Re: [MOSAIC] Listening to reading
eyeballs are what does not work but in the case of this year, I have twenty sets of eyes that work great. Without functional physical sight, also makes great cases for development of adjectives and rich development of descriptive language which can be applied to their sense of visualizing in their minds, description of art and word choices in writing. Shades of colours are great ways to help develop sensory awareness and i get beautiful questions of Mrs. B, do you remember what x looks like? as they constantly keep connecting visual life and description. Colours do remain quite brilliant in my mind as maintained through the precious gift of dreams, even those scary ones, in which I can see. Visual memory is an incredible, but much under utilized treasure for activating schema. With the huge amount of visual information processed each day, there are great lessons in tuning children into their awareness and the rich way authors make things come alive in our minds. Great lessons abound in helping children provide feedback if they think the illustrator has done a great job of capturing the author's words. Picture walks are so exciting but it is also great fun to read a book and withhold pictures until the end to give the children time to form their own images. Literacy, gotta love it! Sharon On 2012-01-16, at 10:22 AM, Renee wrote: Sharon, I love your story; thank you so much for telling it. The question, What is reading? is really the crossroad question of literacy. If one believes that reading is making meaning of text, then it doesn't matter how that text enters the thought process. If one believes that reading is decoding, then we are led into benchmark assessments, leveled books, Accelerated Reader, twenty minutes per day of round robin reading, and other such classroom methods and strategies that *say* they are about comprehension while ignoring the necessity for think time, mulling over sentences, discussing personal impressions of stories, and other such less-quantifiable activities. Good luck on your dissertation! Renee On Jan 15, 2012, at 5:47 PM, Sharon Ballantyne wrote: Hello all, I have been very pleased to have the listening component so positively reinforced, largely thanks to the influence of daily five practices. as pointed out by another teacher, the children do respond positively. I provide lots of opportunities for listening as part of daily five, read-a-louds and the growing expanses of audio formats as well as formats that support highlighting of words as they are read as found in meegenius app for iDevices. I use audio personally all the time with most of my curriculum being in audio which I listen to while reading it to students. I am unable to read print due to being totally blind. While I use Braille daily as an organizational tool to help sort my files, student books, classroom library and such, it is far too cumbersome and time consuming for me personally to read lengthy texts. . If one has grown up using Braille it may be a different response entirely. Accessibility in Braille is also very costly and in this age of technology very limiting for the things I personally need. My grade three class would never consider that I am not reading as I share what I read through listening. When students can pair print text to follow along it also really enriches their learning for fluency as mentioned, but also to hear all the nuances of speech and tone through different speakers. Some of the narrators on the audible library are quite talented. I listen to audio formats of children's picture books, novels, textbooks while simulreading these to my students. I listen to text and teach with it in much the same way you do with a piece of print in front of you. I do my duty supervision in a kindergarten class four times a week while the teacher takes her break and as my guide dog and I enter it is not unusual for a child to announce Mrs. B is here to read to us. . I believe the audio format can supplement, extend and where needed replace print decoding as the only form of reading. Listening as reading promotes a love of reading, enjoyment and widens horizons to appreciate literature. Historically there has been an argument that people reading by audio are not reading. Our students with LD who might use scanning technology such as kerzweil have been challenged as this not being literacy in my own school board. It is not as easy to research using audio but it can be done. My kindle allows me instant access to a world of books I would not otherwise had access too. Scanning of print texts to be in a digitally accessible format I can now do as quickly as quickly as I can physically turn a print page. Using digital camera technology which has replaced the flatbed scanner technology, I have my camera configured to detect hand motion of turning the page and an audible
Re: [MOSAIC] Listening to reading
