Macy Bombard

Literature-based reading program: Organized around the following;

• Core Books: a set of books that is read by an entire grade level of students. 
• Literature Units: A theme is chosen such as genre, author, or a conceptual theme. The theme is chosen by the teacher. A collection of books that surround the theme are chosen for students. Literature units are also known as thematic units or integrated instruction.
• Literature Circles: Students whose book they will read out of a collection. The book they choose will decide which group they are a part of. Usually in elementary school, groups were made up of 3-4 students. In middle school groups are 4-5. In a literature circle, each person in the group has a role. (discussion director, literary luminator, connector, and word wizard. As students are reading the book, when they gather in their literature circles, they discuss what they’ve read. 
• Reading Workshop: framework where students demonstrate their use of reading strategies by responding to books and sharing what they are reading in a group of other students.  (minilessons, statue of the class report, sustained silent reading, individual reading conferences, group sharing time)

Community of Readers: Encouraging students to read, write, and integrating various texts. How students in alliance with their friends, teachers, and peers work together in classrooms in which school reading becomes like adult reading. Students recommend books to others and vice versa.

How to Hook Students On a Book: 

• Immerse students in literature
  • Create a classroom climate in which literature is an integral component. 
  • Read and tell stories. Show films and videoclips of literature selections.
• USe instructional time to show the value of reading
  • Use class time for students to read books of their choice
  • Model reading behavior
• Help students find and share books they want to read
  • Developed annotated lists of books worth reading
  • Tell or read the beginning of interesting stories

Selecting a classroom collection of books: should include both informational text and literature. Select texts from various places. Include a selection of e-books. Books should not be chosen just for quantity. Choose series

Choosing Classroom Literature: In order to choose good books, you must be familiar with good books

• Read children’s books yourself
• Read a variety of book types
• Read books at a range of reading levels
• Share your students response to certain texts with other teachers

Determining Good Literature: All collections should contain modern, realistic, and traditional literature. Literature should also present different ethnic and minority groups as well as nontraditional families. Collections should contain books with a variety of themes and of varying difficulty. Nonfiction books should be included in all collections

Literature with a Multicultural Perspective: Books that represent minority groups and people of color can help us understand more about them, can help us appreciate them, and can also show how people are connected to one another

• Criteria: 
  • Cultural accuracy
  • Richness in cultural details
  • Authentic dialogue and relationships
  • In-depth treatment of cultural issues
  • Inclusion of members of minority groups for a purpose.

Designing a Classroom Library: students who have access to books in a classroom library will read 50% more books than those who don’t have the access.

Features should include: 

• Should be visible
• Should be a quiet place for 5-6 students to fit comfortably
• 5-6 books per child in the class should be in collection
• There should be multiple copies of the most popular books
• A variety of genres and reading levels should be included
• It should be organized. 

Listening to Literature: Students develop a positive disposition towards books when they hear stories and poems. Cumulative experiences are likely to improve reading comprehension and vocabulary development. 

Reading Aloud: 

• Preparing: 
  • Setting the mood: if it’s part of the schedule each day, get into a place where you usually read and set the scene.
  • Introducing the story: Ask student a questions, ask them to predict what they think will happen
  • Activities after reading aloud: ask students to summarize what was read, give time for students to ask questions they have. Address questions as needed.
  • Allowing others to present literature: Volunteer, guest speakers, soldiers, people in community, parents, guardians.

Helping students choose books: Students should have an easy to read book to encourage fluency and reading confidence, a “i’m working on” book where they make daily accomplishments, and a “challenge” book that they revisit repeatedly to practice and improve. Ask students what their interests are, series they have enjoyed before. 

Responses to Literature: Book talks, free response, or journals!

Reader-Response Theory: Readers must be given the opportunity to respond to what they are reading to have a deeper understanding of what they read. 

Videos:

How to organize your classroom: In this video I noticed how the classroom library was organized by topic of the book. This is something I have seen before but I’ve never been quite sure if I would like that or not. This teacher had a smart idea to have a little bun at each table with materials that students would need throughout the day!

How to choose a good-fit book: This video would be such a great video to show students who are struggling to choose a book. It goes through a really nice thought process to follow to guide the student to finding the right books!

How to pick a just right book: this video gives a good look at what each level sounds like when a student is reading. If a book is too hard, students will stumble on many words making it hard for them to comprehend what they are reading, if it’s too easy the student is making almost no mistakes, and if it is just right the student is making a couple mistakes but can still understand the text.

Rick’s reading workshop overview: My biggest takeaway is definitely when Rick is conferring with each student as they independently read. This was his time to check in with each student about their “theory”. His idea of theory is another really great one that could be useful in the future!

Rick’s reading workshop Mini Lesson: Early on in this video I noticed Rick was modeling his thinking. Modeling seems to be very important in all aspects of teaching! In this case Rick was modeling that he was coming up with a theory about the Wednesday Surprise. He was taking students through his thought process so that they knew what process to take later on!

Classroom Application: My biggest takeaway from this week’s blog is from the videos. I really enjoyed the videos this week and think that some of the ideas that were shared could be really useful in the future when I have my own classroom. The content from this week’s chapter was also interesting. I especially liked the sections about how to help students choose books to read!

Macy Bombard

Relationships between reading and writing and what the research states: Students should be invited to read what they write, and write about what they are reading. Both are language and experience based. Both require active involvement from language learners. Some conclusions about relationship between reading and writing:

• Reading and writing processes are correlated, good readers are generally good writers and vice versa
• Students who write well tend to read more than those who are less capable writers
• Wide reading may be as effective in improving writing as actual practice in writing 
• Good readers and writers are likely to engage in reading and writing independently because they have healthy concepts of themselves as readers and writers

Historical evidence shows writing and reading develop concurrently and should be cultured together. They are complementary processes.

How to create an informal writing environment:

• Give opportunities to write freely
• Encourage invented spelling
• Radiate positivity

Suggestions to encourage classroom writing:

• Encourage students to write about their interests, provide opportunities for reading literature, surfing the internet, and brainstorming
• Share good examples of student writing with students, this serves as a good model
• Value what students have written
• Be encouraging
• Do some writing of your own to share with students
• Tie writing into all curriculum
• Start a writing center where writers can go to find ideas 
• Create a relaxed atmosphere 

What can students write about: Students should be writing about things that interest them. Topics that students have strong feelings about are also good to write about. When students like what they are writing about they are more likely to want to do well.

