Blog Archives

Reading is a Revolutionary Act

11/27/2016

Paraphrased from Jawanza Kunjufu's syllabus on "Teaching African-American Boys"
Illiteracy is a precursor to retention, special education, dropping out, and incarceration. Young people need to know how to read and they need books that teach them the truth about their culture, history, and legacy, as well as how to navigate through and heal form their current circumstances. #literacy #jawanzakunjufu #reading #readingisarevolutionaryact #etymologyrules #cultivateyourmind

0 Comments

November 26th, 2016

11/26/2016

1 Comment

Learn Latin.
Study Languages.
Travel the World.
Cultivate Your Mind

1 Comment

November 26th, 2016

11/26/2016

1 Comment

Spanish, Italian, English, Sanskrit, German, Hindi, Bengali, Greek, Gaelic, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Farsi, Norwegian, Dutch, Urdu, Kurdish, Scottish, Welsh, Flemish, and 424 other languages are all related. Etymology teaches us.
#polyglot #languages #global #etymologyrules #cultivateyourmind

1 Comment

Basic Components of Reading Instruction

11/23/2016

1 Comment

When learning to read, the most effective instruction includes the following five components:

Phonemic Awareness
Phonics
Reading Fluency
Vocabulary
Text Comprehension

Let's Talk About...

Phonemic Awareness: The knowledge that words are comprised of individual sounds or phonemes.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word, and phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes in a given word.

Children should be able to identify beginning consonant sounds (onset), vowel sounds, ending consonant sounds, and vowel and ending consonant combinations (rime).

In addition to identifying, children must be able to segment and blend individual sounds in a word. For example, when given the word "rash", your child should be able to identify that there are three separate sounds and to blend the sounds to identify the word, and then segment and identify individual sounds when asked.

Phonemic awareness skills are important as they are a precursor to word attack skills. Strong phonemic awareness indicates that children will be able to decode or break down words that they've never encountered.

Phonemic awareness skills are developed in early childhood education, and through a variety of engaging and entertaining activities. Click the link below for a few ideas.
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonemic-activities-preschool-or-elementary-classroom

Phonics: A system of reading instruction in which students learn that sounds/phonemes are represented by letters/graphemes (sound-symbol relationship).

Phonics teaches children how to attack or decode unknown words. They must learn the sound that individual letters and letter combinations represent. For example, s represents the /s/ sound, heard at the beginning of "sit" and h is an aspirate that represents the /h/ sound heard that the beginning of "happy", but sh represents one sound, not two. sh represents the sound heard at the end of "fish". A strong phonics program also helps one to build strong spelling skills as well.

Word attack skills are critical to becoming a fluent, independent reader. Many times, reading problems stem from poor decoding skills. While it is an established fact that phonics is required to learn how to read, the method of instruction is an area of debate amongst reading instructors. Teachers used to teach phonics in an explicit, systematic manner, but today, there is a strong push towards whole language- a method of instruction that exposes children to text and asks them to learn word attack skills inductively. There are political reasons for the removal of phonics instruction from elementary schools, which will be addressed in a separate blog post.

There are hundreds of phonics instruction programs, particularly for younger children. However, given the reading epidemic that our older children are facing, I recommend the following resources
- Wilson Reading Program (a phonics-based remedial reading program for students of all ages)
- Lindamood Bell's Seeing Stars (a reading instructional program helping students that have a weak working memory, which is necessary for good word attack skills)
- Phonics for Older Students by Remedia Publications (a book of activities to develop phonics skills)
- Teaching Phonics & Word Study in the Intermediate Grades by Wiley Blevins
- Words Their Way by Bear and Invernizzi (a text offering information and activities for learners of all ages to develop word attack skills)

Reading Fluency: the ability to read text smoothly, accurately, clearly, and with expression.

So now that students can break down and read words aloud, they must be able to read them in a sentence, paragraph, etc... Reading fluency addresses one's oral reading skills.

