Week 2: Assignment 3

Reflections on Videos:

After watching the 10 Mini Videos, I have gained great insight, ideas, and strategies to implement when teaching. Here are the main ideas that I learnt from the videos:

A parent has the ability to make a child love to read and wish to read from  very young age. When a parent reads to a child, the child grasps the concept of print, and, more importantly, he sees that reading matters.

In very young children, the ability to hear language is highly developed. By 12 months old, a baby is already a specialist in his native language. A baby can distinguish between sounds that adults cannot. Therefore, when a parent speaks to an infant, he/she is providing the infant with important information to become a good reader in the future.

When a parent reads to a child, and focuses on words and sounds it helps the child learn phonemic awareness. Word games help a child realize that words are made up of individual sounds. Playing word games help give the child important skills for reading.

Fluency, reading quickly without hesitation comes from understanding the text. Focusing on comprehension helps children gain the skills to decode rapidly.

One teacher introduces new words and ideas by using a word web. Teaching children vocabulary words helps them discover new words and meaning, and it also helps them as a writer since they become accustomed to using different words to make the writing more interesting.

Spelling should be taught in a fun way, so as not to give the students the impression that spelling is hard and that it has to be memorized. One teacher played a fun activity with her students where they had were learning about “ing”, and they noted whether each word had nothing, E drop, or double. Besides for being fun, this method showed the students that spelling has patterns and is not difficult.

Jigsaw learning supports comprehension, and skills of working collaboratively.

It is important for students to write every day in order to become good writers. They must also become comfortable sharing their writings so that they have the confidence to produce great writings. Students should feel that they are all learning together, sharing ideas, and learning from each other.

Ongoing assessment of a students is critical. It ensures that the students doesn’t just fall behind, and gets the appropriate assistance and guidance.