Writing activities: 

• Penpals
• Writing stories for publication on the internet
• Writing for the school newspaper
• Author of the week
• Entering writing contests
• Daily journals
• Songwriting
• Reviews of movies or tv shows
• Cartoon scripts

Dialogue journal: Provides a natural setting which the child and teacher converse in writing. Teacher responds to the students writing with comments, questions, and invitations to students to further express their ideas

Buddy Journal: Variation of  dialogue journal. Instead of dialogue between a teacher and a student, the written conversation occurs between students. Dialogue journals should be done before buddy journaling so that students are comfortable with journaling format. Buddys may converse about anything that interests both of them. 

Key Pals: Electronic equivalent of pen pals. This can be done through email

Double-entry journals: Provides students with opportunity to identify text passages that are interesting and meaningful to them. A way to explore in writing.Students fold sheets of paper in half, creating two columns for journal entries. LEft hand column is for quotes from the text. In the right hand column readers enter their personal responses and reactions to the quotes.

Reading Journals: Provide students with more structure and less choice in deciding what they will write about. Teacher will provide a prompt to guide the students writing. 

Response journals: Response journals also include prompts from the teacher. The difference is that these journals invite students to respond to literary texts freely, within the prompt. 

Writing Notebooks: Where students gather their observations, thoughts, reactions, ideas, unusual words, pictures, and interesting facts that might later spur them to write. These notebooks are meant to provide students with a place to collect their thoughts for future journaling. 

Multigenre project: (a paper) a collection of genres that reflects multiple responses to a book, theme, or topic. Students are given choices about which genres to use, and they experiment with writing in a variety of ways. Examples of genres include advice columns, biographies, comic strips, death notices, greeting cards, posters, prayers, and talk show transcripts. 

Plot scaffolds: open ended script in which students use their imaginations and creative writing in a playful manner. Includes characters, setting, problem, and resolution with spaces for the students to write additional descriptions and problem-solving dialogue. Prior to the plot scaffold, students are taught that story plots have more than the beginning, middle, and ending. They include the answers to three questions: What if…., what is the catch, and what then (how is the problem solved?

Traditional Writing Process: 

• Brainstorming: Time to generate ideas, stimulate thinking, make plans, and create a desire to write. A way for students to get energized
• Drafting: “getting it down”. When students get their ideas down in rough draft form.  A good time for teachers to confer with students individually to answer questions and support as needed. How is the writing going, how far have they gotten, what parts are giving them problems, are they leaving anything out, what is their next step, how does the draft sound when it is read out loud, what is the major point that the students it trying to get across
• Revising: Whenever a student receives feedback it is considered a conference. Students will have many opportunities to read their work aloud during conferences. When a teacher is in a conference with a student, their role is to listen. Steps of a conference: Writer reads the draft aloud, teacher listens carefully for the meaning of the draft, teacher then mirrors the content, focuses praise, elicits clarification, makes suggestions, and seeks the writer’s commitment. Encourage students to be messy with the revision. Being neat is not as important for now. 
• Editing: where students pull together all the revisions and make a neat copy of the writing including the revisions. Accuracy counts during this stage. Attention to spelling and grammar is also important. 
• Publishing: Writing is for reading. Give students writing the opportunity to be read by others. This gives writers a sense of accomplishment and ownership. 

Writing workshop: Begins by providing students with the structure they need to understand, develop, or use specific writing strategies or by giving them direction in planning their writing or in revising their drafts. 

1. Minilesson (3-10 mins)
2. Writing process (45-120)
3. Group share session (10-15_

Minilesson: A list mini session to get students started on their writing project. 

Group share session: Purpose is to have writers reflect on the days work:

• How did the writing go?
• Did you write better today than yesterday?
• Was it hard for you to keep your mind on what you were writing?
• What do you think you’ll work on tomorrow?
• What problems did you have today?
• Raise concerns, read aloud, ,mirror the content and focus on praise
• Make suggestions

Guided Writing: Teacher scaffolds writing as it happens. This means teaching writing skills that students need based on observations and through conversations with students during their writing process. (ex: developing main idea)

Technology: 

• Text production and publishing: Because online writing is easily made to be messy and unorganized, this serves as a great way for students to continually revise their work and make changes. Using technology helps students to examine ideas, organize and report information and inquiry findings, and communicate with others. 

Classroom application: In my mind I have always known that reading and writing go hand in hand, I juts never knew exactly how. This chapter gave a really great explanation of the ways reading and writing are related and how we can incorporate each of them together.

Macy Bombard

Informational Text: Conveys factual information meant to increase an individual’s knowledge of subject matter. (textbooks, how-to books, manuals, newspaper, magazines, reports, summaries, online sources, books about science, history, social studies, and the arts). Textbooks are the most common source of informational text in classrooms with internet sources as a close second.

Academic Language: Words that are not typically used in everyday conversations. Vocab that relates to academic content. Tier 2 words; used across subject areas (alternate, represent, temporary, frequent). Tier 3 words; content specific words that are critical to understanding new concepts from informational text (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division).Academic language is often bolded or italicized. 

Readability: Help estimate difficulty of any text. Not intended to be very precise. Most common formula involves a measure of sentence length and word length to tell of the grade level score. Score is meant to indicate reading achievement level students would need to be at to understand the text. (Fry reliability graph, flesch-Kincaid, Sate Chall, Spache).

Informational Text Circles: In small groups, students are assigned a section to read. Each student assumes a role and is then responsible for reporting about their role to the rest of the group after the given amount of time. After reading, each student will report what they learned and may touch on some academic language they came across. To ensure that each group member is participating, a rubric may be incorporated. 

Jigsaw: Students assume roles as they read and share their understanding of the content in small groups. Similar to lit circles but organized differently. Each group is made up of 3-5 members. Each student is given a copy of the same text. The first groups the students are in are “home groups”. While reading the text in the home groups, each student becomes an expert on their assumed role. After the reading, each expert meets with the other experts from the other home groups who shared their same role. These are “expert groups”. After the expert groups meet, students meet back with their home groups to share and teach the group about their topic. 

Idea Sketches: Graphic organizers students complete in small groups as they read the text. Purpose is for students to read a section of the text and focus on the main ideas and supporting details, adding information to the organizers as they read. 