A great part of fluency that is overlooked is grammar. Grammar directly links to reading fluency, as fluency is based on word identification (being able to read words onsite), and phrasing. Phrasing lets a reader know where to pause and place emphasis based on punctuation (commas, exclamation points, question marks, periods, etc...) Grammar helps a child read with an expression and intonation that comes across as natural.

The best way to develop fluency is via practice. Choral/unison reading activities, modeled reading (teacher/parent showing what good reading looks like), phrasal reading, etc... can help people develop fluency skills.

Weak fluency is generally due to poor decoding skills, poor word identification skills (especially sight words), and poor vocabulary.

Vocabulary: studying words and their meanings (denotatively and connotatively)

With little explanation needed, vocabulary is key to reading comprehension. If children do not know the meaning of the words they are reading, how can they make meaning of the entire text?

There is a great debate about how we should define words. We are taught vocabulary primarily via looking up words in the dictionary and by reading them in context (context clues). Most schools do not teach explicit vocabulary skills.

Vocabulary can be classified as active or passive. Active vocabulary is when you are able to both recognize and use a word, while passive vocabulary is when you just recognize the word.

The Cultivated Mind is ALL ABOUT vocabulary. In fact, we are developing a curriculum that places etymology at the basis of all vocabulary instruction. For more information, check out our affiliate website, EtymologyRules.

Text Comprehension: the ability to make meaning of the text.

The purpose of learning the previous components of reading instruction is to make meaning of the text. A reader should be able to identify the author's main ideas and supporting details (nonfiction) or the central idea or theme of a text (fiction). If your child spends more time trying to sound out words or define the words in the passage, then the child will have less mental energy to place towards making meaning. This is a clear indication that the text is too difficult. When learning to read, your child should be reading texts on their instructional level (not too hard, but not too easy), and to develop reading stamina, they should read on their independent reading level (text they can read on their own).

The following components are necessary to comprehend text:
- Prior knowledge
- Ability to make mental pictures (visualization)
- Making predictions
- Asking questions
- Recognizing text structure
- Paraphrasing
- Summarizing
- Making inferences

A great text on comprehension is 7 Keys to Comprehension by Susan Zimmerman

Overall, reading is key, and with such low reading rates amongst our children, we must do what is necessary to ensure our children are equipped with this skill. Michigan's public school system recently just stated that children do not have the right to learn to read. That should tell you that it is up to YOU as a parent to teach your child to read. Remember mama's, we are the first teachers and the womb is the first school.

Feel free to e-mail [email protected] for questions about reading. Or leave a comment below!

1 Comment

Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading

11/23/2016

0 Comments

This year, I've been teaching at a school in which we use Kylene Beers and Bob Probst throughout the entire school. Notice and Note is a means of annotating text. Students are given six categories or "signposts" to look for within a text and are taught to ask generic questions based on the type of information they identify in the text. The use of questioning is key, as good, active readers ask questions to show engagement with the text. This is to elicit deep and critical thinking about the author's ideas, preparing students to analyze and evaluate that which they have read, and ultimately synthesize new ideas.

This strategy is applicable to both fiction and nonfiction, although the signposts to be learned differ between these two types of text.

These are signposts to assist readers as they travel down the road of a fiction text.

Signposts for nonfiction text.

The idea is that students identify significant portions of text, read closely, and ask questions to make inferences, draw conclusions, and gain a deeper understanding of the message or overall meaning of the text.

After students learn basic comprehension strategies, Notice and Note is a great way for students to develop critical reading skills in preparation for developing claims and stances on the themes and ideas addressed in a text. This correlates to the evaluation and synthesis levels of thinking according to Bloom's Taxonomy.

Critical reading and writing is an important skill to develop; this is how we develop perspectives and outlooks in life. In this current day and age, social media is a platform for people to express their opinions with very little critical thinking. People are now developing worldviews based on quickly reading the postings of misinformed citizens of the world. Critical reading helps us to evaluate an author's explanation (does bias exist? what are the author's sources? etc...).
Literacy is a means of healing our nation via knowledge. But first, we must learn to read and take in information with a critical lens. Notice and Note is a method that challenges readers to not only answer what, where, and when, but also how and why.

