"No skill is more crucial to the future of a child, or to a prosperous society, than literacy." This is a quote from the Los Angeles Times.
Literacy is one of the most important things children learned throughout their years in school, especially in their first few years. As educators, it is very nerve-racking for us to think that we are teaching children information that will use for the rest of their lives. We don't want to teach them anything wrong or lead them in the wrong direction. We want our students to learn as much as they posibly can and be as successful as possible. We also want children to know just how important literacy is and that is our job to not only tell them, but show them. On page 374 in our text, there are many examples given as to how we can put emphasis on literacy instruction. As I read the examples, I realize how many were used in the classrooms I was in as a child. One of the most common that we seem to see everywhere is "clap once if you can hear me". It just goes to show that these things do stick with us throughout our lives.
Centers are very popualr in the classrooms. Children love getting to be independent and being able to pick the activity they want to do. So much of school is teachers telling children what to do, so when they get to go to centers (even though they are educational) the children feel a sense of freedom. Centers are also good for teachers. When the children are in centers, it gives the teacher a chance to meet with small groups of students or even maybe individual students. It is important for teachers to make sure the activities in the centers are interesting and fun for the children. We want the children to become "voluntary lifelong readers and writers". Meaning, we want the children to have so much fun doing literacy activites in the centers that they want to do them more often without being told to, to do it for themselves. The centers should also challenge the students, because students maybe on different levels of learning. There should be different materials that accomodiate to different achievement levels and interests. But it should all be so that the children are doing the same activities.
I remember always loving doing centers as a child. One of my favorite centers was the free writing center. In that center, we could write about anything we wanted. The materials in the center were so fun, there were different kinds of letter paper if you wanted to write letters, different kinds of utensils to use and so on. It made me love writing and to this day I still love to write. What was your favorite center as a child?
The text gives an example of a checklist for your centers that you could use to make sure the center is benefitting the students. The checklist should be for each individual center and not just the centers as a whole. I think this is an excellent idea. It is good to take the time to make sure each center is appropriate and fun yet challenging for students. Centers can't just be a last minute thing teachers put together. Thought needs to be put behind the activities for the centers.
Differenciated instruction is an important topic in this chapter in the text. It is very imporant for teachers to meet childrens needs through differenciated instruction. Since children and their needs are so diverse, teachers won't be able to just generalize the students into one. Teachers can achieve differenciated instruction by small group instruction and one-on-one instruction. As a child, I loved when my teachers had small groups work with them. It maked me feel special and important, more importantly, it made me feel like my teacher really cared. It was like I got a chance to show how smart I was to my teacher. And that is the goal that we want to achieve by this. We want students to feel important, like their thoughts matter and feel like they are intelligent.
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