Math Philosophy

When I face a roomful of children, I hope that I can keep math as engaging for them as my teachers kept it for me. Math should not be about impossible problems that take hours and hours of work. I do not want my students to hate math because it was too hard. I want my students to be challenged, but too enjoy that challenge. I want them to feel the same rush I had when I got the correct answer to a complicated problem. 

I think the key to teaching math is to keep things moving at a pace fast enough to keep children engaged, but not too fast that they fall behind. It is also important to try and make math relevant. Students usually understand something better if it can relate to their life or interests. I also plan to make math hands-on and engage the students. I hope that I can teach my students to develop a love or liking for math.

My math philosophy is first to understand that not everyone likes math and excels in it. I want my students to feel that they can ask me questions. I do not want them to feel like no one is going to help them along on their journey. I will use the state’s standards to help me plan my units for the year. I will also be flexible and realize lessons might not always go in the direction I plan because the students get interested or excited about something. It is very important to teach math because math is everywhere and such a big part of our lives. Mathematical knowledge opens doors of opportunity.

Math Lessons

A few of the student's flip books.

Math Lesson: We made flip books with a bar graph, line graph, and Venn diagram about some of the ideas the students talked about. Then we found the mean, median, and mode of the data. Understanding of the mean, median and mode is important for use with all sets of numbers, and as an introductory concept in statistics. I instructed students to put their name, class number, and the title “Graphs”. Then to write “Bar Graph” on the second page, “Line Graph” on the third page, “Venn Diagram” on the fourth page. After the students finished making the graphs with the data we discussed (such as their favorite animals, favorite food, and a Venn about fishing and hunting), I discussed what mean means and how to get it. Then I distributed calculators so can get the mean (average) of the data they collected from the bar graph and line graph. Then discussed median (middle number) and mode (number that occurs most often). I allowed students to do this on the bar graph and line graph. The students shared their work with the rest of the class and we hung up their artwork in the classroom.  

 

Students hard at work on their planet.



Student's solar system.

Another Math Lesson: This lesson was divided into two days. On the first day, we filled out a worksheet that helped us find the relative size diameter of all the planets in the solar system and then we measured four planets and figured out which planets they were. On the second day, we used one of the planets that we colored to make four other planets out of poster paper and hung them on the wall. We made our own solar system in the room. This allows students to see how much bigger or smaller the other planets are compared to Earth. It is a great hands-on activity.



Math Assessment

I chose to work with my 5^th grade student on division. We did a KWL chart to see what she knew about division. She knew that division is the opposite of multiplication and that it has a quotient, dividend, divisor, and remainder. She also knew about denominators and numerators. She wanted to learn how to divide larger numbers like two digit divisors in long division, so I decided to work with her on this because they were going to start on a lot of division in class for Math. I asked her to work a few problems for me, so I could see how she worked through the process. We started off with a simple one such as 64/8, so I could see what she knew. It took her a while to figure this out because she has to start from the beginning. For example, 8x1=8, 8x2=16, 8x3=24, etc. We also did 21/3, 54/9, and 35/7. She knows how to divide and she can do it, but it just takes her some time.  

            After doing the interview and watching her work the problems I decided that she needs some work with her time tables to help her know them off hand instead of counting on her fingers like she does most of the time. I also found out that she needed help with just simple division instead of larger division, such as double digit divisors in long division, like she wanted to learn how to do. I came up with random division problems, such as 72/9, and worked with her a few times at the back table one on one. We also worked on her multiplication. We used dry erase boards and markers. We worked on this a few times one on one. She improved tremendously. She is getting a lot better at knowing her multiplication tables. Instead of starting from the beginning, she can actually start in the middle now. She has started thinking about what number she can multiply to get close to the number instead of starting with one, which is really good because that is what she will be doing when the class gets to long division with double digit divisors.

            She still needs a lot of help with this, but it is a step in the right direction. I would recommend extra weekly homework to help her practice and get better with this, after school tutoring, or just one on one time with the teacher once or twice a week during PE. She does not need to get any further behind than she is. I mentioned this to the teacher and she is going to continue working with her.

Reading Philosophy

I would like to guide students to become motivated readers and writers who are capable of critical thought toward both ideas presented by others and those they hold themselves. I feel that it is my job to open up the world of possibilities for the children I work with, and the best way I can do this is to teach them to read and write to the very best of their ability. The better children can read, the more opportunities they have for learning anything and everything they want to learn. The better children can write, the better they are able to get across their thoughts and point of view, and in almost any profession the ability to communicate effectively and well in writing will be an invaluable asset. I believe the more you know your students, the easier it will be to awaken their dormant motivation. Providing children with the right reading guidance and the right book at just the right time is one of the teachers' most important jobs. It is my job as a teacher to provide my students with the ability to become life-long learners, to widen their worlds and their opportunities.