What are you thoughts on critical reading and writing? Do you have any ideas or teaching methods that have worked for you (teachers) or your child (parents) in the past?

For more on Notice and Note, critical reading and writing, and literacy in general, e-mail [email protected]

0 Comments

The Tale of Mr. Morton: Schoolhouse Rock Teaches Grammar

11/23/2016

0 Comments

How many of you remember your grammar lessons from elementary through high school? (me, waving my hand proudly) I truly feel for children these days, as there are so many concepts and skills that they will NOT learn in their public school settings. I've been in the public school system for almost ten years, and I have only met two teachers that were brave enough to teach grammar despite school administrators protests (S/O my rebel teacher friend! and to my mentor teacher!) This year, grammar and sentence diagramming are directly apart of the curriculum. We started yesterday with subject and predicate, the basis of sentence writing. We used "The Tale of Mr. Morton", a relic of the '70s and '80s (the last time we actually cared to provide the semblance of education.) In our class, we played the video and song, and students completed a CLOZE reading activity in which they had a copy of the lyrics with missing words. They had to fill-in-the-blanks as they listened. An example is below.

This is the tale of Mister Morton
Mister Morton is who?
He is the ____________ of our tale
And the ____________ tells what Mister
Morton must do

Mister Morton walked down the street
Mister Morton ____________
Mister Morton talked to his cat
Mister Morton ____________
(Hello, cat, you look good)
Mister Morton was lonely
Mister Morton was

Mister Morton is the ____________ of the sentence
And what the ____________ says, he does

Mister Morton knew just one girl
Mister Morton ____________
Mister Morton grew flowers for Pearl
Mister Morton ____________
Mister Morton was very shy
Mister Morton ____________

Mister Morton is the subject of the sentence
And what the predicate says, he does

The subject is a ____________
That's a person, place or thing
It's who or what the sentence is about
And the predicate is the ____________
That's the action word
That gets the subject up and out

Mister Morton wrote Pearl a poem
Mister Morton ____________
Pearl replied in the afternoon
Pearl replied by a note
Mister Morton was very nervous
Mister Morton ____________

Mister Morton is the subject of the sentence
And what the predicate says, he does

The ____________ stretched
The ____________ beat down
A ____________ chased his kid
(Come here, kid - come on!)
Each sentence is completed when
You know what the ____________ did

Mister Morton knocked on her door
Mister Morton ____________
Mister Morton sat on her porch
Yes, he just sat there and rocked
Mister Morton was a nervous man
When she opened up the door he ____________

Mister Morton climbed up his stairs
Mister Morton ____________
Mister Morton rhymed pretty words
Mister Morton ____________
Mister Morton was lonely
Mister Morton ____________
Until Pearl showed up with a single rose
Who says women can't propose?
Now Mister Morton is happy
And Pearl and the cat are too

They're the ____________ of the sentence
And what the ____________ says, they do

Click link for Lyrics

This is a great example of engaging multiple modalities of learning. You can differentiate this activity by changing up the blanks to be filled (you can add more or take away some depending on student's ability). You could also indicate in the margins whether the word being filled in would be a subject or predicate of the sentence (or have your more advanced students do this!!).

A great follow up activity would be for students to identify simple subjects and predicates in sentences. First, provide them with sentences, then ask them to write their own, and have their classmates identify subject and predicate.

Eventually, your students will be able to diagram sentences! I used to love this, and I can tell how it has enhanced both my reading and writing. Look out for my blogs on diagramming (coming soon).

0 Comments

Reading is a Revolutionary Act

November 26th, 2016

November 26th, 2016

Basic Components of Reading Instruction

Let's Talk About...

Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading

The Tale of Mr. Morton: Schoolhouse Rock Teaches Grammar

Author

Archives

Categories