Entry #10 Homework

I feel that homework is an important part of the learning process especially for ELL learners. It allows them to work with the content taught in the classroom at home. The student then has a chance to work at their own pace and reexamine what was learned. Homework is not busy work or worksheets; it is an extension of what has been taught in the classroom. As educators we know that we cannot do it all in 6.5 hours and repeated exposure is what helps students learn and retain knowledge.


Homework must be meaningful; that is why I like to do a lot of journaling for reading responses and I also like the idea of the interactive notebook. The students have to take ownership of their learning and feel good about it. 10 worksheets are not going to make a child feel better about what they are learning. But creating a collage might extend their understand and make the student work harder because it is designed by them.

Family participation is important with the ELL student. However it is not the job of the family to "help" with homework. Meaning that the parents should not have to help the student with the assignment due to lack of understanding. I think that the family needs to value education and ensure that their child is getting the work done and practicing at home. So I ask parents to be accountable by signing off on reading responses and signing the students homework log or planner.

I allow a period of time for my students to discuss their homework with each other. I call this time "kid talk" it is awesome to hear discussions between kids. Let's face it as educators we can talk until we are blue in the face and get nowhere, turn to a student and ask them to explain it and the room lights up. During this time I check the students notebook or reading response journals. I feel that giving them one on one feedback is more important than a grade on a paper. It gives me time to ask the "W" questions. What did your family think of the journal? Why is this important? What do you mean by________? It allows for a dialogue that a grade just doesn't give.

As far as technology for a first grader I do not use it. One year I tried to have the students use a simple graph online to track progress of assignments, but it became cumbersome, However I do still email parents if assignments are not complete or I have the students call home. If I was in a higher grade I would make the students create spreadsheets to keep track of their progress.

Entry # 9 Nonfiction and Fiction Texts

Fiction

*clear story structure
*appealing illustrations
*fantasy
*sounds like spoken Language
*written for entertainment
*pictures often can tell the story

Nonfiction

*photos
*graphs
*non linguistic representations
*heading
*indexes
*Factual information
*Academic language

I think both types of literature will support the ELL. Both types expose students to content that is helpful in learning the English language. Fiction might be challenging because it is fantasy and may cause confusion if the students are unable to grasp the content. However, fiction provides great language and illustration's that can be used to help the students with their writing. Nonfiction is difficult because of the academic language that is often used. Many ELL may have a hard time with vocabulary. Nonfiction actually allows the learners to access more background knowledge and learn about new topics.

Entry # 7 Running Record/Miscue Analyze

After the administration of my two running records I noticed may common errors of my students. I administered running records to a Spanish speaking and Korean speaking student. The majority of their errors were in meaning and comprehension. Since the books that the children were looking at were picture books there was not a real problem with visual cues. The syntax mistakes were common for the age group. Some of the words that they had trouble with were: eight (ate),  knew (new) and hard. The lack of understanding of the story made these words hard to understand. They often looked to the pictures for clarification, but the pictures were somewhat misleading. When I asked a few questions about the story it seemed that they understood the story, but lacked good solid details that could be supported by the story.

If I was teaching these students I would use many pre reading strategies. I would introduce vocabulary and talk about homophones to help clarify eight and knew. I would also do a picture walk with the students to allow them to look at the pictures, make predictions and clarify exactly what is happening in the pictures. I also the students would have benefited from echo or choral reading to allow for better understanding.