Assessment

At the beginning of the semester, I found a struggling reader to work with. I did an interest inventory with her and we did a QRI Assessment to see where I needed to start. After a few weeks of the student not being there, I decided to find a new student to work with. His name is Jimmy and he is in 5^th grade. I did an oral interest inventory to see what he liked and asked him to read with me one-on-one, so I could get an idea of what we needed to work with. He really needed some work with his fluency and I assumed he needed help with comprehension also. I decided to help with his reading fluency by asking him to read orally to me one-on-one. I also tried echo reading, which is where I read first and the student repeats what I read. We also took turns reading the material out loud by alternating paragraphs, sentences, or line. I planned to work with his comprehension by making up questions at the end of the passage or chapter.

            After working with the student a few times, I took another assessment. For this assessment, we did a running record and I asked him questions about the story test his comprehension skills. He did well on this. I came to realize that he does very well with comprehension. He does not have any problems with it.  He was getting better with his fluency, but I still planned to work on it with him the remainder of my time at the school. I planned to do the same strategies as before, but include the dyad reading method, which is where the struggling reader and proficient reader together. The two students share one book and sit next to each other while reading. The lead reader sets the pace of oral reading and points to each word with their finger while reading, as the struggling reader reads along orally.

            On the final assessment, we did another running record and I asked him questions about the story. He did awesome on this. The strategies I chose for him helped him become a more fluent reader I believe. He has progressed tremendously. It shows you that just a little time with a student can make a big difference. I learned new strategies for reading. The dyad reading method was amazing. It showed me that a student just might like reading with their friends instead of “the teacher.” He did not know he was starting to read more fluently like his friend. This experience has taught me that I need to help the struggling readers in my classroom. I need to make time for it and pull the student back at least twice a week to help. This is not being done in some classrooms, but the students really need it and it is important, especially for the students’ future.

Essential Components of Reading

Emergent readers should be taught phonics, fluency, alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, and concepts of print.

• The concepts of print are essential when teaching children to read. I plan to teach my students that text carries the message, letters are the black squiggles on the page, text goes from the left page and then proceeds to the right, reading of text goes from left to right and top to bottom, and that a story has a beginning, middle, and end.
  
• In my classroom, I will teach alphabet knowledge by using key words and pictures when introducing books, music, and websites. I plan to teach the letter names first, then the shapes of the letters and sound, and provide letter-writing practice. I plan to assess alphabet knowledge by using a Letter Naming Test, which is where I ask students to identify the names of the uppercase and lowercase letters. I would ask students to identify the letters in and out of sequence next.
  
• Phonological Awareness is awareness of words at the phoneme level and of word units larger than the phoneme. In my classroom, I plan to use a fun approach by using playful music. I plan to assess this by letting children show me that they can identify and make oral rhymes, identify and work with syllables, identify and work with onset and rimes, and identify and work with individual phonemes in spoken words.

• Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual phonemes in spoken words. I plan to model appropriate phoneme sounds and illustrate blending and segmenting using sound boxes. I also plan to teach phonemic awareness during small group instruction. I will teach children to notice, think about, and work with sounds in spoken language. I plan to asses students by asking them to identify phonemes, categorize phonemes, blend phonemes to form words, segment words into phonemes, delete or add phonemes to form new words, and to substitute phonemes to make new words.

• Alphabetic principle is the knowledge that a specific letter or letter combinations represent each of the phonemes. In my classroom, I plan to teach the alphabet letters and sounds they represent. I plan to use the names of the students as a way to introduce the alphabet and discuss the letters. I plan to use environmental print. I plan to assess children by asking them to name letters that are shown to them, pronounce letter sounds, and choose the letters that have specific names and sounds.

• Phonics shows how spellings relate to speech sounds in systematic and predictable ways. Phonics is important because it leads to an understanding of the alphabetic principle. In my classroom, I plan to model working with words and segment during the day.

• Fluency is the ability to read accurately and quickly.I plan to model fluency during the read-aloud everyday and teach it with a variety of genre and levels. I plan to guide student’s reading in small and large group and give them feedback. I also plan to provide time for teacher-monitored independent reading in a book at the instructional level. I plan to assess fluency by listening, using a rubric, and using a timed passage.

I will assess reading concepts to inform my teaching, communicate student progress, and evaluate my teaching strategies. I also want to see what my students cannot do, but also what they can do.

Read Aloud

Reading "A Widow's Broom"

A read aloud is a planned oral reading of a book or print excerpt, usually related to a theme or topic of study. The read aloud can be used to engage the student listener while developing background knowledge, increasing comprehension skills, and fostering critical thinking. A read aloud can be used to model the use of reading strategies that aid in comprehension. For my read alouod, we read “The Widow’s Broom” and made predictions on what we thought would happen. Every few pages I would stop to ask students what their predictions were and asked them to write them down on a prediction worksheet. The worksheet asked what they think would happen, clues from the story that helped make that prediction, and then if their prediction was right. I also stopped to ask students if they knew what a word meant and then to name a few synonyms for that word. After reading the story, the students were asked to complete the last section of the prediciton sheet, which is where they wrote if their prediction was right. I then asked the students to name some of the vocabulary words, their definitions, and synonyms and/or antonyms of the words. We also did a fun activity. We made a witch out of nutter butters, Hershey chocolate, M&M's, and icing. The green icing was used as the glue that held the Hershey chocolate hat and M&M eyes and mouth to the nutter butter. The students showed their creation to the rest of the class and then enjoyed!
 