1. Introduce overall topic understudy, activate background knowledge through discussion. Notice the organization of the text by finding the main idea and subtopics.
2. Chunk text by splitting into sections. Topic headings or subtopics are good dividers to go by.
3. Divide class into small groups or pairs. Assign chunks they will read. 
4. Instruct groups to put the topic assigned into the center of a poster board piece and circle it. This is the beginning of the group’s sketch. Model how to make an organizer by sketching boxes, triangles, diamonds, and other shapes to add information into.
5. Each group reads their chunk silently or aloud. Together students sketch information into the organizer that best represents the information they read. During this time, the teacher circles and checks in with each group. 
6. Display poster boards in chronological order. Add clarifying information with sticky notes

Trade Books: Literature and informational books widely available in books stores . Used by teachers, to supplement textbooks or replace.

Text Set: Group of trade books that have a common theme

Narrative Informational Text: Author will typically tell a fictional story to convey factual information. 

Expository Informational Books: Don’t contain stories. They contain information that typically follows specific text structures such as description, sequence, cause and effect, comparison and contrast, and problem solving. May also contain a table of contents, glossary, illustrations, charts, graphs. These books do not need to be read in a specific order.

Mixed Informational Books: Narrate stories and include factual information in surrounding text. Surrounding the story are true facts and illustrations. It is important to help students distinguish facts from fiction with this type of book. 

Idea Circles: Small peer-led group discussions. Discussions focus on concepts in multiple text sources. Groups are made up of 3-6 students. Each student reads different informational text, bringing unique information to the idea group. During discussion, each student talks about what they read about the concept and the students compare their findings.

Macy Bombard

Narrative Text: considered fiction. Genres include:mysteries, fantasies, fairy tales, science fiction, myth, and folk tales. Some can include both fact and fiction

Elements In A Story: 

• Beginning event- an idea or action that sets the scene for further events
• Internal Response (followed by goal or problem)- character’s inner reaction to the beginning event. This is where the character tries to set a goal or solve the problem
• Attempts- character’s efforts in achieving the goal. Often times there are several attempts
• One or more outcomes- success/failure of character’s attempts
• Resolution- long-range consequences because of character’s success/failure
• A reaction- idea, emotion, or further events that show a character’s feelings about success/failure. Relates events in story to set of broader concerns

Scaffolding Instruction: teacher models strategies step-by-step and demonstrates thinking process before, during, and after reading. Next, students engage in guided practice followed by independent practice and application. Strategies should not be taught in isolation. Students should know how to use a variety of strategies in a variety of settings. 

Literal Questions: Answered by using information from the text

Inferential Questions: Answered using background knowledge and information from the text. 

Evaluative (critical reading) Questions: Answered by making judgements about what is read. 

Active Comprehension: Process of students generating questions and making connections throughout reading

ReQuest(Reciprocal Questioning):  Strategy that encourages students to ask their own questions about material that is being read. 

• Teacher selects a story for group to read and divides it into logical stopping points
• The group and the teacher read the first section silently with the intent of asking question/s after reading
• Teacher models questions, small group discussion takes place
• Next section is read silently followed by another question based group discussion
• After next section is read, children begin asking their questions, followed by group talk
• Process continues with teacher and students taking turns asking questions 
• Teachers should model why, why not, how come, how do you know, what do you think, types of questions

QAR’s (Question Answer Relationships): Helps learners to know what information sources are available for seeking answers to different types of questions. Where is the information coming from? How did we find it? What resources did we use?

QtA (Questioning the Author): Devised to demonstrate the kinds of questions students need to ask in order to think more deeply and construct meaning about segments of text as they read. Shows readers how to read text closely as if the author were there to be challenged and questioned. 

Close Reading: Reading short selections of complex text multiple times and examining the text for evidence that answers text-specific questions. Foster close reading by teaching to make logical inferences, to identify and summarize main ideas and details, to analyze text structure, and to interpret how words are used in texts

Annotating Text: Notetaking strategy where students jot down thoughts within the actual text and margins that indicate the evidence that supports text-based questions. Sticky notes, highlights, pens, markers are materials that are often used. Symbols such as “?” or “!” are used to indicate confusion or key piece of evidence

Reciprocal Teaching: Approach to scaffolding reading comprehension. Teachers introduce 4 strategies, model the strategies, and gradually encourage independent use of the strategies in small groups as students take on the role of the teacher. Teacher starts by modeling the strategies while leading a discussion of the text. Students are then encouraged to add their remarks 

• Predicting what the text is about
• Raising questions about the text
• Summarizing the text
• Clarifying difficult vocab and concepts

Think-alouds: Teachers and students share their thoughts, discuss what they wonder about and what confuses them, and make connections as they are reading. A good time to use this would be when the teacher is reading aloud to the students. By modeling comprehension strategies, students are encouraged to share their own thoughts.

Story Map: Way of identifying major structural elements. Forms the basis for developing a line of questions that will help students grasp the story parts that are in discussion. 

Schema:  Students understand that there is a beginning, middle, and end to every story

Activities to build schema for stories:

• Read, tell, and perform stories in class: 
• Show relationships between story parts: Flowchart
• Reinforce story knowledge through instructional activities: 
  • Story Frames: provides student with a skeletal paragraph; a sequence of spaces tied together with transition words and connectors that signal a line of thought
  • Circular Story Map:Uses pictures to depict sequence of events leading to the problem in the story. Useful for students whose strengths include visual representation. 

DR-TA (directed reading think alouds): Builds critical awareness of the reader’s role and responsibility in interacting with the text. Involves readers in the process of predicting, verifying, judging, and extending the text material. 

Discussion Webs: Requires students to explore both sides of an issue during discussion before drawing conclusions.

Text Connections: Text-to-self; asks student to share what a piece of text reminds them about personally, text-to-text; asks student to recall another text that reminds them of the one they are reading, and text-to-world; asks student to make connection beyond the story relating to world issues and topics. 

Reading Rocket Takeaways: 

1. I really liked when the reading rockets site was talking about complex sentences. Sometimes students have difficulty understanding sentences if they are too wordy. A way to help students break down the sentence is to have them identify the subject and then ask the student what the subject of the sentence is doing. 
2. A strategy that I just so happen to use and kind of forget that students may use as well is mental imagery. To promote mental imagery, prompt students to picture a setting, character, or event described in the text. For me, mental imagery helps me to better understand what I am reading and I tend to enjoy the text more.
3.  I have never really understood how I could possibly teach students to read between the lines. Reading rockets says a good way to do this is to review with students what the text says explicitly. After that, starting up a discussion about what the author meant and the message they are trying to convey, how the characters may have felt or what they were thinking. This is done mostly by modeling!

