Reading Center

Mrs Martin’s Kindergarten Library

Mrs. Burley’s First Grade Library

Supporting Components:

Library Classrooms

should have 7 times as many trade books as there are children.

16 month old Matias enjoying one of his

many books.

Constructed by Mary DeFalco  Up dated 4/27/23

We Learn....

10% of what we read

20% of what we hear

30% of what we see

50% of what we both see and hear

70% of what is discussed with others

80% of what we experience personally

95% of what we TEACH to someone else

William Glasser, Psychiatrist

Watch Your Words, Teachers!

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. ~Carl Jung

...

In my heart, I do not think there is any job that is more important than teaching.

We, as teachers, have the ability

to make or break lives and minds which are entrusted to us.

We have a choice to treat others with respect and dignity, or to demean. 

We can choose to praise and encourage, or we can choose to devalue. 

We can choose to be kind and understanding, or we can choose to degrade. 

We will be remembered for our actions long after we are dead, and our influence will never stop, because others will teach what we have taught.  Teaching is a serious responsibility; shaping lives is not for the faint of heart.

Perhaps you have seen this quote from Hiam Ginott, from his book BETWEEN PARENT AND CHILD. This quote perfectly explains not only my feelings, but also my philosophy of teaching:

I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized. ~Haim G. Ginott

...

6 Principles to Guide Policy

“1.  Young children learn through active, direct experiences and play.

2. Children learn skills and concepts at different times, rates, and paces.  Every child is unique.

3. Young children learn best when their cognitive, social, emotional, and physical selves become highly engaged in the learning process. 

4.  Assessments of young children should be observational in nature, ongoing, and connected to curriculum and teaching.  They should take into account the broad-based nature of young children’s learning, not isolated skills, and the natural developmental variation in all areas of young children’s growth and development.

Assessments in early childhood should be as infrequent as possible to maintain high program quality.  Standardized tests are highly unreliable for children younger than 3rd grade and should not be used in early childhood settings. The linking of test scores to teacher evaluation or to program evaluation leads to an increase in standards and test-based instruction, and less developmentally appropriate play-based, experiential education.  Administrators need to emphasize quality educational experiences and teaching, not test scores in the early years.

 5. The problems of inequality and child poverty need to be addressed directly.

6.  Quality early childhood education with well-prepared teachers is the best investment a society can make in its future.”

_____________

What is basic for schools according to Goodlad?

Not the 3 R’s but that which promotes:

1. successful problem solving;

2. sensitive human relations;

3. self-understanding; and

4. the integration of one’s total life experience…

He also comments that the promotion of the higher literacies [sic]

requires persons as teachers who not only are themselves proficient

in these literacies [sic] but who also know how to teach them [107]

Cultivation of individual sensibilities [keen mental perception]

Sub 3

He is referring not to a body of subject matter or information regarding commonalities but a development of a compassionate understanding of humankind, the ability to solve unfamiliar problems, the ability to establish appropriate relationships, and the ability to achieve personal goals [109]

He argues for teaching just a few basic concepts through every possible means. Not just by reading and writing, but by

1. dancing,

2. drawing,

3. constructing,

4. touching,

5. thinking,

6. talking,

7. shaping, and

8. planning.

‧We need to go beyond quantitative appraisals to qualitative appraisals of what goes on in schools.

‧It seems to me that how a student spends precious time in school and

‧how he/she feels about what goes on there is of much greater significance

‧than how he/she scores on a standardized achievement test. [59]

‧What is the irony discussed by Goodlad re: high grades [pg 61]?

‧The irony is that we do not know what high grades mean.

‧They do not predict compassion, good work habits, nor vocational success,

‧not social success, not happiness. [61

Developmental Scale;

Developmental scales are another feature unique to the Learning Record. In understanding and accounting for student progress and achievement,    we  look at what students know and can do, rather than their presumed deficits.  The deficit-based model diminishes the dignity and worth of the entire range of stages in learners‘ development. There are stages of development and achievement learners move through as they gain mastery though a particular stage:

-confidence and independence,

-knowledge and understanding,

-skills and strategies,

-use of prior and emerging experience and -reflectiveness.               

Learning Record 1995

10 Proven Principles for Teaching Reading by the National Ed. Ass.    April 2000 (Reiterates State of the Arts of 1993 - proven principals unlike Common Core)

1. 1.Children, when reading, construct their own meaning .
   

2. 2.Effective reading instruction can develop engaged
   readers who are knowledgeable, strategic, motivated,
   and socially interactive .
   

3. 3.Phonemic awareness, a precursor to competency in
   identifying words, is one of the best predictors of later success in reading
   

4. 4.Modeling is an important form of classroom support for literacy learning
   

5. 5.Storybook reading, done in the context of sharing
   experiences, ideas, and opinions, is a highly
   demanding mental activity for children
   

6. 6.Responding to literature helps students construct their own meaning, which may not always be the same for all readers
   

7. 7.Children who engage in daily discussions about what
   they read are more likely to become critical readers
   and learners
   

8. 8.Expert readers have strategies that they use to construct meaning before, during, and after reading .
   

9. 9.Children’s reading and writing abilities develop together
   

10. 10.The most valuable form of reading assessment reflects our current understanding about the reading process and simulates authentic reading tasks

1. ★Teacher Created Materials -Created by Teachers for Teachers
   

2. ★Literature -Based Teaching in the Content Areas: 40 Strategies for K-8 classrooms/ Carole Cox
   

3. ★Striking a Balance: A Comprehensive Approach to Early Literacy -Nancy L. Cecil

Dr. Jeanine DeFalco also speaks out about the importance of activating prior knowledge and developing the skill of imaging.    

                             “Spreading Activation & Priming”                                                                        “Reflects the notion that ideas or content that a person attends to, can make associated memories more readily available for recall. Related to spreading activation is the idea that this effect can prime a person’s memory particularly as it relates to comprehension of text. This means if someone is  exposed to a stimulus it will affect that person’s response to a later stimulus. Introducing certain concepts and content early in a lesson should prime a student’s  ability to process other ideas and content addressed later in the lesson.”

                                 “Embodied/Grounded Cognition”                                                                           “View endorses the notion that knowledge is partly situated and a product of the activity, culture, and context in which it is constructed and employed. Also, embodied cognition theorists maintain that cognition is not restricted to the body’s physical encounters with its environment, but is also grounded in a myriad of ways that include simulation, action, and bodily states.”

                                            Mental Imagery                                                                                                 “Reflects the principle that individuals can anticipate how objects look from different perspectives in the absence of external sources for perceptual information. Further, mental imagery enables us to construct and inspect new objects in our minds.”

                                        Depth of Processing                                                    “Material that is rehearsed in a meaningful way is critical in storing long-term memory. We retain new information better if our interactions with material are done in a way that is personally relevant.” (Bold -my emphasis.)

                                       Elaborative Processing                                            “Elaborative Processing, closely related to depth of processing, is the principle that when we articulate new connections and inferences from content we obtain a greater understanding of that content.  Evidence that more elaborative processing results in better memory. Elaborative processing involves creating additional information that relates and expands on what it is that needs to be remembered.