Missouri Early Learning Standards

Summary: This article consisted of the standards for early learning literacy, the reasons behind each standard, as well as suggestions on how to accomplish these. It broke down the standards into categories and explained how each category impacts the child. It did an excellent job of assuring the reader the each standard is equally important, and to ensure the best results you cannot have one without the other.

In all honesty, this article reinforced why I am not called to teach younger children. I do not really enjoy things that involve story telling, imagination, creativity with words, singing aloud, etc. While I would like to pretend I do, in all reality that puts me out of my comfort zone and I do not really enjoy it. Now, someday when I have my own children, I know that will change and I will want to help them with these things but until then, I will stick to cruntching numbers and helping older students prepare for their careers.

Reading this article gives me a whole new appreciate for my own elementary teachers and anyone else who goes into that field. As I was reading the article, I could relate to it through personal experience that I did all these things they were talking about and at the time I loved it! As a child, you have no pride and don't care what others think about you so story telling, singing, drawing, and other forms of expression are a blast. Now, none of those things sound very fun to me. When expectations were stated such as 'pretending to be a firefighter,...pretends to move, run, jump, crawl like an elephant, airplane, dancer,...' I started to laugh because I was thinking how I would never do that. I began to write down in the margin, 'what if that is not someone's personality to act like this', and then I realized that when I was a child I loved to do these things. Sometimes I wish I could go back to those days and not have a care in the world and gladly do anything with enthusiasm.

As I stated earlier, I remember doing all of the things they suggested as a child, but at the time I had no idea they were helping me become more literate. Even before reading this article I just assumed those were all compartmentalized activities. But now, I have seen the bigger picture and realize that in early education, it is all tied into together. Reading and writing are also supported by art, PE, music, etc.  They all equally play a role into the child's' success in literacy and the more often these suggestions are all done, the better the results will be. And even though these things may not be my fortet, it does not mean that I cannot incorporate them into my secondary classroom and continue to help reinforce what they already learned as a child. I can still read aloud to my high school math students and can still have them reflect in journals what they learned for that day.

Phonics PreTest

As soon as I began the phonics pretest, I knew I was in big trouble. I got 37/75 right, so pretty much a 50%. My biggest area of struggle was definitions. Many times I did not know what the question was asking because I did not know the meaning of a word in the question. This really helped me relate to my students because if they are not sure of the meaning of a word, they're not going to be able to demonstrate their skills. Especially in math, being able to recall their meaning efficiently and accurately is highly important. Many times, if I would have know what the word meant, I would have been able to answer the question correctly. However, when I did not know the definition, I was forced to make an educated guess.

The areas I need to work on are:
-definitions/terminology (obviously)
-the rules that go along with the English language, rather than just knowing how to do something, I need to work on the WHY it is done that way
(This is something that will be realy beneifical for me to learn because I will be going back to Thailand all summer to teach English. The last time I went to Thailand, I was told I was teaching English two days before arriving (we originally were supposed to help sex trafficking victims.) I hate being in front of people and not knowing what I am talking about, which is what happened the entire semester. I would be able to tell my Thai friends how to do something, but had no idea WHY. I would really like to improve in this area for my own sake of knowing, and because I will be able to help my Thai students this summer at a greater capacity.)
-Syllables and consanants and correct rules and terminology specific to that
-The symbols that go along with pronunciation

Really, I have never studied, so I need to work on all of it. If I did get some right on the pretest, it was probably a lucky educated guess.

Fox, B. (2010). Phonics and structural analysis for the teacher of reading. (10 ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Miller Ch 1

Summary: It was obvious Miller teaches by her core principles: gradual release of responsibility, quality of teacher over quantity of strategies, and allowing students to grow in the areas of choice, response, and collaboration over time. She really drilled the importance of figuring out a why behind every reason, sticking to your convictions as a teacher, and standing up for them when the time comes. Maybe your administers, peers, or parents may not always agree, but they will respect you if you stick to your convictions and have reasons to back up why. Like teaching any content area, teaching reading to its best requires a framework or guideline that you will stick by that you believe is best practice.

Even thought the topic of this article was about teaching reading, particularly to younger children, I was still able to pull a lot of useful information and apply it to teaching in general.  Miller makes it clear that establishing convictions as a teacher and determining a how and a why behind teaching theories is impeccable.  However, this only comes with time, mistakes, and trial and error.  As a result of reading this article, I want to develop my own math teaching strategies and theories, why I believe each will work best, and be able to say them with conviction, confidence, and clarity.  And when someone approaches me about the way I am doing something, I won’t be afraid but can calmly respond because I have already done my research.

After reading the results of a study on what good readers do, I altered each suggestion to apply to math and here is what I cam up with:

1) Use previous knowledge of math concepts during lecture, practice, application and homework.

2) Utilize or create visuals, pictures, and diagrams as an aid in helping them grasp/reinforce each concept

3) Use theory and reason to support their process and how they came to each conclusion

4) Throughout the lesson, guided practice, and especially their homework, students should be writing down any questions they have or problems they don’t know how to do; each class they will be given a time to find answers to each of their questions

5) Refer back to the objectives of the section, chapter and unit so they can keep those in mind throughout

6) Synthesize each lesson with the big picture of math