding the book. I have ordered the book 3 times and each time the order goes through then I get an email saying they don't have it anymore. Anyone have suggestions where I can get the book?:) I enjoy the outdoors especially fly fishing. Of course I love to do as much as possibe with my family. I am looking forward to this class to help my teaching improve and adding more tricks to that bag.
Welcome both Rhett and Colleen to our course!
Rhett – I’m hoping that you have located the book…I’m so sorry that it’s been a problem. I’m sure that you would be able to order the text on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. You may even be able to get a local bookstore to be able to order it. Please let me know if this continues to be a problem. It sounds as though you have some great support in your building which will be helpful starting a new grade level. I’m impressed that you’re even taking the course with a 3 week old!!!! Make sure you’re getting your rest :)
Colleen – WOW! 29 years of what seems like a great variety of teaching experiences. I think it’s great that when you were teaching high school in Tillamook, that you had the opportunity to work with a reading specialist..that is not common here on the east coast. You will find reading support in elementary, and sometimes middle school. I hope enjoy the course as well as get a pay increase :)
Hello! My name is Chuck Camp and I teach a 4th and 5th grade loop, getting a new group of 4th graders this year. I started out in 1st grade, moved to 5th, went to Kindergarten, and then back to 5th. I tried a 4/5 blend a few years, but the looping has worked best and I've been teaching this way for 8 years. I just finished my 17th year at John Jacob Astor K-8 in North Portland. I'll have 28 4th graders in September. I see I'm a bit late getting started here, but my wife Julie and I have spent some time traveling to Mazatlan and the San Juan Islands. Then there is a kitchen remodel starting up, and SUMMER is finally here in Portland and the river keeps calling to me and my boat and.......anyway I need to catch up.
Welcome to our course Chuck! Wow...you’ve taught the elementary spectrum:) I absolutely love the effectiveness of looping. Several (plus) years ago, I worked on part of a “vertical team” where the same group of kids moved from a 2nd, 3rd, and then my 4th grade class. The group stayed together and we would meet at least twice a week as a whole group to work on our common science or social studies curriculum, or to do a “responsive classroom” type activity or game together as a large group. While you didn’t actually teach the group all day, I definitely knew the children and their capabilities after two years by the time they got to my 4th grade classroom. I’m glad that you’ve been traveling and enjoying the summer…that’s what it’s all about for teachers! We need to gather new stories for our students!!!
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