Always Remember and Never Forget

"Always Remember, and Never Forget" - Mike Miller (Erik's Dad)

My biggest flaw today was forgetting to ask the prediction questions on the first reading assessment. Whoops. I will make a big deal out of it in my head, and perhaps tie a string to my finger to help me remember. My student is motivated to improve and told me that he has already improved since elementary and is looking forward to improving more. I think he likes the challenge of trying to get a certain amount right, as at the end he wanted to do more readings to see if he could get to the instructional level. Hopefully this will motivate him. He reads books about woodworking at home and is quite skilled in building items out of wood, he can explain, with some help how to build tables and podiums! So I know he is smart, and if I show him what to do, and demonstrate what to do, he'll be able to figure it out. Additionally, he also needs schema building in all subjects (except perhaps woodworking). Both of the readings were quite unfamiliar to him. I think I will give him the Shortcuts cartoon from the Sunday paper to help him build his schema. Geri, if you're reading this, can you save your Sunday paper and bring it to class next Thursday? That'd be great. It sounds like everyone else has made some good assessments after day 1. Way to go!

Image Credit:http://www.durgana.com/webquest/remember.gif

Quote Credit: My Memory

My Day at the "Cleaners!"

image: http://www.google.com/images?q=vocabulary+words&hl=en&riz=1T4ADFA_enGU358GU366&tbs=isch:1,itp The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

(http://www.famous_quotes.com/topic.php?=1280)

Today was my turn to present Chapters 14 &15 to the class. If anything that you got out of my presentation, I can only hope that you'll be able to use the strategies and activities one-on-one with your student(s). There was an over-whelming abundance of strategies and techniques that were listed in those two chapters that will positively impact our students if applied correctly. Thanks for your patience and tolerance as I painstakingly went through the chapters.

Dr. Rivera once again went over the necessary information needed to assess and diagnose our students in preparation of their journey to becoming literate readers and writers.


Thanks also for the goodies that were provided...it was a great way to begin our session, even though I was the last to try them! Good luck everyone on next week's Reading Clinic session. Go Team MAGEC!!!

Geri and her tea kettle!

The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

The above quote reminds me that in order for our students to express themselves, that we must help them gain the vocabulary to do so. Hence, here is my blog about how cool Geri is.

Today's presentation from Geri was great. I highly enjoyed her specific methods that she shared with us, the tea kettle and the vocabulary vault. I like the tea kettle because it forces the students to use their imagination, and I like the vocabulary vault because it forces the students to use the words in real life, which is perhaps the most authentic strategy a teacher can use. I also liked that she stressed the balance that is necessary between direct instruction of vocabulary and incidental acquisition of vocabulary. I agree that the approaches must be balanced, but I'm pretty sure I use the direct instruction system more often because we do not read at length in social studies, however if I were to teach a reading class, would, of course be reading for quite some time during the week, and students would be incidentally learning vocabulary frequently. Incidentally, I need to acquire some more vocabulary and read some other blogs. G'night!

Quote credit: http://www.worldofquotes.com/topic/vocabulary/index.html

Image Credit: http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/33500/Tea-Kettle-Home--33903.jpg

Geri has a way with WORDS!

Great presentation Geri! I loved the vibrant colors of your images! I especially like the image of the boy reading a book with stacks of books on his head, it brought to mind the word "osmosis". I learned new strategies for reading and writing you explained the concepts well. You also brought me back to "aesthetic and efferent", romancing and scaffolding. It was once again a great review!
I'm glad we had the chance for another Team MAGEC picture, it was fun! Thank you again for the snacks and yet another productive meeting. Looking forward to our first assessment!

"Words are the voice of the heart." -Confucius

www.coolquotes.com/words.html












www.yahooimage.com

How can you go wrong when it comes from the heart? Go Team MAGEC!

Happy Teachers come from...

