Summer reading

Children enjoy swimming in the sea and building sandcastles. It is summertime! The parents and kids relax, but learning shouldn't stop. According to the foundation Reading is Fundamental, children who do not read over the summertime  loss of reading fluency and comprehension skills. Students who read in summertime increase their reading skills. I found some great ways to keep children reading at this summer. This advices will be useful for teacher and parents.

• Choose books about outdoor activities. (It will be interesting for children but you must show that reading is important to you. Ask what they think about this book).
• Lead by example. (Parents or teachers must pick up a book on the way to the swimming pool or the park. Children that see their teachers or relatives reading are more likely to think of reading as a fun activity).
• Establish read-aloud routines. (You must choose the time for reading with children. Even if it is only for 5-10 minutes a day, try to make it part of enjoy routine).

Moreover, I have found article "Social reading tools for summer reading" on the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education. The teachers and parents can use different tools for summertime reading. For example, I have found a lot of great book recommendations on the rest of GoodReads. GoodReads is a really powerful platform for keeping track of what child have read and how often.

Another great app is Litsy. It modeled on Instagram. The main idea of Litsy is that readers post photos from their reading lives and other readers like or comment on them. This tool can use children and students.

References:

http://tiie.w3.uvm.edu/blog/social-reading-tools/#.V5R4Ho9OIcS

http://ageofmontessori.org/keep-them-reading-this-summer/

BrainPOP ESL

Previously, in Applied Linguistics our great lecture Dr. Monica McEnerny told us about new interesting tool which we can use with children. It is called BrainPOP ESL. Monica told us that BrainPOP ESL is very popular tool in the United States and other countries. BrainPOP ESL is an English language learning program. This program engages students through animated movies, interactive quizzes, learning games, primary source activities, concept mapping.

Here is very simple tutorial: How do I get started to work with BrainPOP?

In addition, Monica told that BrainPOP ESL is organized by levels of increasing difficulty. Each level is divided into six units. Moreover, each unit includes five lessons. For example, the lesson contains a three-part movie and some features. After watching movie there is an option to take an easy or hard quiz.

I would say it was a great lecture! I decided to implement this program in my classroom!

What do you think of  BrainPOP?

References:
https://esl.brainpop.com/
http://storage.cet.ac.il/shivuk/ofek/12517teachers_ofek.pdf

Literature Circles

On Tuesday we had a Genius Hour from Assem. It was great! Previously, I didn't know about literature circles. Assem told for us what are the literature circles and what are the benefits of using literature circles in the classroom? Literature circles mean to attract students in rich conversations about shared readings.

To identify what literature circles are take a look at the following chart

Literature circles are really fun. Groups of students meet together in different areas of the classroom. The teachers ask students to take on specific group roles, which are designed to develop reading, speaking, and thinking abilities. There are a lot of different roles. Here, you can see four roles which you can use in your class.

Moreover, I found advantages to use literature circles. Firstly, every student can participate in conversation and they can express their opinions and questions about a text. Secondly, each of the students try out various roles and learn ways to talk about a text and it's so cool! We can use literature circles at schools and universities, e.g. my groupmate Olga had found interesting and useful video Teaching strategies for introducing literature circles to a 4th grade class. At this video you can see  how literature circles work in school. You can see this video in Applied Linguistics Blog by Olga Bainova.

I will try to use literature in all my classes in the future and I want to say thank you Assem for sharing your experience about literature circles with me.

References:
https://www.teachervision.com/group-work/teaching-methods/48704.html
http://homeschool101.org/blog/reading-writing/literature-circles/
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/literature-circles-how-to-and-reasons-why-elena-aguilar

Dyslexia

The Unappreciated Benefits of Dyslexia

What is a Dyslexia? Dyslexia is a difficulties with reading and spelling. Sometimes teachers and parents think that dyslexia has only a negative side but it is not truth. Fernette and Brock Eide are the specialists who have found four major strength which I want to share with you.

1. Interconnected reasoning is the ability to understand and analyze connections and relationships. Many people who have a dyslexics problems choose work in highly interdisciplinary field. The brain of these individuals is better able to connect diverse perspectives or see things from multiple points of view.
2. Spatial reasoning is a way of data reduction that helps the brain analyze and visualize physical characteristics of places, objects and the universe. The people with dyslexia can work in design sphere, 3-D art or architecture.
3. Narrative reasoning is a process to learn from experience and recall information. The student can remember a lot of numbers or materials.
4. Dynamic settings (Dynamic reasoning) is a capacity to refresh elements or facts of past experience to guess future outcomes. People work with these capacity in the sphere financial markets or scientific fields.

What do you think about these factors? Can we change people's opinions about dyslexia?

References:
http://www.wired.com/2011/09/dyslexic-advantage/
http://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/mind-strengths-in-dyslexia-what-are-they/
http://cargocollective.com/TheAdvantage/WHAT-IS-DYSLEXIA

Stephen Krashen

                  Stephen Krashen

3 Things You Found Out

1. Krashen claims that humans have an innate ability that guides the language learning process. For example, infants learn their mother tongue simply by listening attentively to spoken language
2. Theory of second language acquisition consists of five main hypotheses :
   -the Acquisition-Learning hypothesis,
   -the Monitor hypothesis,
   -the Input hypothesis,
   -the Natural Order hypothesis,
   -the Affective Filter hypothesis.
3. It was interesting for me to know that Steven Krashen created Three Approaches to Method:  
   -Theory of second language acquisition 
   -Applied linguistics research  
   -Ideas and intuitions from experience

2 Interesting Things

• The Acquisition-Learning hypothesis.There are two ways of developing language ability by acquisition and by learning. According to Krashen learned language cannot be turned into acquisition. We can not spend lot of time by learning grammar rules because this will not help us.
• Krashen said that children learn to read most efficiently by exposure to interesting stories that are made to them through pictures and discussions

1 to continue learning about

What is Bilingual education 

References:

http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/principles_and_practice.pdf

http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html