Hello all, I have been very pleased to have the listening component so positively reinforced, largely thanks to the influence of daily five practices. as pointed out by another teacher, the children do respond positively. I provide lots of opportunities for listening as part of daily five, read-a-louds and the growing expanses of audio formats as well as formats that support highlighting of words as they are read as found in meegenius app for iDevices. I use audio personally all the time with most of my curriculum being in audio which I listen to while reading it to students. I am unable to read print due to being totally blind. While I use Braille daily as an organizational tool to help sort my files, student books, classroom library and such, it is far too cumbersome and time consuming for me personally to read lengthy texts. . If one has grown up using Braille it may be a different response entirely. Accessibility in Braille is also very costly and in this age of technology very limiting for the things I personally need. My grade three class would never consider that I am not reading as I share what I read through listening. When students can pair print text to follow along it also really enriches their learning for fluency as mentioned, but also to hear all the nuances of speech and tone through different speakers. Some of the narrators on the audible library are quite talented. I listen to audio formats of children's picture books, novels, textbooks while simulreading these to my students. I listen to text and teach with it in much the same way you do with a piece of print in front of you. I do my duty supervision in a kindergarten class four times a week while the teacher takes her break and as my guide dog and I enter it is not unusual for a child to announce Mrs. B is here to read to us. . I believe the audio format can supplement, extend and where needed replace print decoding as the only form of reading. Listening as reading promotes a love of reading, enjoyment and widens horizons to appreciate literature. Historically there has been an argument that people reading by audio are not reading. Our students with LD who might use scanning technology such as kerzweil have been challenged as this not being literacy in my own school board. It is not as easy to research using audio but it can be done. My kindle allows me instant access to a world of books I would not otherwise had access too. Scanning of print texts to be in a digitally accessible format I can now do as quickly as quickly as I can physically turn a print page. Using digital camera technology which has replaced the flatbed scanner technology, I have my camera configured to detect hand motion of turning the page and an audible camera click alerts me the page has been scanned. With my software program set to read while scanning I can read (by listening to the speech synthesizer of my computer), while I scan print pages. The quality is still questionable at times but if anyone had told me even a few years ago that I as a totally blind person would successfully be working with a digital camera to scan documents and make them accessible I would have thought it quite beyond my imagination. E-readers are a wonderful technology. Some people do not even realize e-readers often have full speech possibilities to read the text if the book has text to speech enabled. Many users I know have opted to combine reading the text visually and switching to audio to support reading when tired or commuting. It kind of begs the question... what is reading? Does reading beyond the cult of normalcy expectations mean it is not reading just because it is different from the way people usually interact with text? As I defend my phD dissertation(unrelated to this topic) in a few months, the reality is that five years of research have been accomplished using listening to reading. It is a process of drawing the circle wider and accepting that print impairments in the twenty-first century do not mean an inaccessibility to the world of reading and literacy. If I can provide any support to any teachers who might be struggling to get their head around the making space of accepting this as reading, please do feel free to contact me off-list. Sharon sbal...@nexicom.net On 2012-01-15, at 6:29 PM, Troy F wrote: There should be some research backing it up in the daily five book or in its bibliography. Troy Fredde On Jan 15, 2012, at 9:44 AM, Kathy ka...@laurinburg.com wrote: It's a form of modeling for fluency. Kids enjoy listening centers and if they pick up one word, that's one more word added to their vocabulary and reading words. Sent from my iPhone On Jan 14, 2012, at 7:03 PM, Sally Thomas sally.thom...@verizon.net wrote: Seems like all the benefits of read alouds would accrue. I use a handout summarizing those benefits. They include building vocabulary, building knowledge of
Re: [MOSAIC] ipad apps for language arts
