Caitlin+Clark


 * Record of Assignments**
 * Name of Student:** Caitlin Clark



** Pre-Adolescence **

** W : What you want to know **
Is whole language instruction or phonics more effective when teaching pre-adolescence?

[|Prezi Presentation]



** L : What you learned **
As displayed in my Prezi presentation above, I learned that phonics and whole language methods are usually most effective when used together. For grades 4 and below, a mixed approach or approach that is heavily focussed on phonics is beneficial because students need to learn the fundamentals of reading. However, older students in grades 5 and above do not need to know the phonics basics and need to be able to analyze and critically read literature.

Please view my Prezi for a more detailed contrast between phonics and whole language and their relationship.

** 1. Physical **

 * Chapter 9 **

Pages 225-226 discuss nutrition as a changing factor in physical health during adolescents. The text points out that many poverty-stricken children in North America develop malnutrition which an effect mental and physical health for the rest of their lives. "Quality of food predicts favorable cognitive development in middle childhood," as stated by the text. This relates to my observation site because 99% of the students at Winton Hills live in poverty and the school is in a community housing project. These facts make me wonder if the effects of malnutrition effect students at Winton Hills, and if so how does Winton Hills handle this problem.

** 2. Cognitive **

 * Chapter 9 **

In chapter 9, page 234 begins to explain Robbie Case's variation on Piaget's theory. Case proposed that "with practice, cognitive schemes demand less attention and become more automatic. This allows students to build upon old schemes while developing new ones. This applies to my inquiry question because as preschoolers, under Case's theory, students will only be able to see one story line, and one plot, such as the stories in picture books. School age children will begin to see two dimensions of stories, such as "two story lines in a single plot." Around ages 9-11, students should be able to "integrate multiple dimensions" into a story. In relation to standardized testing in middle childhood, these students should be able to "tell coherent stories with a main plot and several subplots." This often is measured by students finding the main idea and supporting details in a story. As early as the second grade these ideas are starting to emerge, as I just recently saw on a homework sheet given to a second grade student I nanny.

Page 238 also begins the discussion on reading, which relates directly to my inquiry question, saying "reading makes use of many skills at once, taxing all aspects of our information processing systems." As children transition from "emergent literacy to conventional learning," phonological awareness aids them along the way. Researchers currently are debating between the classic teaching of phonics to read versus the use of whole-language. The whole-language approach proposes that from an early age students should be presented with full texts, not just word sounds. However, studies are showing that the answer does not lie in one approach, but rather in a mixture of the two. The text suggests that the best way to promote literacy is by "providing instruction aimed at increasing knowledge and use of reading strategies enhances reading performance from the third grade on."

** 3. Emotional **

 * Chapter 12 **

On page 315, the book says that "academic self-esteem is a powerful predictor of teenagers' judgements for the importance and usefulness of schools..." If students who are having trouble learning can achieve greater self esteem through praise and measurable success, they will have a better chance of developing the self concept that they can become a good reader. Also, if teachers can show adolescence why reading is important, they will be more willing to learn and attempt activities.

** 4. Social **

 * Chapter 12 **

I connected cliques to my inquiry question because how much students decide to read can be based on their peer group and self concept. Students who are more likely to read might associate themselves with other students who classify themselves as "intelligent," while students that are considered "popular" may not spend as much time reading but rather socialize. This can affect how students learn to read and advance in literacy because of their frequency of reading and the amount they read. (328)

**OhioReads at Winton Hills**
I will be tutoring one student, age 8-12, in reading/language arts through the OhioReads and Project More programs.

** Site details: **
[|Project More]
 * Name of site: Winton Hills Academy, OhioReads Program
 * Link to site:http://winton.cps-k12.org/
 * Contact person: Nancy Barngrover:nbarngrover@aol.com

__** B. Winton Hills Setting **__
The Ohio Reads program at Winton Hills take place between the second and third grade hallways. Desks are set up in the designated literacy intervention space which is where the students always meet their tutors. Their are computers, books, and supplies available for tutor and student usage, however almost all of the books for the literacy intervention area are donated privately.

