Week 5 Assignment 2

      I was pretty impressed at how the one boy was able to come up to the easel and begin writing a sentence.  I am very unfamiliar with the skill levels of elementary school students and continue to be amazed at what early elementary school students are capable of and what is expected of them.  I liked how the teacher provided different readings for students to choose from.  Student choice is very important when creating valuable learning experiences for students.  It blew my mind how students could write a story given an illustration.  I was also impressed at how Mrs. Wilson worked with students to discover their story.  I was very interested in the flow of the lesson, how the teacher progressively removed herself from the learning process.  The lesson started very teacher centered and eventually was completely student centered and the teacher acted as observer.  I try to establish myself as a facilitator in the classroom for both discussion and problem solving.  I feel like the transitions from the different types of reading and writing are similar to workshop model how the lesson begins with a teacher-centered mini-lesson and then students work in groups with teacher assistance and then are individually assessed at the end of the lesson.  I think that the interactive reading is a great way to keep students engaged and improve student phonics skills and fluency.  By hearing each other the students are able to establish a better understanding of words and comprehension.  Similarly in the math classroom I find that any type of group or interactive activity provides an optimal learning experience for students.  In a 6^th grade ELA classroom I found it challenging for students to analyze informational texts and extract meaning yet students are beginning to find meaning in a text as early as kindergarten.    I feel like the transitioning is smoother in this example classroom and would benefit students in the 6^th grade ELA class I have observed.  Rather than go directly from teacher centered modeling to group work I feel like interactive reading would be beneficial.  Every activity in the lesson exposed students to oral language and I think that doing so in different ways created multiple entry points and opportunities for students to develop their own oral language skills and understanding.