Hi I'd be interested in haring more about apps people recommend. my class is third grade. My student who has learning needs at a k-level has found the iPad to be an amazing motivater. Different apps that are a game format motivate him. Apps that provide read-a-long such as from meegenius (free app with some free books) are great because it is a child reader and each word is highlighted. I know flash cards are not a preferred teaching tool but using flash cards plus (free app) we've inputted decks of cards for the student to review. With voice over turned on, the word can be read for reinforcement. The iDevice can just be shook to shuffle the deck. Bingo games can be done with a friend or against the iPad. Kindergartenappa nd grade one app offer lots of review material. These are not for primary instruction but are fun reinformcement that offer visuals and sounds and game format that can be a nice few minutes reward. The student would be reluctant to pick up a book but will do so on the iPad. Little speller is a motivater for some stronger spellers We've been scanning resources in via the photocopier, creating pdf files which we can label right off our photocopier and e-mail tot he iPad. I created a hotmail account for ease of sending pdfs. There is a sort of utility app called good reader I think or good read, but I think it is the prior. It is a grat utility used in conjunction with pdfs we have made because we can change font and students can interact and change colour (only one colour change though). If there is insufficient space to write one simply does a pincer grip andpulls finger and thumb a part to create additional writing space. An app called art set (99 cents) allows children to select different tools such as paint brush, thin tipped marker, thick marker, coloured pencil etc and to work in different forums. This can be great fun to motivate writing ideas. We typically take something someone draws on art set and e-mail it to our class account and then go to our classroom blog and post it for all to enjoy. It can motivate students to put their story right on their blog or do separately to go with their picture. We have found lots of different apps to go along with our math, Science and Social Stuides as well. For example, today the children were introduced to the task of discerning the names of capital cities, provinces and territories in Canada and were trying to figure out what was what. Checking the app store, sure enough there is fa fun app called mapme Canada which will use game format to encourage cchildren to learn to read the names of these places in our nation. I can't recall apps off the top of my head right now and I loaned my iPad to a colleague tonight as her child was learning about capitals, provinces and territories in a different school and she took it home to let her child review. Some of the children have been struggling with the basics of becoming more consistent with putting capitals and correct end punctuation. An app called sentence builder has been a fun app to determine what is and is not a sentence. Even a game of scrabble hooked into the projection screen can be fun. The children will also ahve out their white boards and markers to be thinking of different words of different lengths and differing letter cubes. Not language related but math bingo that incorporated various levels of difficulty and covers addition, subtraction, multiplication and division done separately or in random questions has been a fun practice. I'm still pretty new to figuring it all out but the children figure this all out really quickly. Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of piloting and I just have my personal iPad in the classroom but the possibilities are endless, especially if you have the luxury of several in a classroom. I chose to get the kingston case that is like a book folder style and has a built in blue tooth keyboard that has an easy toggle for blue tooth on and off and an easy power switch. I've also created pdfs of several of the sample questions for our provincial testing for reading, writing and math using the method of photocopying and just putting on the iPad. Hope this is a start for some. I'd love t learn more and appreciate any recommendations and ideas ona nd off list. Sharon. On 2012-01-10, at 5:19 PM, Rochelle DeMuccio wrote: Michelle, We are working on a limited pilot with some elementary special education and AIS reading students. Which apps are your fifth graders using? Rochelle -Original Message- From: mosaic-bounces+rdemuccio=hhh.k12.ny...@literacyworkshop.org [mailto:mosaic-bounces+rdemuccio=hhh.k12.ny...@literacyworkshop.org] On Behalf Of Michelle Gips Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 2:03 PM To: mosaic@literacyworkshop.org Subject: [MOSAIC] ipad apps for language arts Hello I am curious to know if anyone uses ipads in the classroom for Language Arts. The
[MOSAIC] Beverly Cleary books still read in grade 3
My third graders still enjoy Beverly Cleary books. Muggie Maggie is a quick read-a-loud I still use as the grade three students are introduced to cursive writing for the first time. Sharon On 2011-09-04, at 10:00 AM, Renee wrote: Does anyone read Beverly Cleary anymore? Bezzus and Ramona? Ramona the Brave? My third graders used to read them all the time. And for struggling third graders, I would suggest the Frog and Toad books, which may look babyish but have oodles of possibilities for discussion about character development. Of course, when I was teaching third grade about fifteen years ago, Frog and Toad was on the late 2nd grade list. These days, they are probably expecting preschoolers to read them. Renee Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. ~ Pablo Picasso ___ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive ___ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
