Conclusion

After reading through my book Beginning Reading by Yola Center I have learned a lot of great resources as I approach my first year of teaching. In my experiences in the classroom so far I have only been in a pre-k classroom. So I would be terrified of getting a third grade class, but after reading this book I have some new knowledge on this situation. First being that there are books out there to help me develop my curriculum, and I will also have help from my team teachers. I think that this book will be an awesome resource for me should I get a grade level that I don't have any experience with and also to help give me ideas even if I do have experience. One thing that I really enjoyed about this book is that it offers suggestions for the students that are not on the same level as everyone else, which I see as a struggle for any teacher. Overall it was a good book filled with suggestions for effective reading programs that would be beneficial for any teacher.

The third year

In the third year chapters there is a nice breakdown of a suggested reading program for the third year of school.

• 15-20 min. listening comprehension (shared reading)
• 40 min. reading comprehension (guided reading)
• 15 min. Independent reading

What I really have enjoyed about this book is the breakdown throughout the book of different reading programs for different school years. I think that this would be helpful for teachers that have not taught at that certain grade level before. Towards the end of the book there is a section on how to facilitate a reading comprehension program in the third year. It is a 2 week long schedule and it says everything that you should do throughout the 2 weeks on a book for reading comprehension. It is a great suggestion for teachers to help develop the assurance of comprehension of the text. It breaks the book into parts and each day a part is read and there are questions about what they will read and then what they have read. Then the next day you review what you have read so far and answer questions on what you have read, and make predictions as to what you will read. It sounds pretty basic but for a first year teacher it is a good resource if you don't have experience with that grade level.

the Second Year

Later in the book it talks about the second year of school and what most children should know and understand about reading and comprehension.  It suggests to assess your students as soon as possible to make sure that they are in a good reading group suitable for their reading level.  The book suggests to assess the students four to five weeks into school.  Then it lists a set of components that should be taught in the second year of teaching.

• Morphological awareness
• Complex sound symbol correspondences: consonant clusters, digraphs
• Word building to promote full alphabetic decoding
• Spelling homework
• Fluency practice in connected text
• Self teaching mechanism

Although not all students will be ready for these components the book suggests to accommodate the first year of school components to fit the children's needs.   The book also has suggestions for assessing the students and ideas for helping to teach the components in the second year of teaching.  These can all be used as a great resource when stepping into a second grade classroom for the first time.  In the chapters following it breaks down each one of the components to further understanding when teaching.  I also like that the book knows that the classroom will not be filled with children that are all at the same level, that some will be above and others will be below but the book helps address children in all levels.  It is easier to help accommodate the different reading levels when the children are placed in a reading group with other students on the same level.  This is a small stress reliever for me because one of my fears in teaching is how I will accommodate to all the students in my classroom.

The first year of school

In my book called Beginning Reading, the first couple of chapters talk about starting the first year of school. One part mentioned that in the first day of school you can already tell which students are going to succeed in reading and which ones are going to struggle. It said that children who come into kindergarten with poor literacy and comprehension skills, are already behind from where they are supposed to be. I understand that when children start kindergarten they should already have some prior knowledge of literacy skills but there is no way to ensure that all children starting kindergarten have that prior knowledge. I am not sure how I feel about this situation, not all children get to attend some sort of head start or pre-school, and I don't know how we can expect children to already have so many literacy skills when they have not been properly taught. So when they start kindergarten and they have not had the opportunity to be taught such literacy skills, it is as though they are being set up for failure. The good news is that when they do start kindergarten they will be presented with the opportunity to learn such skills we just hope that they are resilient enough to catch up to where they are supposed to be.

Hello

Hello my name is Rachel.  I am a senior at Texas State University.  I will graduate in May and I hope to start teaching somewhere around Austin.  The book I have chosen for RDG 3320 is called Beginning Reading A balanced approach to teaching literacy during the first three years t school by Yola Center.