The Building the Classroom and the Why of Urgency for reading and learning in Kindergarten.
1. Do you trust your students? How do you build this trust? Are you able to trust them and allow them to be independent throughout all aspects of your day? Are you going to be able to stay out of their way? ;)
Many of the students are not used to making a choice because everything is done for them by a sibling, or caregiver. Since children need to learn how to be independent so while building the classroom community modeling high expectations for behavior and learning builds the trust.
2. How much choice do you give your students throughout the day? (would love for you to share some examples!) Do you go over your daily schedule with your students or is it just 'posted' in the room?
When I taught 1st grade my students had Literacy Jobs they needed to finish by Friday and they got to choose which order to do them in during the week. This worked very well. They had a weekly sheet of paper with the job expectations for the week. There was usually only 1 child who just could not handle the choices. We would then meet to make a weekly plan to work.
I usually would share with students about changes to our schedule like an assembly or if we have library or a special guest. In addition during the day as we change activities I usually share what I expect for them to learn that day.
3. How are you going to create that sense of community where students will hold each other accountable?
Having students share what they learned to the group builds pride in self and in their friends. Since children are learning at different levels I spend a lot of time celebrating our uniqueness and celebrating each student. Helping others builds a community. Doing teamwork activities can assist. They quickly understand that the classroom is shared by us all so doing activities that involve cleaning and making our space nice and neat ready for learning is easily important to most because sturcture and predictability make a secure classroom.
4. Student ownership in learning? How do you instill this in every child?
Pride in self and trying your best. Learning that learning in important, so spending time to reflect what was learned As students begin to have pride in their self they also take notice that the choices they make effect what they learn everyday.
5. Stamina! How are you going to build stamina with reading? independent work? Will you use a timer? Will you set goals?
First I will model what it looks like to read to self (of course) probably for about 2 minutes. Ask the students how
long they thought I read to myself knowing that their concept of time is not very strong, but when I state that it was
only 2 minutes. they will know it was not very long. Then I will challenge them to see if they can do it longer than I did, so we will be making a class goal. I'm still thinking about if I'll have a timer displayed for students to see. I want them to focus on reading not the time counting down, but when everything is in full swing I think having a timer displayed from the projector would be beneficial for those who are very concerned with how much more time.
Why, Why, Why... explained
Why Read to Self
To become a better reader.
To become a better writer.
To learn new things.
To read about things you like.
Sometimes it is nice to get better at something on your own.
Why Read to Someone
To become a better reader.
To become a better writer.
To learn new things
Sometimes it is nice to work with others.
Why Listen to Reading
To hear good reading.
To follow along to a story that maybe to hard to read alone.
Why Word Work
To play with sounds
To work with letters
To work with words
To TOUCH the letters and words
Find relations between old words and new words
Connect sounds, letters and words
Why Work on Writing
To communicate.
To write letters, emails, stories and lists.
Share feelings.
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