Classroom Application: Comprehension is such a hefty topic and there’s a lot to unpack. I really enjoyed the reading rockets module on comprehension because it used a lot of application strategies that could be helpful to me in the future. The information in the text was familiar at some points, but at other points it felt like I was learning something totally new. I feel that there is always more to learn about comprehension and this week’s content really taught me a lot more strategies of comprehension and teaching it.

Macy Bombard

Aptitude Hypothesis: Signal importance of reading aloud to children and immersing them in written language

Knowledge Hypothesis: Signal importance of reading aloud to children and immersing them in written language

Instrumental Hypothesis: If word meanings are taught well, students will find comprehending material to be much easier

Vocabulary: the words we use, recognize, and respond to in meaningful acts of communication

Components of vocabulary: Listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The components act as a continuum. A child’s first vocabulary is listening vocabulary. 

Principles to Guide Vocabulary Development: 

1. Select Words That Children Will Encounter While Reading Text and Content Material
   1. Just because a word is long, does not mean it should be chosen. Choose words that students will read most often and that are useful to them 
   2. Choose keywords which covey major ideas and concepts related to the text and are essential to understanding the passage
   3. Useful words- words that are relevant 
   4. Interesting words- Words that will “tickle” the imagination
   5. Vocabulary Building words: Words that will urge child to seek clues for the meaning
2. Teach Words in  Relation to Other Words
   1. Teaching words in relation to words that students already know. This gets students to use background knowledge to detect similarities and differences.
3. Teach Students to Relate Words to Their Background Knowledge
   1. Ask yourself, “What is it that students already know that they can use as an anchor point, as a way of accessing this new concept?”
4. Teach Words in Prereading Activities to Activate Knowledge and Use Them in Postreading Discussion Response, and Retelling
   1. Focusing on words before reading activates their prior background knowledge
   2. ELL’s have a much easier time learning vocabulary when it is integrated into other activities. Isolating vocabulary into its own drill makes it more confusing and hard to understand for ELLs
   3. Use the words in a conversation with the student to build more meaning
5. Teach Words Systematically and in Depth
   1. Go beyond having students repeat a definition
   2. Better ideas are: restating definitions in their own words, comparing definition to personal experiences, makeup sentence using the word
   3. Initiate conversations, ask open ended questions, provide feedback
   4. Students should be engaged in words by seeing them, hearing them, saying them, manipulating them, and playing with them
   5. For ELLs, read aloud sessions are effective
6. Awaken Interest in and Enthusiasm for Words
   1. A teachers attitude towards vocabulary can be contagious. Share words of interest to you and tell stories about the words and their derivations
   2. Use different forms of media for instruction
   3. MAKE IT FUN!

Strategies for Vocabulary and Concept Development

• Relating Experiences to Vocabulary Learning
  • The more direct and experience based, the better
  • Vicarious experiences: Demonstrations, simulations, dramatization, visual and audio media, reading to children, keeping vocab logs, and reading on one’s own.
  • Vicarious experiences can be used!
  • Use technology to your advantage
• Using Context for Vocabulary Growth
  • When teaching new meanings of words, sometimes context is not enough. 
  • The instructional goal should be to teach students to use context to gain information about the meaning of new terms
  • This concept is especially important for struggling readers
• Developing Word Meanings
  • Definitional knowledge-ability to relate new words to known words. Built thought synonyms, antonyms, and multiple meaning words
  • Synonyms: words that are similar in meaning to other words. 
    • Focus of instruction is to help student associate new words with more familiar ones
  • Antonyms: words that are opposite in meaning to other words
    • Matching activities, selecting activities, etc.
  • Multiple meaning words tend to confuse students 
    • Give students an opportunity to see how words operate in context.
• Classifying and Categorizing Words
  • Give the opportunity for students to think about, think through, and think with vocabulary. 
  • Categorization: Students recognize they can group words that label ideas, events, or objects. Involves process of joining , excluding, selecting, and implying. Help students for relationships among words in the same manner as open and closed sorts. Amount of assistance given is the difference. 
  • Word Sorts: simple yet valuable activity to initiate. Children sort through vocab terms that are written on cards or listen on  sheet. The objective is to group words into different categories by looking for shared features among their meanings.
    • Closed sort: students know categories ahead of time
    • Open sort: No categories are provided
  • Concept Circles: putting words or phrases into sections of a circle then directing students to describe the relationships between the sections. If a section does not relate, students could possibly shade in that section.
  • Semantic Mapping: Webbing. Shows reading and writers how to organize important information. Provides a visual display of how words are related to other words
  • Analogy: Comparison of two similar relationships on one side the words are related in a certain way, on the other side the words are related in the same way as the first set of words.
  • Paired-Word Sentence Generation: can be used to test students’ understanding of difficult concepts. Instructional strategy for developing word meanings through stories and writing
  • Semantic Analysis to Writing: 
    • Teacher identifies theme and composes a question involving critical thinking related to the theme
    • Teacher selects words used by the author or consults a thesaurus to find about 5 words, both synonyms or antonyms, relating to the theme
    • Teacher constructs think sheet for discussion purposes as well as for writing
  • Predictogram: In groups students predict how they think the author will use the words the teacher chose that might be challenging, in the story. 
  • Self selection strategy: children select words to be studied. 
    • Ask students to bring one word to class that they believe the class should learn. Teacher also chooses word
    • These words are then written on the board and students give the definitions they gleaned from the context in which they found the word. 
    • Class members add any necessary information
    • Students and teacher consult pertinent references such as dictionaries
  • Word knowledge rating: way to get children to analyze how well they know vocab words. 
    • I’ve never seen the word
    • I’ve heard of it but don’t know what it means
    • I recognize it in context. It has something to do with…
    • I know the word in one or several meanings

Classroom Connection: I really enjoyed all the different ideas for activities that this chapter gave. I rented the textbook for this class but I may need to purchase it after this semester as I have found that many chapters have so much critical information. After reading this chapter I have a much better idea of how I can make vocabulary instruction more fun! This will be very helpful when tutoring!

Macy Bombard

Fluency: Reading easily and well. Ability to decode and comprehend at the same time. Less important aspects are accuracy and speed.

