Blog #3

When reading chapter 2 in Gibbons I liked how group work was encouraged for all types of students/learners. Some teachers are clearly always afraid to implement group work because of student's behavior but I do think that this is one way to always encourage classroom talk. Showing and allowing students to express themselves and give them the chance to think about what they want to share with others is a great opportunity. ELL students can benefit extremely from working in group work, especially when it is with students that are experiencing what they do. I like how on page 21 and on there are ways to make your group work effective. Clear instructions, using talk, a clear outcome is in mind, the task is essentially age and ability appropriate, time is kept in mind, and that all children should be involved. Last semester (like Abbey said) we did many activities that covered these aspects and yes...science talks came to mind! I also think the examples for group work that were given are really good ideas. The "hot seat" was really cute. The book explained this where one student is chosen to sit in the "hot seat" and they act like a character that has been discussed in class and the other students can ask the "hot seat" student questions to try to guess who it is. I thought this was really cute and a good way to engage all students in the classroom. More importantly all these activities have ELL students in mind!
Chapter 3 went more in depth about connecting many needed tasks for the ELL. I think it is important to realize that as teachers we give students the tools that they need in order to be successful. This chapter really made me see that there are various 'tools' such as journal writing, ELL key vocab., etc. they may need can help tremendously!
In chapter 3 of Tompkins many of the ideas discussed, games that are played, and centers reminded me of what I see in my kindergarten class. The personal story of the classroom with Ms. McCloskey was interesting and helpful. On pg. 82 I didn't realize there was a name for the books that are fairly simple and have repeat words. This book is called a predictable book. I see many of these in my K class. Lastly, I found a connection between many of the things I learned in TE 301 with the concepts discussed in this chapter. Today in my placement in my class we were working on rhyming words and stamp pads and worksheets. I would have to say that my group of 4 students are beginning readers because after they matched the words and stamped their worksheets I played games with them asking them to tell me the beginning sound/letter of each word and things like that. It is so cool to see the students go through this development and watch them basically learn how to read!