" Winton Hills Academy is not just a school. We are a Community Learning Center. We have a wonderful partnership program with Win Med Health Center which is called the Fast Track Program. A child who is enrolled in this program may get urgent treatment for medical and dental problems at the clinic across the street from school. For matters that are not urgent, (like asthma follow-ups and physicals, etc.) appointments can be made for your child to see a doctor when he or she is at school. For dental cleaning, exams, and repair of cavities, the child will get an appointment to see the dentist during school hours. For both medical and dental appointments at the clinic, a worker from the clinic comes to the school to safely walk students back and forth from the clinic. In addition, if your child needs medication, the prescription will be filled at the pharmacy, and delivered to school. The medication will come home with your child. If you would like to enroll in the program, please see the school nurse (Kathy Zix) for the application."

[|More on Winton Hills]

__** C. Describe what you did at the site (free-write/journal formatting) **__
During my first visit at Winton Hills, I met my second grade OhioReads student and began the ProjectMore lesson for the following weeks. My student and I began introducing ourselves by filling out an "About Me" questionnaire focussing on our favorite colors, foods, and games. After that, I tested my student on a pre and post Dolch Word chart to see how many words they could read before missing five. After identifying which words they needed to study more, we began reviewing the long and short sounds of consonants and vowels. To finish off the lesson, we learned what sound -ack makes and how to recognize it in words.
 * __1st visit:__**

I noticed that my student really enjoyed doing the getting to know you activity and liked to talk about their favorite things. However, my student did not seem overly comfortable when we started to go over the Dolch words because it seemed like a test. Over the semester, I think my student will become more comfortable when we work together and that they will hopefully enjoy tutoring.

During my second visit at Winton Hills, my student and I began the lesson off with another short getting to know you activity and then jumped right into the weekly routine. I tested my student on the Dolch word list again and highlighted words that we would need to go over. When you test a student over a reading list, it is important not to rush them or assume they don't know the word if they are processing a little bit slower. After we finished the Dolch word list I made some notecards of the words he struggled with that we will practice for the next few weeks. We also worked further on the Go Animals Go lesson and we almost finished the unit. My student is actually very good at discussing what is happening in a story and comprehending pictures with some assistance.
 * __2nd visit:__**

I felt today that my student really enjoyed tutoring and that this will be a great semester where I see much growth in his reading and comprehension. While he is a few grade levels behind in reading, I feel that this year we can make a lot of progress and continue to work on making reading fun.

I was very excited to go to tutoring today and ready to see the improvements we could make during our session. This week was different because I did not test my student over the Dolch word list and instead we worked on the vocabulary words he needed to work on. We also began to study the sound -ap. We went over a review of words with the sound -ap and my student knew almost all of the words. I was so proud and happy to see that I can never assume what a student will know. We then read and debriefed a poem with -ap words to identify rhyming words and repeated sounds.I love reading the poems together and watching the student discover what is hidden inside.
 * __3rd visit:__**

He was also very excited to see that we were starting a new book lesson for the next two weeks. We did a quick overview of the story and he already seemed to understand most of the story. Very exciting!

I am amazed by how far my student has come over the past couple of weeks! I feel like every time we work together I see so much improvement within his understanding of sight words and comprehension. Although he is identified as below reading level, and while he definitely has some obstacles to overcome, I really do not think he is as behind as his teacher may think. After reviewing the same combined sounds from last week, we dove right into the new ProjectMore book about bananas. I felt silly going alone with the scripted lesson plan because he clearly had enough comprehension of the story after reading it once. I could tell he was losing interest in the scripted activities so I switched the pace up and we did a word sorting activity. I laid out the picture cards along with the word cards and he began to match up the words and pictures with ease. After that activity I read him a list of words from the book and he had to clap on the designated word pattern sound.
 * __4th visit:__**

Towards the end of our session, my student began to share some personal information with me about his life. In a text-to-self connection he told me he had a dog at his father's house, as well as a baby brother or sister (he never specified). He also shared with me that he has 7 siblings. The more that I work with my student, the more I realize how his "accepted" level of reading undermines his actual intelligence and abilities.

