Integrating subjects while teaching is now common practice and even expected in the classroom. The Common Core Frameworks help provide opportunities for integrating subjects with our new standards. Incorporating literacy strategies throughout all subjects helps prepare students to be independent, successful readers. I found the list of 5 active reading strategies helpful. I would like to post these in my classroom and encourage students to refer to them while they read.
Much of this module was devoted to RTI information. I believe RTI has the potential to help students who struggle become more successful, but I also think it is hard for classroom teachers to make it as effective as it could be. Due to the large class numbers and the increased amount of RTI files it is challenging to keep up with the individual intervention, documentation, and meetings while managing the rest of your class as well. I enjoy doing interventions with my students and watching them make improvements, but ideally I would like to pull small groups to work with when I do not have the rest of my students in the classroom creating distractions and interruptions. I think RTI could use some improvements to offer the most effective and significant results. I personally think there should be RTI teachers like there are EIP teachers. RTI has the potential to offer interventions to help students make tremendous improvements academically and behaviorally, but I just don’t feel that it is implemented as effectively as it could be in my experience.
I can remember watching Reading Rainbow in elementary school, and now in my own classroom we watch Brain Pop Junior. I always wonder if my students will remember watching Brain Pop videos the way I remember watching Reading Rainbow videos. I like to be reminded of fun experiences like that from my childhood, and I hope my students can have these same types of memories of school when they grow up. The other video provided a fun, interactive way to teach sentence structure and parts of speech. Learning all the rules for sentences and words can be overwhelming for students especially in the primary grades. They need several different ways to reinforce and practice these skills.
Nikole,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post and could make many connections with your comments.
I agree that the integration of subjects is becoming more and more common. In the past I have had specific blocks of time on my class schedule set aside to teach science, reading, or math. Now I find myself trying to put these subjects together. I think this is a good thing. In reality, they all have a lot to do with each other, and due to time constraints, they must be taught simultaneously to fit everything in. For example, when teaching a unit about MLK, students can learn about the social conditions of the time. They can learn about the cost of living and wages earned and, therefore tie in a math component. Students could respond to MLK's I Have a Dream Speech or perhaps write from the perspective of a person who lived during the time of legalized segregation. Educators are finding that it is essential to integrate content rather than teaching it isolated, because it has so much more meaning and application for the students.
I also enjoyed your comments about Reading Rainbow and Brain Pop. I wonder what our current students will remember most about their elementary school teachers and experiences. I want to do all that I can to make their memories be fond ones as you described!