Chapter 8 

In this reading we learned about different types of approaches when thinking about literacy. We first learned about the "Top Down" approach. This is guided reading and longer understanding of meaning. Then we learned about the "Bottom Up" approach which is more like the NCLD case and things like fluency and comprehension equaling reading proficiency. When we think about ELL and how they develop literacy we need to think about when they start learning and how this could effect them. I also recognized what the ELLs need to be successful. Some things that we need to do as teachers and as a school is to help students learn and understand what all words mean. We can then help students learn the patterns of sound and spelling in the words. ELL students also need to find the relation between cultural and social contexts with what is going on in their reading. 

 

Overall, in this chapter we learned about a variety of ways that as teachers we can help students, especially ELL students. 

 

In this chapter we also went over the different types of literacy as well. We learned about Emergent literacy which is in the first stages, Early Literacy which is things like finger pointing, Early Fluency which is the exchange from looking solely at pictures to looking more at text, and lastly fluency which is when students become mature readers. 

 

Lastly, a thought that stuck out to me while reading was some examples of text or ideas that may help students. Here are a few... 

- select texts that will make language memorable

- find books that parallel the text 

- be sure that themes of texts are comprehensible

- provide scaffolding

- allow learners to choose the texts

- use a variety of different strategies to make the texts more comprehensible 

- choral reading

- feature analysis

- graphic organizers

- intensive readings

- language experience approach 

- question answer relationships 

- reading aloud to ELLs

- Shared reading

- shared to guided reading

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These are all topics that we continue to read about and that we discuss in class, so I wanted to have one general area where all of the these texts could be. As a class we discussed ways that this could be beneficial to help students with literacy and I wanted to talk a little bit about that. It's important to remember that in order to understand texts and the ideas students must be able to understand what the words mean. As a teacher we can make sure that students have all the types of resources that will help them understand what's going on. We can do guided readings, vocabulary sheets, and turn and talk methods.