9-27-11 Hauser

1) For me, it is essential that children have proper instruction, high expectations from others and for themselves as well as the opportunity to be involved in reading and writing.  I believe that through the opportunity and instruction children will be able to gather their thoughts, show skills and ideas on writing and reading.  As for having high expectations for children it shows that you care about them and know their potential, thus having high expectations for themselves will motivate them to be the best reader and writing they can be making a literate being.

2. In my K classroom I have viewed writing daily.  The children first gather on the carpet and the teacher demonstrates writing.  She explains her thoughts clearly while drawing a picture and then writes sentences of explaination with the help of the children.  She will then explain how her picture conects to the words and helps readers to understand her writing.  We will then call students up one by one to get their writing journal and ask them what they are going to write about.  If they are having a hard time deciding what to write about we will help to give them prompts before dismissing them to their seats to write.  With this said we know that every child has an idea of what they want to write about before going to their seats.  Some children only have scribbles, but can give clear explanation of what they wrote about.  Other children have clear pictures and have begun to try and sound out words to write sentences.  By walking about the room the teacher and I can see the levels of each individual.  There are also multiple other times that students are encouraged to write such as during center time. The writing I have viewed especially during writing time connects to chapter 4 in book club plus.  Children are writing into, through and out of their writing.  Writing into by working all together, writing through by working individually in their journals and writing out by explaining to the teacher as well as having a chance to share with a partner.

3. A is doing a great job with the writing instruction.  To an outsider that looks at her journal they would see only scribbles and notes from the teacher on the bottom of her pages.  These notes from the teacher are the sentences that she used to describe her writing.  Since working with her daily on this and continuing to explain that trying to draw a picture of an object she is writing about she has begun to do so.  Her pictures of scribbles have now turned into a drawing of objects that are identifiable.  This past week she even explain that she wrote words, which were just letters, but it shows that she understands letters create words and words will explain her drawing.  I believe that the strategies described above from book club plus especially the 'fish bowl' and writing into have really been a help for this child.  I believe that walking her through the steps of writing has helped to develop her skill and will only continue to do so.