Every time I get to tutor my student, I see that the enthusiasm he has for reading is growing. He always likes to tell me about the fun things he does in class or the assignments he does that he's really proud of. A new trend he points out is how many cards he has in the "mastered word" pile and it shows he is gaining confidence in his reading. I think the ProjectMore readings are becoming a little mundane in his eyes because there are about 6 lessons to do before he can move on to another book. I can see that he would like to be challenged a little more or read other picture books besides the paper ones. He is still struggling a little bit with readings aloud and some of the root ones, but I try to emphasize how many words he knows versus the words that he doesn't know because it creates positive reinforcement. He also has good moral character because since I had not been able to tutor him the past week, I did not know what special he had after tutoring. One of his friends came up to him in the hall and tried to convince him to go another way, when he corrected him and told him the correct room he needed to go to.
 * __5th visit:__**

The tutoring experience this semester is different from last semester because I am tutoring a younger student and the developmental differences are very distinct. I am also tutoring a boy student rather than a female student so that is interesting as well. I really believe my student is more intelligent than he is "measured" to be. However, I have not seen him write yet, which may be interesting.

My tutoring observation was different than any of my other experiences so far. As I began to collect the materials for the tutoring system, I was told my tutoring student would be using a new behavior reward system where for displaying great effort on his work, he would receive a coupon for popcorn at the end of the week. I had seen the coupons in his folder the previous week, but was not told about them. I was surprised that this student needed a reward system because he had never had bad behavior with me prior. I was also to test my student over the Dolch sight words because another tutor that my student works with had remarked that the student is not retaining any of the words he learns. While I have noticed that my student occasionally mixes up letters for other letters, I did not realize it was that much of a problem. I tested the student twice on two different lists, where he was very aware of my markings on the words he got right and the words that he missed. I could sense he became more nervous as time went on and he realized the tests were being scaffolded on his ability and score. The instructor and I discussed how the student will occasionally say words that look similar to the word they are reading, but not read the actual word. I began to question myself on whether I had been over looking something the student had been doing, and became worried.
 * __6th visit:__**

What is more interesting I think is that the student has a fairly high level of comprehension about what happens in the story. They are able to look at the pictures on poems and infer and predict what will happen in the story (and be right) however they have trouble with reading the sight words. The instructor suggested at the end of the session that the student needs to work on memorizing sight words that they cannot sound out. However, I questioned this statement because if the student is already having trouble focussing during tutoring, the elimination of whole language reading will make the session less engaging, in my opinion. It really bothered me how suddenly my tutoring student had been labeled as low achieving and it really bothered me. It seems now in education many of the down falls of students are focussed upon rather than their successes. I see his ability to predict a small detail in the text as a huge accomplishment. I would like to talk to the other tutor and see why he or she believes the student is not "achieving" at the level they should be.

** Physical **
While at Winton Hills, I talked frequently to my OhioReads supervisor about how the school has a high number of students that receive free lunch and free breakfast. This made me wonder if some of the students at Winton Hills are affected by their nutrition, and if their grades reflect that. My supervisor also shared with me that she keeps a drawer of granola bars for students that are hungry during tutoring. I also began to wonder if more students at Winton Hills become ill if they are malnourished. I had not worked with any students who had obesity, but in a school with students who mainly receive free lunch, I wonder if this is a problem.

Page numbers: 225, 226, 227, 228, 282

** Cognitive **
Participating in OhioReads allowed me to see the phonics and whole language approach used in a school. We used phonics when learning ending sounds and reviewing the pre and primer Dolch words, but also used whole language when applying those words to poems. I also was able to examine what kind of strategies pre adolescence like to use when reading and which strategies are most affective. I noticed that Winton Hills does not focus on measuring intelligence in their students as heavily as standardized testing, and I began to wonder if this is common in other schools.