• 3 Dimensions:
  • Accuracy
    •  word decoding: sound out word in text with few errors
  • Automatic Processing (automaticity): 
    • Reader uses minimal effort in decoding, meaning more focus is on comprehension
  • Prosody: 
    • Intonation, pitch, stress, pauses, duration

Effective Fluency Instruction: 

1. Instruction should include the teaching of basic skills such as phonemic awareness and phonics. A model of what fluency looks and sounds like should be used
2. Practice should include some decodable text and other independent reading level texts. Strategies such as repeated readings, should be utilized
3. Assessment: assess all dimensions; accuracy, automaticity, and prosody

Automaticity: reader recognized or identifies words easily, accurately, and rapidly, all done with little mental energy. 

Prosody: Close with comprehension. Has to do with characteristics of oral reading that allow it to sound expressive.

Predictable Texts: Context or setting is familiar or predictable to most children. Pictures support the text. Language is natural and the storyline is predictable. Types:

• Chain or circular story: ending leads back to the beginning
• Cumulative story: when new event occurs, all previous events are repeated
• Pattern story: scenes are repeated throughout the story
• Question and answer: same or similar questions are repeated
• Repetition of phrase: word order in a phrase or sentence is repeated
• Rhyme: rhyming words, refrains, or patterns are used
• Songbooks: familiar songs with predictable elements

Strategies to Assist with Fluency: 

• Choral Reading: Reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students. After hearing the teacher read, students reread the text together
• Echo Reading: teacher reads a line and then the students echo by reading the same line back.
• Fluency Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI): The use of the basal.
• Reader’s Theater: Oral presentation of drama, prose, or poetry by 2 or more readers. Reader’s theater typically follows a program and is executed over the course of a few weeks.
• Repeated Readings: having a child read a short passage many times, each time with a different level of support
• Paired Repeated Readings: student selects their own passage. The passage should be about 50 words long. In pairs, students read their own passage silently  and then they read aloud to each other multiple times. Readers may ask their partner for help if they get stuck on a word.
• Fluency Development Lesson (FDL): 
  • Read text expressively to the class while students follow along silently with their own copies
  • Discuss content of text with attention on comprehension and vocab as well as expression teacher used while reading to the class.
  • Together, read the text chorally several times
  • Have class partner read multiple times
  • Have a brief word study 
  • Have volunteers perform the text as individuals, pairs, or groups
• Automated Reading: Listening while reading a text. Encourages simultaneous reading and listening. A child reads along with a recording of the story
• Oral Recitation Lesson (ORL): 2 components; Direct Instruction: incorporates comprehension, practice, and then performance, Indirect Instruction: practicing until mastery is achieved. 
• Support Reading Strategy:occurs over 3 days
  • Day 1: teacher reads a story in a fluent, expressive voice. Teacher stops throughout reading to ask the children to clarify what is happening in the story and to predict what will happen next. Teacher and children echo read the story
  • Day 2: teacher pairs the readers. Pairs reread the story, each reading alternating pages. Each pair is then assigned a short segment from the story 
  • Day 3: Individual children read to the teacher. Teacher monitors the reading by taking a running record 
• Cross-Age Reading: 
  • Teacher helps older student select an appropriate book
  • Older students practices text with repeated readings
  • Teacher works with the older student about how he or she will present the book. Older student meets younger student and reads the book to him or her
  • After reading, both students share their experience. Older students writes a reflection

What Parents Can Do At Home to Help Their Student Become a Fluent Reader: 

• Spend more time reading with the child. Encourage them to spend more time with print
• Read aloud. Parents should read aloud to their kids while the child watched the pages
• Reread familiar texts. Rereading favorite books helps children become fluent
• Echo Read. Parent reads a short segment and the child echoes it back to them
• Use predictable books. Read books with predictable, rhythmic patterns

Assessing Fluency: 

• Accuracy and Automaticity: Take timed samples of student’s reading and compare it to standards. Number of correct words per minute assesses both accuracy and automaticity
• Prosody: Use NAEP oral reading fluency scale. This is a 4 level scale that focuses on the level of skill a student demonstrates in phrasing and expression while reading alouds

Reading Rate: Number of words read per minute, standard measurement of fluency

WPM or WCPM: Words Correct Per Minute. Subtract total number of errors from total number of words read in 1 minute. 

Classroom Connection: Prior to reading this chapter I knew the basics of reading fluency but I didn’t know too much in depth detail. This chapter really explained everything thoroughly and helped me understand all the different dimensions and aspects of fluency in a very organized manner.

Macy Bombard

Used Interchangeably:

• Word Attack 
• Word Analysis
• Word recognition
• Decoding
  • All of these terms can be used interchangeably to define word identification 
  • All suggest act of translating print into speech through analysis of letter-sound relationships
  • Phonics
  • Word Identification: Putting a name or label on words that are encountered in print. Encompasses use of multiple cues to identify unfamiliar words.

Word Recognition: immediate identification. Sometimes referred to as sight-word recognition or sight vocabulary. A readers’ ability to recognize words rapidly and automatically. Involves making associations between particular spellings, pronunciations, and meanings by applying knowledge of letter-sound relationships. 

Phonics: A tool to pronounce words by associating sounds (phonemes) with letters (graphemes). Involves immediate word identification 

Prealphabetic Phase: Also called logographic or visual cue phase. Occurs before development of alphabetic knowledge. Children can recognize some words at sight. Occurs during preschool. Words identified are often environmental print.

Partial Alphabetic Phase: Students start to develop some knowledge of letters and can notice letter-sound relationships. Emerges during kindergarten and 1st grade for most children. Students remember how to read specific words by detecting how a few letters correspond to sounds in the word’s pronunciation. 

Full alphabetic Phase: Occurs when readers identify words by matching all of the letters and sounds. They understand the letter-sound relationship enough to decode unfamiliar words. Student can sound out words 

Consolidated Alphabetic Stage: Student relies less on individual letter-sound relationships. Now they use their knowledge of letter patterns to speed up the process. They are able to analyze chunks of letters within words. At this stage, the reader can segment words into sounds units onsets (Initial consonants and consonant patterns that come at the beginning of syllables) and rimes (vowels and consonants that follow them at the end of syllables. 

Analytic Phonics: “whole-to-part” instruction. Children first learn the whole word and then they analyze individual parts. Lessons rely heavily on workbooks and practice exercises. 

Synthetic Phonics: Teaching sounds in isolation, then blending the sounds to form words. 

