The Building Blocks of Learning to Read

I feel like much of this week's reading focussed on outside influences for reading. Allington and Cunningham focussed on children's experiences learning to read outside the classroom. Ideas such as pretend reading, the Alphabet song, and anchored word learning came up often. I can't do much to control how a child learns at home, and more importantly how much they have learned before they enter my kindergarten or first grade classroom. However, I think that considering how a child has learned at home is important to gear how the will best learn at school.

I really liked some of the ideas that were given, specifically the "being the alphabet" game where students are given random letters of the alphabet when they line up, and they must arrange themselves in the correct order. I think an activity like this encourages group collaboration and is a fun way for kids to work with letters.

I also like the idea of anchored word picture books. Making an anchored word book to learn letters which students can look at during independent reading time is a great idea! However, I think I would take it a step further by having my students draw or create their own picture book for each letter. That way, they have their own book to take home and look at and they will remember the letters because they know what they drew. I think it makes it creative and fun for the students too.

I think that this chapter mainly gave the key elements for teaching reading.

• Allow pretend reading and writing, even if it is wrong because it will foster excitement for learning those concepts. Provide a multitude of writing media (pads, colored paper, chalkboard, index cards, ect) to gain excitement about "real world" writing.
• Model writing for them so they can see what they need to imitate
• Teach concrete words in a creative way (using their names or cereal boxes, restaurant menus, animals, ect)
• Develop Phonemic Awareness by: encouraging phonics spelling, counting words, clapping syllables, reading rhyming books
• Teaching letter names and sounds  

I think I am most excited about teaching rhyming. I really love to read aloud, and I love the classic rhyming books and nursery rhymes. One of my favorite books is Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shell Silverstein, and I have always loved Dr. Suess.