[MOSAIC] Grade 3/4 Read-a-loud suggestions please
Hi there, Any grade three/four appropriate read-a-louds that you would recommend. Fiction and non-fection suggestions all appareciated. Has anyone seen any student resources they would currently recommend sucha s early novel series for very weak readers in grade three who are reading late grade one/early grade 2? Thanks, Sharon ___ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
Re: [MOSAIC] Visual Impairment
Hi there, I am not sure if I can be a lot of help here but I will offer what I can. I am currently teaching grade three for this year's assignment. I, myself am totally blind and I apologize if my response is off base. The VI theacher should be there to support the student and you in the work you do, not create more stress and anxiety. I do not believe you should be told to alter how you prepare your lessons or what you do to provide detailed how to's for this teacher and that will not help the child or your sense of well-being. While it is great that you have a support teacher to provide some support for the student, you are the teacher. A step by step how to is not going to help the child to cope in life and maximize independence. I am not sure what grade level you ahve but I would say energies empowering the child to be the centre, to problem solve and adapt is much more useful to the real world ahead. No one is going to be adapting and hand holding for this person into adulthood or at least I sure hope not. This child may have the two hour entitlement which is great but does it have to mean segregationa nd withdrawal from peers. Could the VI teacher for example, not be modifying materials for the student for what will be needed later in the day. Why does he or she need to know in advance. There is no cookie cutter here and much will depend ont he interest and motivation of the student andhow the student approaches things, sort of the victim stance or an independent go-getter and possibly anywhere along the continuium. For the times you don't have direct tasks the student should work on independently maximizing his or her independence on computer, utilizing learning to maximize independence but a lot depends ont he grade level of the class. I am sorry if this sounds over the top but you are not responsible for having to program essentially for the teacher. Ask the teacher to observe a day or so and learn about your style and adapt to fit for the child. I am happy to correspond with you specifically off list if that is helpful. This should not be a nightmare. You would be surprised how adaptable situations are. I always ahve some frenzied parents at the beginning but once they can forget about the reality that I am totally blind and focus on the learning of their child, it all works out. I have the fortunate position of living in the neighbourhood and having taught in the same school for nine years so I know the community also smooths ruffled feathers too. Anyway, you are not being whiny, just lamenting about being presented with someone wanting you to provide step by step for the teacher to spoon feed some level of academia so carry onw ith your programming and how you teach and allow all the students to benefit from those gifts rather than be drained by an unrealistic demand. Your response is not so much about the added work for you but the gut awareness that this will not benefit the child. Sharon sbal...@nexicom.net ___ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
Re: [MOSAIC] Visual Impairment
Hi all, Adding further to June's most excellent post. I had some sight as a child but by percentage about five per cent in my left eye and none in my right eye. My parents got the same message June's family did. I began school in the mid-late sixties and there were o provisions nor did I live like I needed them. I too rejected the large print books that had to be stored on a side shelf in the classrooms and covered both my desk and my neighbour's desk but whenI got them in the fourth grade, they just were not helpful. As June pointed out it was as likely the cumbersome was a deterrent as much as being separated from peers in doing/being different. If the student has some colour sight for example this is really ehlpful. For ease of instruction I colour code everything. I don't see now of course but if I tell a whole group to get out their math folders, they all grab their blue folder, or Science is red etc. They do't necessarily all contain the same work inside for differentiated instruction needs but for students who might miss the first instruction for a myriad of reasons, children can easily help each other out. I do visual checks asking students to check their neighbour to the left and right for having out the right book or name on book or whatever. I also do a verbal check to ensure everyone is ready, the same way sighted teachers would scan to see if everyone had books out. It is an under thirty second check and serves as a positive, not negative prompt ie. in group one, say your name if you have not found your green reading folder. If Johnny says Johnny, I can simply ask if he needs some help or it is