Digraphs: Two vowels that are adjacent to one another. First vowel is usually long and the second is silent. oa, ee, ea, ai, and ay. 

Consonant Blends: 2 or 3 consonants grouped together. Each letter keeps its sounds. Examples: bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl, br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr, sc, sk, sm, sn, sp, st, sw, scr, spr, str.

Diphthongs: Sounds that consist of a blend of 2 separate vowel sounds. Oi, oy, au, aw, ou, ow. These typically are not taught formally.

Syllables: Vowel or cluster of letters obtaining a vowel and pronounced as a unit. Phonograms are syllables. The number of syllables in a word is equal to the number of vowel sounds. Patterns: VCCV, VCV1 (when 1 consonant is between 2 vowels. Division is before the consonant. Ex. re-view), VCV2 (when using VCV pattern1 doesn’t result in a familiar word, divide after the consonant. Ex. sal-ad).

Analogy-Based Instruction: Children are taught to recognize onsets and rimes as they learn to decode unfamiliar words. Notes that children learn to read words better in context than out of context and that “chunking” words is what good readers do. Focuses on having children compare and contrast words they already know in order to figure out unknown words. Favored by teachers who believe that children need to actively engage in word study to make words, learn spelling patterns, and draw analogies between known and unknown word parts.

Embedded Phonics Instruction: Associated with holistic, meaning-centered teaching. Children should be cognizant of what they are learning and teaching must be multifaceted and meaning centered. Some claim it’s not systemic and intensive enough and tends to be incidental. 

Phonograms: Letter clusters that help form word families or rhyming words

Making Words: Steps

1. Decide on rime you wish to practice, develop a rime card for each of the students
2. Develop set of consonant letter cards for each student that can be used to make words with rime that has been targeted for practice
3. Direct students to use the letter cards to make the first word
4. Invite students to now change the word
5. Repeat the activity until all of the words have been made

Cloze Procedure: Strategy in which words or letters are omitted from text and students are required to fill in the blanks using information from the passage. Cloze passages can be constructed from materials that are at first relatively easy to read

• Selective word deletion
• Systematic word deletion
• Partial word deletion 

Cross-Checking: Rereading a sentence or two to “cross-check” or confirm, modify, reject- probable pronunciations of unknown words encountered during reading. If the sentence makes sense, the meaning confirms the reader’s cross-checking.

Structural Analysis: Involves identifying words through meaningful units such as prefixes, suffixes, and root words

Morpheme: smallest meaningful unit of a word

Inflected Endings: suffixes that change the tense or degree of a word but not its meaning

Classroom Connections: This chapter was a lot of review but was helpful to brush up and review terms that we have already learned. This chapter also gave a lot of examples of each concept which will be helpful to refer back to.

Macy Bombard

High-Stakes Testing: standardized reading assessment. Consequences, good or bad result in promotion or tension decisions based on performance. Intended to provide the public with a guarantee that students can perform at a level necessary to function in society.

Authentic Assessment: done with reading and writing tasks that look to be real, student is primarily in control of reading or writing tasks. Students develop ownership, engage thoughtfully, and learn to assess themselves.

Retelling: Assessing the student’s understanding of the sequence of the story and characterization. This type of assessment students can do for themselves, making it an authentic assessment.Formative Assessment: When the information gathered is used to make changes and adapt instruction to fit students needs.

Progress Monitoring: Usually completed in a preplanned, regular schedule to evaluate the rate of progress of students. Helps measure student performance  as well as improvement for or responsiveness to instruction.

Standardized tests: machine scored instruments that track reading performance during single administration. Scores are useful in making comparisons among individuals or groups at the local, state and national level. 

Norms: Test administered to a large amount of students to represent average scores according to multiple factors such as age, sex, race, grade, and socioeconomic status. 

Reliability: Stability of a test. Does the test measure ability consistently over time or equivalently across forms?

Validity: How well a test measures what it is supposed to measure.

Types of assessments: 

• Survey Test: measures only general performance.
• Diagnostic Test: Intended to provide more detailed info about individual students’ strengths and weaknesses
• Criterion-Referenced Test: mastery of reading skill should be assessed in relation to specific instructional objectives. Performance is measured using an acceptable score for each objective. Performance is judged by what a student can or cannot do with regard to skill objectives

Informal Assessment: Doesn’t compare the performance of a testes group or individual to normative population. Given throughout the school year for instructional purposes.

Informal Reading Inventory: Individually administered reading test. Consists of a series of graded word lists, graded reading passages, and comprehension questions. Passages are used to assess how students interact with print orally and silently. Information gathered should allow teachers to pair students with appropriate instruction materials.

Independent reading level: Level where student reads fluently with excellent comprehension. Student functions on their own

Instructional Reading Level: Level where students can make progress in reading with instructional guidance. (Teaching level)

Frustrational Reading Level: Level where the student is unable to pronounce any of the words or is unable to comprehend the material satisfactorily

Miscue: deviation between what the reader says and the word on the page. Provides a piece of evidence that the student thoughts “cued” the word they said. Can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively

Miscue Analysis: can be applied to the graded passages from IRI or to the oral reading of a single passage that presents the students with an extended and intensive reading experience. Helps teachers determine the extent to which the reader uses and coordinates graphic-sound, syntactic, and semantic information from the text.

Running Record: assessment system for determining students’ development of oral reading fluency and word identification skills and strategies.. Used by teachers to guide a student’s approach to learning when needed at frequent intervals

Words per minute: Words correct per minute: Monitor oral reading development. Involves children reading aloud for 1 minute from materials used in their reading lessons. Teacher marks any words read incorrectly.

Anecdotal Notes: Capture the gist of an incident that reveals something the teacher considers significant to understanding a child’s literacy learning. Intended to safeguard against limitations of memory

Checklists: Consists of categories that have been presented for a specific diagnostic purpose. Should guide teachers to consider and notice what students can do in terms of their reading and writing strategies.

Interviewing: Helps teacher discover what children are thinking and feeling. Helps lead to a better understanding of reading interest and attitudes, how students perceive their strengths and weaknesses, and how they perceive processes related to language learning

Portfolios: Document literacy development of a student and include evidence of student work in various stages. Offers insight to the process of student development

This video is so inspiring and makes me want to become a teacher like Mr. Jenson. I dream of being a teacher who can have that great of an impact on my students!