Students hard at work on their witch.



3 final products.

                                                                                                                                                              

Shared Reading

Shared reading is an  instructional approach in which the teacher explicitly models the strategies and skills of proficient readers. Shared readings provide children with an enjoyable experience, introduce them to a variety of authors, illustrators and types of texts to entice them to become a reader. For my shared reading,

I was explaining the sequence of events handout.

we read a biography about Paul Revere to remind the ones who have forgotten or are not sure. I read the biography aloud to the group. After one reading, I asked the students what stands out to them and what they recalled about the story. I then asked students to identify any facts about Revere heard in the biography that they did not previously know. Then I passed out copies of the text.   Further class discussion focused on literary elements and not historical detail because that was covered later. After the story had been read aloud I gave students the opportunity to review the story on their own. I asked the students to circle memorable place names such as Lexington, etc. and then underline the prefixes in the story. Once students had done this and we had went over it, I asked the students to pick at least 5 words in the biography that they can find a synonym for and write the synonym above the word. I allowed students to read one of the paragraphs that they changed to make sure they sentence makes sense and that the student grasped the concept. Students then did a sequence of events of the biography. I asked students to summarize some of the important things that happened in the Paul Revere biography and name some of the memorable place names and synonyms of the words they changed.



Student cicling memorable place names
and finding synonyms.

Guided Reading and Small Group



Working with a small group.

 Effective reading teachers are excellent classroom managers and know how to adapt instruction to meet the needs of learners with special needs. In my classroom, I will have thirty minutes for whole group instruction and sixty minutes for small group instruction. While some students are in small groups, the remaining students will work in reading centers. Whole group instruction is used to introduce new information. Small group instruction is used to reinforce and review skills. It is provided based on the student’s needs. The reading centers will reinforce the new skills they learned during whole group instruction. I plan to have good traffic flow and round table to support book discussions. Everything will have a purpose and a place.

Reading Programs

Reading Street is designed to help teachers build readers through motivating and engaging literature, scientifically research-based instruction, and a wealth of reliable teaching tools. It prioritizes skill instruction at each grade level, so teachers can be assured they will focus on the right reading skill, at the right time, and for every student. I don't plan on just using this. I plan to incoporate other things into reading too. The Accelerated Reader, also known as AR, program is slightly different from the other leveled reading programs in that it is a computer-based program. The Accelerated Reader software allows students to take quizzes about books they have read, either in a guided reading program or on their own, and generates reports based on the results of the tests. I plan to use this, but not make it everything like teachers do these days.





http://childparenting.about.com/od/schoollearning/a/Different_reading_level_programs.htm

Independent Reading

Independent reading isn't just about letting kids read silently for a given amount of time. It's about providing students with the necessary tools to becoming independent and life long readers. Independent reading builds fluency, increases vocabulary, and builds background or schema. An important role of the teacher comes in the selection and gathering of appropriate books. Books available for independent reading should include all those which have been used during shared and guided reading, as well as a large selection of new books which the teacher has acquired. In my classroom, I will have a classroom library with different kinds of books for my children to choose from. These books will have varied genres, titles, content, and levels. There will be books with cultural differences and books that come in different sizes. I will also have books on audio disks. This is also a great time for me to model reading. This will show students that I like to read as well, so maybe it will inspire them.

Parent Involvement

Parents play a big role in a student’s education. They are the first teachers. Parents will play a very active role in my classroom. I plan to ask parents to come in and read to the class and might even start up a reading log where the parents have to write down how long their child read at night. Parents are the greatest resource.

Here are a few things parents can do at home to help with their child's reading.

• Be a Reading Role Model: Set a good example for your children by exhibiting a love for reading yourself. Get a good book, curl up on the couch and enjoy reading the story. It is a lot easier to convince children that reading is fun, when you enjoy it.
• Provide the Tools to Succeed: Help your children succeed at reading by providing them with interesting books and a good dictionary. Take your children to the library or a bookstore and let them pick out books that interest them. Children are more willing to read books on topics that they find interesting.
• Teach the Benefits of Reading: Teach your children that reading is a useful skill to have. A good way to do this is to respond to one of your child's questions by getting a book on the subject. Together you can discover the answer through reading the book together.
• Make Reading Fun: Make reading a fun family activity. Gather the family together. Have each family member take turns reading a page of the book aloud. Show enthusiasm when reading and listening to the story. Talk about the story after reading time is over.
• Praise: Praise your children often about their reading efforts. Children, who feel positive about themselves and feel their success and effort is recognized, tend to learn better.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/76974-list-parents-can-children-home/