"During an initial phase which usually takes the first three weeks of the school year, many routines, procedures, and concepts are introduced and established."(Denton & Kriete 2000, pg 151). We have made it through the first 3 weeks and are moving on to the new and exciting part of introducing content. The last thing to do before getting down to business is checking for benchmarks to see if our students have mastered procedures that will allow them to move effortlessly from task to task in the classroom, leaving every extra minute to be totally engaged in the content. In classroom management this week, our focus was on building relationships with our students and helping them build relationships with each other. I feel like in the classroom, these realtionships have already been established during the first three weeks of school, and now we can use them to our advantage to have some really good content related conversations in the classroom and everyone can be comfortable and open in these conversations. In Reading with Meaning (Miller 2013), chapters 2 and 3 break down the whole month of September describing how we should implement procedures and what strategies we can introduce to the students to increase literacy in the classroom, such as read alouds and think alouds. I have seen in my CT's classroom how the implementation of procedures and strategies give the students in our class more valuable reading time. And because these strategies have been shown and repeated all throughout the first three-five weeks of school, they can make connections and find the big idea effortlessly when reading. In Charlotte Huck's Children's Literature (Kiefer 2010), the different types of books, and which students benefit from which books was introduced. So the best connection I can make between coursework is that if we take the advice on how and when to introduce procedures in the classroom from Classroom Management, and give the children appropriate materials that will engage and challenge them as suggested in Children's Literature, then we can ultimately increase literacy throughout our classrooms. We should not give the students all the answers, but give them the tools to find them on their own. My CT's 3rd grade class is an excellent example of procedure and strategy mastery. I watch the students every day move effortlessly throughout the classroom, get prepared to transition from subject to subject, and use reading strategies like underlining text and circling unknown words in their homework without even noticing that they took that extra step. Now I'm ready to move on to the next step, whatever that might be!
You had some great connections. It is true that the more time you spend teaching students the proper procedures for the classroom the more time you will have to teach the content. I am so glad that you are seeing this in the classroom!!
Reply
Leave a Reply.
Author
Blog posts on this page are reflections and connections that I make between courses, texts and classroom experience.