Formal: Developed on state or national level, supported by data, Norm referenced scoring, strict procedures, measures longitudinal achievement for students

Informal: Teacher developed, unsupported by data, usually criterion references, normal classroom rules, Measure shorter achievement periods.

Formative: Quick check for understanding (thumbs up/down)

Summative: Measure long term academic goals (midterm, final)

Diagnostic: Used to get prior knowledge on students and plan future instruction (pre course test)

Formal: strict procedures and rules (standardized test, ACT)

Informal: Lack performance data and use normal classroom procedures (exit ticket)

Behavioral: functional behavioral assessment

Rating Scale: students gage their understanding on a topic (1-10)

Emotional: Written as observations

Screening: Found in RTI

Authentic: takes place in authentic setting (speech)

Performance Based: Assess students ability to complete work in an academic related task

Group/Individual: IEP is individual

Criterion Referenced: graded based on amount of content mastered

Norm referenced : compares students with similar demographics

This video really helped me decipher between formative, summative, and diagnostic assessments. This could be a very helpful video to refer back to when I am studying for the FORT

Norm referenced: Rank students based on achievement, Scored given as rank based on other students scores, occurs is very large groups of students, takes longer to take, developed on large scale

Criterion Referenced: Measure the skills and knowledge a student has mastered, scores given as percentage, assess a smaller group of students, lasts a class period, teacher developed

Classroom Application: This chapter made me want to right down everything it said as notes. This will be a chapter to study closely when I am preparing for the FORT. The terms in this chapter could be easily confused so it will be crucial for me to really pay close attention to this chapter!

Macy Bombard

Emergent Literacy: Concept supporting that learning to read is a result of a home environment where a child begins to learn about reading and writing from birth through observing and interacting with adults and other children.

• Assumes children are born ready to learn about literacy and that learning about literacy is an ongoing process.

How Reading Develops: Although students enter school at about the same age, they enter at all different stages of their development. Their tends to be a similar pattern that occurs as children learn how to read; Print awareness, Pretend reading, Identifying Alphabet Letters, Beginning Reading

Phases: 

1. Awareness and exploration: Brings at birth and continues through preschool. Stage where child becomes curious about print. This stage is also when children start to pretend read and begin scribbling and “drawing”
   1. Environmental Print: Written language found in the environment; books, supermarkets, stores, restaurants, TV, video games, labels on products
2. Experimental Reading and Writing: Starts around Kindergarten. Children start to develop concepts of print; reading left to right, top to bottom, etc. This is where children continue to recognize letters and their correlating sounds, rhyming, and writing letters of the alphabet as well as high frequency words
3. Early Reading and Writing: First grade. Children start to read simple stories and can write more in depth on topics they have prior knowledge on. Comprehension and predicting skills start to develop. Through their writing, more awareness of punctuation and capitalization is developed. 
4. Transitional Reading and Writing: 2nd grade. Reading with greater fluency and comprehending more efficiently. Child can now read fluently, silt read, spell conventionally, and proofread their own writing
5. Independent and Productive Reading and Writing: starting the lifelong process of becoming an independent reader. Writing becomes more sophisticated.

How Writing Develops:  learning to write happens through exploration

• Scribbling: A primary form of written expression for very young children
  • Early scribbling: uncontrolled
  • Controlled Scribbling: marks are repeated (ages 3-6)
  • Scribble Drawing: Shows signs of knowing the difference between writing and drawing. Starts to understand that letters are symbols and have meaning
  • Name Scribbling: Scribbles mean something and are trying to convey a message 
• Children should be given ample opportunities to scribble and eventually draw and write. 

Phonological Awareness: Hearing sounds of language apart from its meaning. Hearing the number of words in a sentence, number of syllables in a word. 

• Continuum: Rhyming-Alliteration-Sentence Segmenting-Blending and segmenting syllables-Phonemic awareness

Alphabet Knowledge: Ability to name, write, and identify the sounds of all 26 letters of the alphabet. Letters are building blocks for the writing system.

Environmental Print: Print that surrounds the child during their everyday lives. Things such as labels, menus, signs, charts, etc.

Invented Spelling: spellings that children use when they are early in their reading and writing development as they are learning to associate letters with sounds

Developmental Writing: Early writing supports later writing by developing the understanding of the purpose and functions of written language. A predictor of later reading successes.

Print Knowledge: Ability to recognize print and understand how it works and carries meaning. How to hold a book, reading from left to right, top to bottom, the text carries the meaning (not the pictures), stories are built from words. The ability to match spoken words with written words.

Literate Environment: Environment that fosters interest and curiosity about written language and also supports a child’s efforts to become a reader and writer. 

• At Home: Anything with print will interest an early reader. Young children could also utilize the library. Reading aloud. Reading in front of the child so they observe experienced readers and become intrigued
• Research confirms children who begin reading early have a few similar conditions in their home environment
  • Access to a wide variety of print, books, magazines, newsp, etc.
  • Parents demonstrate use of written language for various purposes
  • Parents assist in early attempts of literacy and are open to questions
  • Parents and siblings read to the child regularly
• In the classroom: Children feel free to take risks because they are aware that errors are expected and accepted
  • Classroom Design: Rich with print. The environment itself becomes a “teacher”. Print around the room should reflect print that supports curriculum and promotes active engagement. Print should be put at eye level, there should be an obvious classroom theme, vocabulary should be scattered throughout, and the classroom should be exciting and intriguing. 
    • Book area with books organized and space looking inviting and comfortable . Books should range in difficulty. The book area should be away from dramatic play and block toys. Book should be available in all areas of classroom
    • Listening area: A center where students can use headphones to listen to books on devices. This area should also be inviting and comfortable
    • Computer Area: children can use headphones to work at computers on meaningful activities that support language and literacy
    • Writing area: Should we stocked up with a variety of paper and tools. Alphabet should be displayed at eye level and words should be written on cards (including students names)
  • Literacy related play center

Shared Reading: Children in a classroom or small group all participate in the reading of a story. Big books with large print and illustrations are usually used 

How to promote Oral language development: Parents and caregivers should be having conversations with the child throughout the day. Conversations Should be frequent and meaningful

• Use rich and abstract vocabulary
• Ask questions that require child to express themselves and use language
• Repeat, extend, and restate what the child says so that they can hear their own ideas
• Give full attention and eye contact to the child when they are speaking
• Provide explanations for why a child needs to do something
• Read books aloud

