DESCRIPTION: The vocabulary food group is crucial to overall literacy development, specifically to the process of reading and reading comprehension. (RR, BLD, CTW). Knowing what words mean, whether it be presented orally or in written form, are vital to effective communication (RR).

This video explains the importance of vocabulary in communication, social environments, and comprehension. This video contributed to my understanding of vocabulary because it looked beyond the educational context and demonstrated the practicality of having a good vocabulary bank throughout one’s everyday life. I would recommend this to others because it provides solid examples that you can relay to your students, regarding how vocabulary extends beyond the confines of the classroom.

The PPVT is a common vocabulary assessment used in early childhood that measures general vocabulary knowledge using pictures. According to PRF, valid and reliable assessments are crucial to effective literacy instruction; for this reason, this is a useful assessment because it is highly standardized, valid, and reliable, so the educators can truly trust the information they receive from this assessment. It also doesn’t require speech so it is useful for students who may have speech…

This lesson, as shown in class 4 (Chong, 2019) involves attaching actions and movements to words to help with meaning consolidation. I find this to be very useful and effective to early vocabulary instruction because it is inherently and actively engaging, which is very necessary in effective instruction (PRF). Additionally, as mentioned in CTW, children enjoy moving their bodies; just as movement can help with the memory of letters (CTW), it can also help with the memory of word meanings.

This video provides examples of strategies teachers can use to enhance their vocabulary instruction (e.g., providing multiple opportunities for children to learn new word meanings in varied contexts). Dr. Curtis suggests using graphic organizers in conjunction with teaching prefixes, suffixes, root words, and base during vocabulary instruction. The teaching of word parts has been found to benefit student vocabulary (PRF), thus highlighting the effectiveness of this instructional approach.

DESCRIPTION: This food group is a highly important component of being an effective reader. Not only should students be able to decode words, but they should be able to read with expression at a steady pace (BLD). Doing so allows for careful consideration of text content, leading to greater comprehension, which is the main purpose of reading (BLD, CLW, PRF).

The fluency chapter of this resource was extremely helpful in my understanding of reading fluency and expression. It explains the concept, its relevance to comprehension, strategies/lessons on how to reinforce it for all students, and ways classroom organization can aid in fluency and expression development. I would recommend this resource to other teacher candidates because it provides practical tips that you can start using right away in order to strengthen the skill of fluency.

This assessment addresses accuracy and automaticity, where students are given a minute to read a passage and the assessor keeps track of the number of words read, how many errors are made, and ultimately how their overall scores relate to the established norms at that age. This assessment is useful for teachers who want to track their students’ improvement throughout the year, which is helpful in determining the effectiveness of your instruction/your next steps (PRF).

This activity involves practicing reciting a poem for a week and then having a “celebration” at the end of the week, where they present their poems in front of the class with fluency and expression (BLD). I think this is an effective instructional approach because it involves repeated reading, which is a proven method to foster fluency and expression development (PRF, CTW). It also inherently calls for creativity in the ways students can express words, depending on the content of the…

Reader’s theatre is an approach useful to developing fluency (RR). The approach involves reading a script, where students orally and repeatedly practice their lines before presenting. This is an effective way to promote fluency because it involves rereading familiar texts, which has been shown to aid in relieving attention from decoding in order to focus more on automaticity, expression, and ultimately comprehension (CTW, PRF).

DESCRIPTION: The purpose of reading is to comprehend (PRF). Reading comprehension strategies (i.e., making inferences, predicting, making judgements, etc.) are specific plans that need to be taught in order for students have a bank of effective approaches to properly understand what they are reading (CTW).

The first chapter of this book contributed greatly to my understanding of comprehension strategies. It goes into detail regarding what a comprehension strategy is, how they are important, and how such strategies fit in with existing theories of comprehension. This is a great resource for educators at all stages of their career because it goes beyond what comprehension strategies are and how to use it; it takes an in-depth look on the scientific reasoning behind why they are useful.

Oral retells can be a great way to assess comprehension in younger students. According to CTW and PRF, summarizing text is a crucial comprehension strategy that helps students synthesize and condense vital information, rephrase text in their own words, and remember what they have read. This assessment is useful to educators to establish student strengths and areas for improvement when it comes to the important elements of summarizing (i.e., sequencing, main events, characters, etc.).

There is a section in Ch.4 called “The First Schema Lesson”. This lesson explains that a schema is basically prior knowledge about a topic. The lesson involves holding the book a certain way when reading, and holding it a different way when “thinking out loud”/making text-to-self connections. I think using the concept of schemas is a simple and effective way to introduce/model the strategy of “making use of prior knowledge”, which is important to in facilitating comprehension (PRF).

This lesson involves students working in groups to examine comprehension strategies and identify four that they feel would be personally useful (BLD, VT #1 JL). They then have to investigate definitions, examples and non-examples of those strategies to put on chart paper. I think this is an effective way to not only emphasize the characteristics of comprehension strategies but to encourage metacognition and self-monitoring, which are major components of effective comprehension instruction…

DESCRIPTION: Text structures and genres refer to the different characteristics and organizational structures specific to different types of text and genres (CTW). Having knowledge of text features allows for greater reading comprehension, writing, and overall communication (CTW, BLD).

This article looks at the benefits of understanding text structure, specifically in relation to ELL. This resource contributed to my understanding of text structures and genres because it focuses on why this element of literacy is so important, how it can be used to extend students’ previous knowledge, and the role it plays in deepening vocabulary knowledge. I would recommend this resource to others because it considers some of the challenges that may come with teaching literacy to ELL.

DESCRIPTION: The letter-sounds and phonics food group refers to the link between phonemes (speech sounds) and graphemes (letters that symbolize the speech sounds) (BLD; Chong 2019 Lecture 3).

This food group pertains to the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds that make up spoken words (CTW); this ability is crucial to blending letter sounds, spelling, and overall reading development (BLD).

This document was especially helpful to my understanding of phonemic awareness because it not only goes into detail about its definition, but it goes into specifics in terms of what it is not, as well as common misconceptions about it. The resource also provides answers to questions one may have about phonemic awareness and it sheds light on research that demonstrates how best to approach teaching it. Due to the depth of information you gain from this resource, I would recommend it to…

This resource is helpful to my understanding of phonemic awareness because it gives a clear definition of what phonemic awareness is, what research has found out about it, and how teachers can go about developing phonemic awareness in their students. I would recommend this portion of the chapter to teacher candidates because it provides a brief refresher on what phonemic awareness is and broad ways in which it can be used and improved within the classroom. (Page 16, 17)

This video illustrates an enjoyable way to teach and practice phonemic awareness as a class that involves kinesthetic movements in relation to speech-sound manipulation. CTW suggests that incorporating movement in lessons allow for higher enjoyment and better retention. I also think it’s a very useful resource because it incorporates elements of activities suggested by CTW, such as clapping syllables and letter actions, which have been found to be effective in developing phonemic awareness.

This is a phonemic awareness assessment that incorporates rhyming, oddity tasks, oral blending, oral segmentation, and phoneme manipulation. I think this assessment would be useful/effective because you can get a clear idea of what aspect of phonemic awareness the student has strengths in and what areas call for further instruction, starting with the highest area of need first, which has been found to be most effective in phonemic awareness instruction (having one or two areas of focus…

DESCRIPTION: The concepts of print food group refers to a foundational element of reading and writing that pertains to student knowledge of the print conventions, such as spacing, text directionality, punctuality, etc. (BLD).

DESCRIPTION: The motivation for literacy food group concerns the level of student engagement, enthusiasm, interest, and appreciation for literacy, all of which are important elements of academic success in literacy (BLD).