Read Alouds

I read the jigsaw article about capturing the benefits of reading aloud experiences for young children. I can personally say that this is a very important thing in childrens literacy. From tutoring in our 301 class, when I would have my student retell the story she had a hard time. But if we read it aloud and or with voices and actions she got a better sense of the story. Reading the story aloud and trying to get meaning and sense from it for a student is much harder than it seems. When I read aloud for the first time in my placement I was shocked to see how hard it actually was. You need to engage the students. There are so many different components when choosing a book to read aloud, and whether to question the author or do text talks. I think when I become a teacher I want to try out the methods anad see which one works best for my kids and which I like the best myself. Therefore I will be able to properly engage my students and hopefully better their education. Have either of you encountered a situation where it was difficult to handle whild reading in the classroom? Or learned anything from your experiences the best way to approach read alouds.


Literature is included in the literacy curriculum in my classroom during most of the day. The students use centers at least once a day in the classroom in my school. The students do read alouds, read with a partner, and read to self. To incorporate more literature into the curriculum you can include it in not only langugage arts subjects, but all subjects throughout the day to make sure it is practiced over and over again.

Kelsey Kassab 1st Post Response

I would agree that my main goal is to become a successful teacher language arts, and be able to incorporate it throughout all curriculum. Language arts is also my focus topic at MSU. Since it is my focus topic I also would be to learn unique ways to form a passion in each child, or at least for them to understand why language arts is to important. I am also very focused and passionate about making my classroom a fun environment where students want to learn. It can be seen from numerous articles that exceling in reading and writing benefits students in other subject areas. That is definitely my goal for this class to become the best teacher I can be for my students.

Unlike Taylor I am not in UECP, however I think that being prepared for anything as a teacher is very important and not ruling out urban education. I would like to help any kids I can, so I do not like to specifically name what type of classroom or teaching I would like to be a part of. Commenting on Taylors quote that all children need to be given equal opportunity I can fully commit to saying I agree. Through this class I want to learn how to incorporate literacy into all areas and help students find a passion for it, not because they have to but because it is essential for life.

Taylor Peel-- 1st Blog, Goals For The Class/Future

 As most of us will probably say, my MAIN goal for this class is to learn how to become a successful teacher of language arts. Since language arts is my focus topic here at MSU it is something that I am more passionate about and I would like to learn how to express that passion in adequate ways to my future students. One thing I have learned throughout my teaching courses here at MSU is that you can be a "good" teacher however you can also be a dreary teacher at the same time, and that is something I would like to try to avoid. I want to not only be a good teacher but I also want my students to enjoy my teaching and to get exited about learning/class, because I believe this will help them become all around better students of reading and writing. With this being said, I am hoping this class will teach me skills and ideas to fulfill this. 

I am also in the UECP here, meaning I focus more on teaching in urban environments. Therefore the type of school and community context I want to teach in would be one in an urban area. In one of the Jigsaw articles from chapter 9, "Teaching All the Children", it says "Children who attend hard-to-staff city schools often have vastly unequal opportunities to develop literacy and other academic skills." This statement right here states exactly why I want to teach in urban settings; to give these children that equal opportunity. The article then goes on to discuss the importance of placing qualified and well trained teachers into urban setting schools to help the students succeed. One topic they stress/focus on is literacy and language arts as many of the students are struggling readers and teachers need to prepare for this. I am hoping this class will be one to better prepare and train me to teach literacy and language arts in all subjects for "the most challenging schools" aka inner city or urban schools.