Concept of Print: Knowing how to hold a book, turn a page, and read from left to right and top to bottom. The text carries the meaning, not the illustrations

Developing Early Literacy Skills: Reading aloud to children and giving them ample opportunities to be exposed to text

Language- Experience Stories: permits young children to share experiences, listen to and tell stories, dictate words, sentences, and write independently. An account told by a child and printed by another person

Phonemic Segmentation: segmenting sounds in words. Elkonin boxes are a great way to support phonemic segmentation development

Invented Spelling Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh0Sb2SC_38 

• By encouraging invented spelling, students are able to write about whatever they want instead of only writing words they know how to spell. It also gives teachers a good insight into what the child knows about word structure, speech sounds, how letters represent sounds, etc. Encourages students to really think about what sounds they hear in words. Helps students independently discover spelling patterns

Key links shared reading video: https://youtu.be/jfGjgOc-rJw 

• Day 1: reading the entire story and focusing on comprehension. Making sure to use expression and characterization while reading. Children can identify the problem and put themselves in the shoes of the characters
• Day 2: Focus on vocabulary. Rereading the book. Have students read pages with you. Focusing on the key words
• Day 3: Focuses on flow, phrasing. Looking into clues to help with reading expression, such as commas, ellipses, periods, speech marks,  etc
• Day 4: Focusing on phonic knowledge and phonemic awareness. 
• Day 5: focusing on oral and written language

Shared reading: First Grade #1 Video: https://youtu.be/s1gBauKkbJs 

• Teacher reads a page then the student read the same thing she read after. Pauses in the story to talk about key words and what they mean and how they are used in the story. The next time the story is read, the teacher and students read together at the same time. This time they focused on sounds in a word and where to put the sneaky -e

Classroom Application: This story really opened my eyes about just how much goes into learning to read and write. I never knew there were so many components to scribbling and that scribbling means so much more than just a drawing. I really enjoyed reading about the 5 phases of literacy development and learning what age students’ should be at during each phase.

Macy Bombard

ENGED 370

Translanguaging: View of English language learning characterized by speaking one language then switching to another language during communication. Can be referred to as LOTE

• In the classroom can provide safe environment for ELL students while also fostering academic achievement

Instructional Strategies for Students Speaking Diverse Languages: 

• Label the classroom with the ELL first language (light switch, white board, desks, etc. )
• Include books from multiple languages in the classroom and school libraries
• Allow and encourage students to bring in artifacts of their culture. Encourage students to participate in the selection
• Assist in the publishing and sharing of students’ writing in their first language
• Enlist the help of bilingual aides- other students, parents, teacher aides, community volunteers
• Incorporate students produced or commercial videos and computer software to support ELL and to improve students’ self esteem
• Assist ELLs in finding support on the internet (24 hour chat rooms)
• Connect and communicate with families
  • Sheltered english adaptations: Student is not proficient in teacher’s first language, and teacher is not proficient in student’s first language
    • Allow students the time to express their knowledge through drawings, pointing, and manipulating objects
    • Demonstrate concepts with body language. Use all senses
    • Give ample wait time
    • Keep language simple
    • Adapt classroom materials by adding pictures, charts, diagrams, and graphic organizers
  • Instructional Conversations: Teacher facilitates students’ prior knowledge and experience on a topic, builds on the students background, engages in extensive instruction, and guides understanding
    • Teacher scaffolds learning rather than expecting yes or no answers
  • Response Protocol: ELLs may only respond to questions with 1 word answers. With response protocol, teacher would then expand their response to encourage student learning. Student will then often times be entourage to repeat the expanded response
  • Wordless Books: Serves as an effective way to foster meaning-making and comprehension, as well as language development for ELLs. Vocabulary can be learned through these books as well

• Contributions Approach: Focuses on holidays and festivities that a particular culture celebrates
• Additive Approach: Focuses on thematic units about different cultures that are integrated into the curriculum
• Transformative Approach: More social; Students read and discuss various cultural perspectives
• Academic and Cognitive Diversity: High and low incidence; Low: Hearing and visual impairments, autism , developmental delay; High: Significant learning disabilities
  • Public Law 94-142: Education for All Handicapped Children Act; Passed in 1975, based on several principles for example all children are entitled to a free and appropriate education, and an IEP must be designed for all children with disabilities
  • IDEA: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, added many stipulations including, “Special education teachers must be highly qualified
  • Dyslexia: Specific reading disability in which individuals have difficulty processing phonological components of language
  • Exceptional Students: Those identified as gifted or talented. Giftedness can be described as abundant talent in any of the seven intelligences 
• Instructional Principles for Academic and Cognitive Diversity: 
  • Assess students regularly, focus instruction in critical strengths and weaknesses
  • Use authentic learning experiences
  • Use students’ interests as a focus during instruction
  • Give positive feedback no matter how small a step in the right direction may be
  • Engage parents in learning process
    • Inclusion: children with special needs are included in regular classroom and receive assistance from regular education teacher as well as SPED teacher. This allows the student to experience instruction that focuses on their strengths and gives the opportunity for them to set higher goals for themselves. Meetings will often be held to address appropriate accommodations and modifications for the student to be included in the class
    • Curriculum Compacting: Done to provide gifted students with more challenging in depth content. Curriculum is compressed
      • First, teachers look over curriculum to identify content, objectives, and outcomes
      • Next, student is assessed on their knowledge and skills based on the content of the teachers’ objectives for the lessin, theme, unit
      • When the student masters the content they collaborate with teacher on ways to enrich the students knowledge by deciding alternative accelerated venues of learning (project-oriented, Research-based, focused on students interests)
      • Differentiated Instruction: Based on assessing students’ needs on a regular basis while implementing multiple approaches to learning and blending whole class, small group, and individual instruction. Differentiation can be based on modality preferences, levels of readiness for a topic, abilities, and interests
      • Inquiry Learning: Approach for teaching math and science that can challenge gifted students in literacy learning along with those with special needs. Based on a constructivist approach. Focuses learning on the meaning-making process, children will experiment, solve problems, and discover how the world functions. For gifted and talented students, some inquiry learning will be on a computer using internet and other software
• Classroom Application: I really enjoyed reading through this chapter. Sometimes I feel that teachers are urged to make accommodations and to make learning personal to students, but little example of what this looks like is provided. This chapter provided a plethora of ideas of how to differentiate instruction as well as how to make accommodations and modifications!