Page numbers: 232, 233, 238, 239, 241

** Emotional **
The development of self concept is very interesting to me and the student I worked with at Winton Hills. Although he was just in the second grade, he had already developed a self concept about himself regarding how well behaved he was in class and how good of a reader he was. While I did not see how much of his self esteem had developed, he seemed in fairly good spirits when we read together and when I walked him to class. As a tutor, I always tried to use constructive criticism in the hopes of building his self concept and esteem rather than negatively affecting it.

Page numbers: 257, 258, 259, 260, 261

** Social **
I noticed that although the student I tutored is very young, I still was able to see the beginning of morals forming within him. When it was time to walk back to class, he always took me to the right classroom instead of trying to roam the halls or play a trick on me by going to the wrong room. He also would explain his behavior reward system to me correctly instead of lying in an attempt to get more of a reward. Overall, I think the student I tutored is beginning to develop a strong set of morals.

Page numbers: 263, 264, 265, 266, 267

** Revisiting Your Curiosities **

 * W : What you want to know (curiosities) **

Through my research, I learned that depending on the grade level, phonics, whole language, or a combination of the two can be most effective. Phonics focusses on the building blocks of reading, phonemes, and teaches children how words sound and what combinations of letters can be paired together. A whole language approach focusses more on syntax and reading literature as a whole rather than in pieces. This method is important for older grades because part of critical thinking is being able to analyze text and write about its meaning. Overall, there is not a clear cut answer for which method is most effective when teaching pre-adolescence because everything depends on their reading level and which grade they are currently in.
 * 1. Is whole language instruction or phonics more effective when teaching pre-adolescence? **

As a future educator, it is tough to say how I will exactly teach reading, but I absolutely agree with a whole language approach for older grades. This question will be answered in my near future as I begin to take methods classes and learn more about reading methods.
 * 4. How will I teach reading as a future educator?**

Article 1: Phonics, Whole language, or both?
Letters to the Editors Curt Dudley-Marling, Sharon Murphy, Gary L. Trageser, Rich Oldrieve, Sandra Shavlik and Rosalie Evenson The Reading Teacher, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Sep., 1998), pp. 6-7 Published by: International Reading Association Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20202002

This article was a Letter to the Editor that talked about five teachers who suggested that a combination of whole language and phonics is better than one over the other. The Cleveland school teacher who wrote this piece talks about how she was convinced using whole language would only make her special needs students more confused because they could only handle a few new words a week. She says that after students with severe reading disabilities have mastered 50-100 site words, they can be introduced to whole language texts. After 2 years of intense semantics phonics instruction, vocabulary, and structured whole language books, her students can use a fully whole language approach. This relates directly to my inquiry question because it answers the question if whole language or phonics is more effective.

Article 2: Phonics, or no phonics?
Susan, M. G. (1997). Phonics or no phonics. Teaching Pre K - 8, 28(1), 132-133. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/231922590?accountid=2909

This article addresses the misconceptions raised about phonics and the debate that says teachers either teach phonics or they do not. In the first section, the author says that it is important to teach phonics in the early grades because standardized tests require students to sound out words and identify their individual sounds. The article refers to research that says as students get into the 3rd and 4th grade, their test scores go down because the tests require reading comprehension. The author suggests that phonics should be an integrated tool rather than a definite mode of instruction, and should be differentiated for each student.

Article 3: Psychologists offer more proof that phonics works better than whole language
Byfield, M. (1997). Phonics proponents fire another volley. Alberta Report / Newsmagazine, 24(13), 40.

**Article 4:Defending whole language; the limits of phonics instruction and the efficacy of whole language instruction** Krashen, S. D. (2002). Defending whole language: the limits of phonics instruction and the efficacy of whole language instruction. Reading Improvement, 39(1), 32-42.

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