While reading chapter 3, I noticed that my CT uses a lot of these concepts and strategies in her own first/second grade split classroom. For example, my CT has a word wall in her classroom which are discussed on page 80. I have noticed that when a student comes up to my CT and asks how to spell a certain word, my CT immediately directs the student to the word wall. If the word the student is trying to spell is not posted, my CT tells the students to spell the word by writing out all the letters they can hear in it. My CT also does a writing workshop in her classroom. Each student has their own writing folder with their name on it and they keep all their stories and other compositions inside. My CT will sometimes give the students specific topics to write about, or she will have them come up with their own ideas. She usually has them write on pieces of paper that have large lines on them and a box which provides a space for illustrations. My CT also incorporates lessons on punctuation, capitalization, quotation marks, and revising. I recall one lesson she did with the students about revising. She paired the students into "writing partners." She had the students take out one of their stories they had written and trade with their writing partner. Each student took turns reading the their partner's story. Afterward, they would give their partner positive comments on their story as well as a few pointers on how to improve it. My CT has also had students go back into their writing folders, pick out a story, and go back and add details to it.
After looking at figure 3-2, I'd say that for the most part, the students in my field fall into the "beginning" stage. While doing my guided reading lesson, I noticed that several of the students pointed to words while reading, and self-corrected themselves while reading. Also, after observing my CT while she reads aloud to the class, I have noticed that the students are able to make "reasonable predictions" and "make text-to-text and text-to-world connections."
Overall, I think this chapter was very beneficial and very informative. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and loved learning new ideas and new concepts to teach reading and writing. I will surely take these ideas and apply them to my own classroom.
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What you have to say about your CT and her ways of teaching writing sounds like she is doing a good job, but after hearing you describe students work sounds like something is not working. In this post it sounds like students are having lessons on punctuation and to me this sounds like a good deal. But as you have described that students are still using one long sentence had me wondering what is not clicking. I she not using these lessons enough, not she not emphasize punctuation, or was this just a one time deal. My second grade has been grilled on punctuation and are using it not perfectly, but frequently. That is why I guess I am asking why the students work does not reflect the lesson taught?
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