• Explore instructional practices used in an upper elementary school setting
• Develop, articulate, and share philosophy of reading
• Apply information, perspectives, and practicum experience to reading upper elementary school classrooms
• Explore and administer informal forms of assessment
• Respond and reflect in a daily forms of assessment
• Model effective use of read aloud
• Investigate aspects of Title 1
• Participate in class discussions and activities as an individual and within a group
• Engage fully in class projects, discussions, and reflections
• Ask questions and reflect on presentations by invited guests

Reflections:

This was a wonderful class full of information for reading in the classroom and especially the assignments that were different.  We had text readings with topics that we liked, a quote that we really liked and a question that we had about what we read in the text.  We watched some videos of classroom settings and we would write a response of them.  So I watched and listened to the video carefully.  We had an assignment to read three professional articles about reading and write a response to the articles.  This took some researching and it was an experience to search for articles.  We kept a reading journal for one week to discover our reading habits.  While we read, we included our reading behaviors we noticed we were doing, thoughts about what we are reading and why we are reading.  My thoughts would start wandering while I would be reading and tried to concentrate.  This was a different experiment for me while to understand what students do while they read.  We read Hoot, which we focused on reading behaviors.  We also read Nothing But the Truth.  While reading, we had a literature cirlce with tasks like word wizard, which was to look for special words in the story; artful artist, which was to draw anything about the story that you liked; question asker, which was to write down some good questions for the group to talk about; and connector, which was to find connections between the bookd and the world outside.  This literature can definitely be used in an upper elementary classroom.  We learned about running records, which I did not understand in another class, but this class helped me understand more in depth because we did a running record with readings.  We picked an author and posed as one and came to class. We had a mock "talk show" with our author character.  We presented a mini-lesson on a skill or strategy that we had discussed.  These mini-lessons were not very long, but very useful as a refresher for students who had forgotten how to solve a problem or something else that was difficult for them.  We also had a wonderful guest that discussed the writing process which is going to be so helpful when I teach my students how to write and it will be useful to me.

Practicum:

We were to meet with a below level or reluctant reader.  I met with my student more than five times during the semester.  She was very shy and soft spoken.  I brought in some library books and she decided which book to read.  She liked Garfield the cat character; I brought in Garfield cartoon strips for her to read each time I met with her.  She enjoyed the cartoons and she kept them.  The books that she picked were the ones she had previously read and gathered that she was comfortable with the present and does not want change too much.  With her book, I ran a running record, took anecdotal notes, observed her while reading, and took a reading survey.  I reflected on this student and gave recommendations.  Also presented a guided transitional lesson plan with the student.  It was sad to leave this student; I wished I could have continued working with her.  I feel that I have learned a lot in taking this class.