Chalk up another great session for Team MAGEC!  Sincerely, Geri, you did an impressive job with all that information.  It was a good run-through of the tips and strategies that the book presented.  We can't say enough about your growth over the semesters.  It's been great to see you in action.  The students of Guam are lucky to have you and the rest of Team MAGEC.  Happy Teacher's Appreciation Week!

The techniques that Geri and the text presented were very structured.  I love this text because it gives us the reasons why its suggestions would be effective--and always gives the teachers their due credit for professionalism.  The text is a bit dense at times, but even if we haven't gotten it all on the first go, we can at least refer back to it easily.  Being a language arts teacher in the high school, I realize I have a lot of freedom compared to those in the elementary and middle schools with reform programs.  I'm glad that I can easily integrate the suggestions into my lessons and be confident that it is backed up by research and thoughtful planning.  I'm glad that we're "through" with the book and that we'll soon be working with our Students, but I think we'll find that the texts are truly invaluable resources as we progress through ED643, ED644, and out into the wild world of post-graduation.

Acting as the student with "Ms. G." today was a real treat.  After going through the word list and narrative reading, we were able to catch up a bit.  She shared that her school has been having a Teacher Appreciation Week complete with daily activities to help commemorate the occasion.  Well, for you, my MAGEC classmates and wonderful, dedicated teachers, I'd like to share the following quote from Donald D. Quinn (taken from http://www.quotegarden.com/teachers.html).

"If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job."

To you who continue to do what you do with such loving concern for our students (even when they're being difficult), Thank You!

Image from http://www.123orkut.com/graphics/teachers/1/teacher1.jpg

Let us hope for smooth sailing throughout our course.

"We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let the countdown begin! Today's session was in full effect. First, Geri's presentation provided many insightful concepts from Chapter 14 and 15. With Chapter 14, I was glad the book had mentioned about the Direct Instruction and Incidental Learning. Before we started the reform programs in our elementary schools, the term "Direct Instruction" was not part of our methods. Many of us geared toward the "Incidental Learning" concept. However, I agree with how Geri mentioned that is it best to have a balance of both when teaching. In regards to Chapter 15, I thought it was interesting how the idea that students are told many times to take home assignments and simply "study it." It is necessary that schools do provide support and concepts for teaching students the procedures of how to study. During the second half of today's session, I was glad that we all had the opportunity to practice our assessment session with a partner. This gave us the chance to have hands-on of what to do prior to our first session. The QRI-4 book is practically our bible as we continue this class. Best wishes to Team Magec!

Image courtesy of www.phombo.com

Talking and Eloquence

The more we get into our book, the more excited I become to start working with my student.  It's becoming more and more real as the chapters get more concrete!  The chapters today had a lot of good information about fluency and spelling and the need for students to delve deeper into language--and how we can help them.  It was almost as if the chapter was written for me and my students these past few weeks as we've been looking at vocabulary words and focusing on understanding them.  I know I have a ways to go to help my many levels of ELLs, but I'm thankful that according to the authors I'm on the right track.  Like Erik, I'm thinking of incorporating a Word Wall (which Annette added to with her great ideas of word bingo, etc).  The words my students and I are working with are not easy ones and it's an achievement for my students to know the spelling and at least be a little more familiar with them.  With repeated exposure and revisits as facilitated by the Word Wall, I think the more students will be encouraged to use them in their everyday speech.  Let's all embrace the Word Wall...

(taken from http://touchofthemasterministries.org/images/5696_105460397006_93874507006_2675602_5503512_n.jpg)

The topic of fluency and the idea that words are meant for more than sound calls to mind the following quote by Heinrich Heine:
"Talking and eloquence are not the same; to speak and to speak well are two things.  A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks." (taken from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/heinrichhe118764.html)
It's not enough to know that letters equal certain sounds.  We speak to convey meaning, to communicate, and entertain.  I'm very glad to be in the company of such excellent eloquence, Team MAGEC!

*Don't mind the overuse of "more."  Let's just chalk it up to my impatience to see us all succeed!  Miss you all.