Shelley+Williams'+Work+Page

=Shelley Williams =

**Internship**: Hollister Elementary School Hollister, NC Halifax County

**Teaching Experience**: Speech Language Pathologist (15 years) EC Director/Preschool Coordinator (1.5 years)

**Expertise Areas**: playing with my children, watching movies with my husband, reading for pleasure.

=02/08/2012 = __DEFINE LITERACY__ Literacy involves print, print awareness, the ability to make sense of print, alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension. To be literate, one must be able to decode the printed text.

Day 1: Take-aways
 * The power of the teacher is greater than the power of method/curriculum. A good teacher is way better than a program.
 * The pros and cons of technology: technology needs to add value in a way you can’t add with paper and pencil.
 * There is a strong correlation between vocabulary knowledge and comprehension: which comes first? I thought that was interesting. Is their vocabulary getting better because they comprehend what they are reading or is their comprehension better because their vocabulary is improving?
 * Get students to try other techniques to figure word meaning. Use "sound it out" strategy last.
 * To increase fluency, have a student repeatedly read a passage at an easier text.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 1.4em;">02/09/2012
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Reflection from Day 1__: <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Yesterday was very informative. Some of the ideas presented contradicted what we are hearing from NCDPI. The activities gave us the opportunity to understand what poor readers experience. Useful tips were given. We discussed how some many "programs" leave writing out of the content. We need to give students the opportunity to be successful at the level they are.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Comprehension: Need a clear purpose for reading. Students with poor comprehension have the goal to just finish reading the text. The lessons need to be personally meaningful and should be actively involved (engaged) in the learning process. Students learn by relating new information to old.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Research based comprehension strategies: search for connections between what they know. ask questions, draw inferences, repair faulty comprehension, monitor how well they understand and visualize and create images.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Reading Workshop Structure: Mini-lesson (direct teaching, modeling), time to practice (apply what was taught), sharing (share what you learned about yourself as a reader). How the classroom is organized matters. To connect new information to what you already know (schema theory): post them around the room, this also records their learning.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">If you want your students to be better readers, adults need to be readers. Increasing reading skills takes lots and lots of practice. If our goal is increased reading comprehension, the best way to get there is to read. If they don't read at home, they need to read at school. Unstructured silent reading is wasted time. the poor readers avoid reading. Structured reading supports giving silent reading.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">To Engage students: before reading, activate prior knowledge, teach specific vocabulary, engage in purpose for reading and after, follow up for the purpose for reading.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Children's Literature: in elementary schools, not all books are created equal. So for children, ages birth to 14, what is appropriate for one may not be appropriate for another depending on their experience and understanding. Lessons in elementary school: big book (shared reading), teacher read alouds (students can hear the academic language), and guided reading.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Allington's 6 T's of Effective Literacy Instruction: <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">1. Time: 50% of time students "doing" reading and writing. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">2. Texts: rich supply and variety of books provided, steady diet of books <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">3. Teaching: modeled useful strategies rather than having students do worksheets. Modeling of good reading strategies is crucial 4. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Talking throughout the day: problem-solving, related to curricular topics. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">5. Tasks that are challenging, not just to fill the day. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">6. Testing: evaluated and rewarded more for effort and improvement.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">2/14/2012
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Writing Classroom-Tips <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Write every day, non threatening and predictable, grade only 30% of pieces written in class

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Writing Class Assignment: Martin Luther King, Jr.

The U. S. National Archives and Records Administration

[|www.archives.gov]

The archives website was well organized and information was easy to locate. This website has a Teachers Resource tab. This site design is primarily for research. Primary source documents are easily accessible. Historical artifacts can also be purchased from this website. There is a search bar on the website. If you type in “Martin Luther King, Jr.” there are many of Dr. King’s speeches posted for review. There are discussion questions posted about Dr. King that may be useful for class discussions.

Cecilya Williams

Shelley Williams