the prompt to move from possibly spacing out to action or simply ask neighbour beside to help Johnny. That may sound like lost time but it all happens really quickly and after the first few days students know it is not a panic about the instructions and they will be supported to locate work. June's map comment is very valid. Laying the book literally off my nose I could manage this but when I was in university there was a student totally blind who was taking a New Testament course in my class. My vision, such as it was, was still stable so I did not need the strategy but the problem of maps made me think. I asked the prof for two print copies of the map and went home and took a bottle of Aylmer's white school glue the kind with a tip at the top and traced all around the map lines and let it dry. This became a traceable tactile way to feel the geographic boundaries. We used different blobs of glue to determine various key points. Much will depend on how tactile the student needs to have things but as June reiterated, using peers is a much preferred methodology. If the girl is using a speech synthesizer called JAWS on her computer and wants to use dragon dictation to save on having to type. Dragon Naturally speaking works best with JAWS with an additional bridge piece of software calledJ-Say. Kerzweil 1000 is the reading system for students with visual impairments. Kerzweil 3000 is for students with learning disabilities. I have recently gotten an iPhone and am getting the hang of texting and the various cool appps. If the VI teacher is familiar with products it really levels the playing field. Voice Over is the built in system of accessibility on all apple products. Dragon dictation is available as a free app for iPhone and also Ipod. It is simple and really accessible without extra software but can be used simply with face book, twitter, for making notes and though it is apparently it is good for texting, I have enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to type. I find apps like yellow pages great for grabbing phone numbers. Many apps are surprisingly accessible with voice over. I've only had my iPhone two weeks but it is still really going to be a great learning tool. I don't have this one perfected but I get a free app called red laser. If you touch the bar code voice over will read you the name of the product. The trick is finding the bar code when you have zero sight but some are able to be found. I also bought a few months ago a new system for scanning. I have previously used Kerzweil, as mentioned but I bought a system called pearl. It is a digital cameral attached to a metal frame that sits on a table. It is similar to a reading lamp in terms of the way a reading lamp would sit with a piece coming around the top for the light. You can't use Kerzweil but have to use Freedom Scientific product open book unbound. Open book is a competitor of Kerzweil. No more scanning bed, no more waiting for the scanning/photocopy to move over the length of the document tray. now as fast as I can touch the space bar and hear the camera click a page is imaged and readable. It has been a real time saver this summer as I worked on my PhD dissertation. The folks who are in the know of the school board should be in the know of lots of cool stuff that
[MOSAIC] What is the appropriate description for speech bubbles Can they be a text feature?
Hi All, Grade four students at our school are doing a unit on text features. The issue is around speech bubbles. A student teacher referred to them as captions which does not exactly fit in our minds. Captions are more like titles or brief descriptions referring to labelling of something. It would be part of graphic novel/comic book style. In the book series Diary Of A Whimpy Kid, the speech bubbles are an integral part of the whole flow of the story. In the math text speech bubbles are used to reinforce key information. A little person will be speaking to reinforce some point. We have not been able to find any resources that would help to clarify. If anyone ahs any thoughts or calrifications about how to best describe speech bubbles, we would greatly appreciate being put on the right track. Thanks, Sharon ___ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
[MOSAIC] Wanted: Read-a-loud think-a-loud suggestions for K-3 to make connections
Hello all: Our division is gathering collections of suggestions for read-a-loud think-a-louds appropriate for primary classes. We would greatly appreciate any of your recommendations. If you wish to make suggestions off-list, send e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank-you Sharon Grade 3 teacher Peterborough Ontario Canada ___ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
Re: [MOSAIC] Sneak Preview of Debbie Miller's New Bookquestion about chapter 8
Hello, I have been reading the preview of the Debbie Millerbook and have discovered that the file for chapter 8 is not readable. Has anyone been able to access this specific chapter? I was able to successfully access other parts of the book.Thank-you for the opportunity to be able to look at this book prior to school beginning. Sharon ___ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
