Week 7, Entry 10: Homework

At the kindergarten level homework should be developmentally appropriate, connected to and reinforcing classroom learning, engaging, fun and purposeful.  Parents must serve as a vital link in providing planning, guidance and necessary support since kindergarteners are developing homework routines for the first time in their school careers. Just as school should be a positive first experience, so should homework. I reinforce this philosophy ever year with my school parents at orientation and through my weekly newsletter. I encourage parents to use homework as a family time to interact and play. Homework should never last more than 30 minutes, if it goes beyond that time frame, I ask parents to stop and contact me. Since the kindergarten program at my school is full day, I do not begin a homework routine until we are at least 6-8 weeks into the school year.Kindergarteners need freetime to play! Each week I post the homework assignments on my website and also e-mail parents to remind them to check the posts. At the end of each school day, I wrap up our classroom activities and discuss that night's homework assignment and answer any questions. As much as possible I try to keep written assignments to a minimum. Students are often assigned speaking and listening activities such as practicing reading sight words, counting skills ( by 1's, 2's, 5's & 10's), or retelling a story from class. When homework is written, I "grade" the homework complete or not complete. Any assignments not complete are sent back home to give students a second chance. I also try to write personal comments on student homework so both parents and students recognize that I value their time and effort. I also simplify or lessen homework assignments at busier times of the year--especially Christmas. I use parent feedback to also guide frequency of homework assignments in an effort to provide a positive home school connection.

Week 6, Entry 9: Fiction/non-fiction comparison

Non-Fiction

·        !concepts are real

·        !often teaches Science and/or Social Studies

·        no plot

·        *vocabulary

·        facts

Fiction

·        *not real, make believe

·        plot/story

·        *problem/solution

·        characters

·        *story frame

At the kindergarten level, analysis of fiction and non-fiction would be presented very basically.  The * items would potentially be more challenging concepts for ELL students because some of the concepts are abstract and relational in nature. However the ! items could support ELL students by offering them opportunities to connect with their own culture as resident experts and with concepts that are concrete and visual.

Week 5; Entry 8: Sheltered lesson observation

The teacher in this video used several strategies for sheltering this lesson inlcuding clearly defined objectives, explicit instruction of reading strategies, slower rate of speech and clear enunciation, use of visuals for key vocabulary and use of synonyms when discussing vocabulary. We could not see the entire lesson from beginning to end; we only saw snippets of instruction which did not paint the entire picture for me of what a sheltered lesson should look like. From what was captured in the video, I did not see as much student interaction as I thought should be present with the teacher speaking 90% of the time. With such limited opportunity for student interaction, it was difficult to gauge whether the students were comprehending the instruction.

Week 4; Entry 7: Running Records assessment

This was an interesting activity since I have not experienced ELL students at this level.
Amani had several strategies working for him including his use of visual cues, using the pattern of the text, decoding some compound words and checking by re-reading. The next step for his instruction should include developing comprehension by retelling, making connections between the pictures and words from the text and developing fluency by matching the picture with the whole sentence.
Wendy had good decoding and fluency skills. The next step for her instruction should include developing comprehension by retelling, learning the different rules for -ed endings, r-controlled vowels and the sound of short i.

Week 4, Entry 6b: WIDA Standards website review

I found myself immediately comparing the Performance Definitions for the levels of English Language Proficiencies to the Stages of Second Language Asquisition from our text. Interestingly I could see many parallels with Preproduction not being represented (since this is practically a non-verbal stage that was acceptable). Level 1 was closely related to Early Production; levels 2 & 3 to Speech Emergence; level 4 to Intermediate Fluency and level 5 to Advanced Fluency.
Strengths of this document were reflected in the visual representation, definitions of terms, example topics by grade level (which are very universal) and subject areas. All these characteristics made it easier to understand and user friendly. I wish the State curriculum standards were presented in such an easy to follow format!
As a kindergarten teacher, I would certainly use this document to help determine what level my ELL students were currently and then look to the next level ability and use that information to help me scaffold instruction. I believe this document is laid out well enough to even share with ELL parents at conferences. I really liked the fact that grade levels were reflected all the way to 12th grade which makes the document relevant to educators pre-K to 12th grade, regardless of what level the student performs.

Week 4, Entry 6a: RTI & ELL special report

Great article! I will be checking out this guy's website for more information. I was astounded to learn that RTI doesn't require a complicated flow chart (that is all I have seen!) In fact the simplicity of his presentation on RTI is refreshing and makes good common sense to me! Two facts that I don't recall from my RTI training (which came in the form of 1 1/2 hour staff meeting after school-yawn!) are: we are all part of Tier 1 and the concept of fidelity check at each level. You mean someone has to watch my instruction? I must have missed that step but I think my whole building has missed that step! Yikes! Finally I loved the chart depicting the language difference for ELL and students with possible language disability. Very descriptive and helpful when analyzing students' language. Thank you for sharing this fabulous resource!