Ms. Perez's Reading Classroom

I truly enjoyed watching Ms. Perez teaching children how to read. I loved how she incorporated activities that included all the students, although they were at such different levels. It is the challenge of the teacher to motivate, include and teach so many different levels at the same time. When Ms. Perez does shared reading with her students, she engages them all. While some students didn't read that fluently, they gained from hearing the words and seeing the pointer at the same time. Other students, who read more fluently gained from the flow of the poem, and the different rhyming words. Ms. Perez has an amazing word wall technique, where she puts words that rhyme. This is good for students to see the different sounds of the letters, and clearly helps students focus on those sounds!
Ms. Perez supports her students in learning, and encourages them to use their problem solving skills. Mainly Ms. Perez asks pointed questions, to get her students to think. For example, she asked students what was different between the words 'hot', in different places in the poem, instead of pointing out to them that one has the uppercase H, while the other the lowercase. In this way students learn to look carefully at the words, notice their nuances, and so on. She also is constantly showing her students how she appreciates their skills, and praises them often. When a student was struggling with pronouncing a word, she gently proddeed the student to think about the letters, and together, with the right amount of encouragement, the student felt like he 'got it'. I think her patience with the children, so that they can really learn to read on their own is amazing.
Based on the video, shared reading can promote literacy among all students. As I mentioned above, students get the practice, as well as the visual cues at the same time, in order to increase fluency in reading. When properly guided, students can also learn new sounds, patterns, and so on, through readin aloud with peers. Teachers get the oppportunity to guide the class in new knowledge, and to create a lesson based on words and new skills.
Ms. Perez helps her students verbalize the strategies they are using, in order for them to internalize them better. When a student actually verbalizes about the strategies she uses, the student can recognize the strategy, and can internalize at other times as well. Students learn to use strategies better and at other times, when they recognize their own strategies.
In the classroom of Ms. Perez, students are divided according to their abilities, and work on different activities. This is a great time for students to work on individual skills, and on individual levels. A student that needs to work on the sounds of letters works with a teacher to create words with different sounds, while a student who can read independently, works on the comprehension of the reading. In addition, both of these students, worked on writing skills simultaneously. The first student was actually creating words based on the letter sounds, and the second student was writing notes and facts about her reading. Both are great ways for students to integrate writing skills with reading skills and to connect with both at the same time.
Ms. Perez uses individual assesment, to learn about each child's ability. She asseses her students in September, and then again in December, in order to see their progress. She also uses ongoing assessment in the classroom, by spending time and listening to each student read. In the video we see a student being assessed in September, and I loved how Ms. Perez asks the child in general, if he would like to speak about what he read in the book. The student eagerly shares what he read, and this gives Ms. Perez a very clear picture about what the student understood from the text. Instead of asking a direct question, Ms. Perez wanted to gauge his comprehension, and got a very clear answer. She also uses a graph at the beginning of the year, in order to generalize her students into categories. Students are leveled on the graph based on the books they were able to read. In this way, Ms. Perez can organize her students into groups, each according to its level, in order to work on the same skills needed by different students. Each group works on activities, that benefits the students with the same skills within the group.
I would like to implement assessment in my classroom, and I found two ways to do this based on the video we have seen. One is through periodic assesment, so that students' progress can be carefully seen. I like the way Ms. Perez assesses her students in September and then again in December, and compares their skill. Another way is ongoing assessment. Ms. Perez floats around her classroom during center time, and listens to individual studnets reading. While she is not working on a specific skill, she can listen in general to her students, and see which skills they each need to work on.