Is It Word Games? Or Games with Words?

Regardless of whether it is word games, or games with words, using printed words in the form of games is one great idea on how to promote "decoding" in your classroom. In the Yopp and Yopp article, I appreciated their strategies to make words have more of an association with the text. However, I wonder if this really works? It seems like their suggestions of writing down main words from the text, breaking the students up into groups, asking those groups specific questions, having whole-class discussions, and then lecturing obased off those words seem a little abstract. I wonder if the kids can still recall the definitions of the words once they go home that night? I wonder if there is another way to introduce and use vocabulary at the middle/ high school level? What are your thoughts? I do agree with Yopp and Yopp, however, that this method is probably a lot more effective than rote memorization and repetitive word lists of vocabulary.

In the Cunningham and Cunningham article (...side note- did it strike anyone else as odd that both of the articles we were assigned to read were written by two authors of the same name? mother/daughter and husband/wife...just random), I actually DID like their Making Words game that they have created. I think this would be a great thing to implement in the classrooms at the school for the deaf. Deaf kids have a hard time with language of any sorts; partially because it is so abstract, and partially because they cannot hear the sounds of spoken English. This game, Making Words, would be highly useful to teach blends, familiar patterns, the necessity of a vowel in every word, and so much more! I will try this activity with my students very soon!

"Can You Hear Me? ... Good!"

We've all heard those Verizon commercials where the man asks "can you hear me? ..Good!" Well, in the aspects of phonemic awareness, my deaf students can't hear me, and its not good! So then what?
Phonics is such an important part of reading. If we cannot "hear" the word in our heads, we will probably have a difficult time understanding it. In the same way, deaf children struggle with phonics because they cannot hear the words. Many deaf children are math and science lovers because the English language is too abstract for them. When they deal with numbers, it makes sense. When they deal with words they have never seen before, they are at a total loss. There are a couple of programs that have been developed for deaf children including cued speech and visual phonics. These methods visually and manually express phonemes so that deaf kids can actually "see the sound" of the phoneme. I think both of these methods are great ideas, and know they have been used with some success. The one thing I know is that I am very glad I am not going to be working with elementary students because then I won't have to teach them how to read! I know that even at the high school level my deaf kids will struggle with reading.

Cued Speech 

 Visual Phonics
http://seethesound.org/materials.html

Can you think of any ways that you would work with deaf and/or hard of hearing high school kids to *continue* to promote good reading skills and phonemic awareness? 

Fluency

I've never really heard the term "fluency" to refer to reading before. I thought "fluency" was only associated with foreign languages. However, after reading the two articles and the chapter from Allington's book (Chapter 5), I have a better grasp on fluency. I have heard of the DIBLES test before, but never knew what it assessed.

I love the idea of fostering fluency through repetition and by books on tape. When I first heard of the suggestion for repetition, I though "but of course! In order to read something through completely fluently, you need to practice reading that material." However, I think the overall point of "fluency" is that yes, they do practice in the classroom, but they can use their fluency skills outside the classroom too. In order to be a fluent reader, the student must also have confidence. I think it's really important to create a classroom environment where students feel free to make mistakes.
I love the idea of the book on tape to give the kids a model of how the text is supposed to be read. I also like the idea the book pointed out of recording yourself and your class reading aloud. That way, you can kill two birds with one stone--teach the lesson to the students in front of you, plus have an "audio activity" for the future. 

On a more personal note, my mom and sister and I would take our 120 lbs yellow lab into the schools for the kids to read to Murray. The kids greatly benefited from having a "therapy pet" in their classroom because they felt comfortable reading books to Murray that were "baby books". We told these struggling readers that Murray wasn't very smart (...which he's not) and so he love to listen to all kinds of books. It definitely boosted the kids' confidence to be left in a corner with a fuzzy yellow dog and have one-on-one reading time with Murray. I would love to implement this idea of having a therapy pet into my classroom.

Print is Everywhere

One of the biggest "take aways" from this weeks readings is that fact that print is everywhere. In our daily environments, we see different forms of print in advertising, on license plates, on grocery store receipts, and...well...everywhere! After reading "Letting Go of the 'Letter of the Week'" article, I better understand how to promote literacy and print recognition to young children. The position paper by the IRA/NAEYC also helped me understand that children need to see print as it is related to them. It makes sense that kindergartners would shout out the names of their favourite restaurants when presented with the company's name (...or logo, rather).

I have never thought about the need to make print relevant to children before. I guess this is why so many kindergarten teachers spend so much time on introducing classmates names and the different letters involved in those names; children learn best if the concepts they are presented are connected in some sort of personal way to themselves.

Isn't that how we all learn best, though? Wouldn't you learn better about a plant fungus that was rare if you knew it grew in your hometown? Wouldn't you approach chemistry with more gusto if 80% of the people in your hometown worked at the state's chemical factory? Why is it that once we reach middle school, our education becomes less relevant to us? I am now on a goal to make education not only meaningful and hands-on, but now also relevant to my students.