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Nikki Meyer 10
Reading Log 2/3/11
Professor McKool

Balances Literacy (Chapters 1 and 2):

Observations-
Chapter 1-
 “Phonology, orthography, syntax, morphology, semantics, pragmatics, and
discourse are the seven parts or components that make up language”
(Chen 2).
 Phonology- Sound system of language.
 Orthography- Written language system, alphabet.
 Syntax- Grammatical structure of the language.
 Semantics- Study of words and their meanings.
 Morphology- Study of word parts and their meaning (Prefixes, suffixes,
base words, and roots).
 Pragmatics- Involves communicative competence, the understanding of
how language is used in a variety of contents.
 Discourse- Is the study of language beyond a simple sentence, how longer
stretches of language are organized.
 “The surface language –what we actually say in a conversation-is referred
to as basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS)” (Chen 5).
 The stages of second language acquisition are preproduction or silent
stage, early production stage, and the speech emergence stage.
Chapter 2-
 Being literate means becoming able to understand, speak, read, and write
in a language.
 Phonemic Awareness is the ability to understand and manipulate sounds
orally.
 Vocabulary is an integral part of all components of literacy.
 Fluency instruction helps children learn how to read and write with ease
and meaning.
 Emergent readers use their oral language and knowledge of the world to
read pictures, images and text.
Wonderings-
 How does a teacher who has very literate students and illiterate students in the
same class create activities to benefit both types of students without holding
back the students developmentally?
Connections-
 When I was observing a third grade classroom last semester, I saw students
using semantics, after they wrote a word, they developed the meaning of the
word and created comparisons to other words with similar meanings.
 When I was younger, my kindergarten class practiced orthography by picking
a letter of the alphabet and creating a costume to represent the letter and it’s
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sound, for instance, I picked N for my first name and I created a costume to
represent Noisy for N.

Kidwatching (Chapter 5):

Observations-
 Oral language is a medium through which children expand their concepts of
the world including their literacy concepts.
 According to Vygotsky, private speech is the speech not directed to others, but
takes place in the presence of others.
 If we want children’s language to come to life in the classroom, we have to
provide a rich environment for learning.
 It is important for students to evaluate their own talk.
Wonderings-
 What would be some good classroom decorations and charts to use in the
classroom to create a rich learning environment?
Connections-
 I observed in a preschool classroom students using private speech while
playing with the toys, creating story plots and names for their action figures to
help them expand their language.

The Nuts and Bolts of Writing Workshop (Chapters 1 and 2):

Observations-
Chapter 1-
 It is crucial for teachers to read aloud to students several times a day.
 In order to teach children how to write, teachers must establish structures
that last across everyday of teaching.
Chapter 2-
 The teacher asks the students to draw a picture of something that’s
meaningful to them, activities they like to do, etc, which gives them an
opportunity to write words or letter they may know, which is a basis for
writing.
 If a child hasn’t written anything, the teacher asks about the picture and
when the student gives an explanation, she asks them to write it. When
students are hesitant about how to spell, the teacher directs them to write
what they hear.
 Each student should begin writing where he or she is as a writer and be
encouraged and challenged to go further.
Wonderings-
 What would an example of the curriculum stated in the reading look like?
 The text talks about a mini lesson in which the teacher gives ten minutes of
structured and explicit instruction before they send the students off to write,
what would the mini lesson entail?
 After the teacher has told the children to write what they hear, when is the
appropriate time for the teacher to go in and correct the students spelling?
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Connections-
 I’ve witnessed in the third grade classroom I observed, the teacher giving
explicit instructions to her students before they took part in a writing
assignment.
 I remember when I was younger, drawing pictures and putting words to my
pictures, at first is was one word, then it developed into a sentence, and
eventually we would make a four to five page book about our original
drawing, and with those drawings was a story to accompany it.