Assignment #5 Written Reflection Section 3

I learned so much from reading about Routman’s views on spelling.  My first year of teaching I spent many hours developing a word wall thinking it would help my students.  I realize the problem wasn’t the word wall; it was the lack demonstrating and shared demonstrating with the word wall that was the problem.  I want to try using a word wall again this year, but be very explicit about why we have a word wall, how we can use it as a resource, and develop the word wall with student assistance.  I will make it clear that I expect students to spell words on our word wall correctly.  I believe students will find the word wall empowering and lead to better spelling, and eventually better writing.

I began working on my schedule for next year and was able to fit more time for writing during my guided reading group time, and during our science/social studies block in the afternoon.  After I meet with a guided reading group I will have a question written out for them to answer.  This not only builds their comprehension, but will improve their writing skills as well.  I would like to do more shared writing in the afternoon about informational text we have been reading in science or social studies.  Once students have had enough scaffolding they will be able to write their own informational writing about science and social studies.

It was interesting for me to read about all the different ways to conduct writing conferences.  In the past I have always thought of writing conferences as meeting with an individual student and working with them to improve their writing.  I am excited to try whole-class shares as a way of conferencing.  Some of the reasons I am looking forward to trying them is students will become better listeners, we will celebrate student writing, and we will learn from one another’s writing.

The part of the “Make Assessment Count” chapter that stood out to me the most was having students do their own self-evaluations.  I often have students talk with me about their writing as a way to get them to begin self-evaluation.  I see now that written self-evaluations would deepen their thinking and would lead to students being more independent learners.  I believe even first graders can be successful with writing their own self-evaluations with proper modeling and practice.