Megan Cockrum's Blog

Breaking Down Words to Build Meaning

megcockrum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:43:59 +0000

I really enjoyed this article. I prefer to teach fourth grade over the others so I gained a lot of insight while reading this article. I was also able to relate to a lot of the examples. I do not remember receiving quality vocabulary instruction in school so teaching vocabulary is not a subject I tend to think about a lot. This article was very helpful and easy for me to read. I liked how the authors gave examples to support the research too. I believe that vocabulary can be one of the harder subjects to teach in elementary school because it can be seen as boring and a waste of times to students. However, this article really helps the reader to understanding different approaches to teaching vocabulary.

Brown Angels by Walter Dean Myers

megcockrum — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:22:14 +0000

What I loved the most about this book is that the poems relate to the pictures on the page. I am already not the biggest fan of poetry but one thing I can not stand is when I can not figure out why a certain picture is not with a certain poem. I also really liked how the pictures are of real children. This might make it easier for some readers to relate to the poems. I could tell that Myers kept his target audience in mind. The poems are definitely on an elementary student’s level (reading and comprehension) and they are on topics that modern elementary students can relate to. Also the layout of the book is really easy to follow and it makes me want to keep reading. I thought this was a great book of poems that could be used with a wide range of students.

Shared Readings: Modeling Comprehension, Vocabulary, Text Structures, and Text Features for Older Readers

megcockrum — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:15:34 +0000

I found this article to be more difficult to read than the articles we read in the past. There was definitely some helpful information in the text. It provided nice clear examples of modeling strategies being implemented in classrooms. However, I would have to re-read some parts just to understand what the author was talking about or saying. Writing and reading are ways that teachers continuously (I hope) try to model and I will definitely be modeling those in my classroom. However, I never really thought about modeling reading comprehension. It’s not that I do not want to, I just never thought about it; so it was nice to read about that in this article. I think it can be hard to remember to model as teachers because maybe we lose track of time, but modeling is one of the best ways to motivate and teach students to read and write. If we expect them to read and write, then why shouldn’t we expect the same from us?

Bringing Word Study to Intermediate Classrooms by Bloodgood

megcockrum — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:01:00 +0000

As a preservice teacher who is interested in teaching grades 3-5, I found this article to be extremely helpful. It is a great resource for teaching word knowledge (spelling and vocabulary). I always thought that teaching spelling in the upper grades should be different from the younger grades but I had no clue as how to go about it. I appreciated the fact that this article gives many great ideas for teaching word knowledge for the older students. I know that 5th graders do not want to be doing the same spelling activities they did in 2nd grade. On the other hand, spelling and vocabulary should not be left out of the upper grades either. There is a whole world of words out there that 3-5 students have not encountered, so why would we stop teaching word knowledge yet expect them to know how to spell the new words they are reading in their writing assignments? I also liked how the article identifies common spelling mistakes among the upper grades so that the teacher reading the article knows what is being discussed or taught. I absolutely loved the activities that are mentioned in the article also!

Instructional-Level Social Studies Trade Books

megcockrum — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:10:49 +0000

I completely agree with everything I read in this article. It made perfect sense to me as a teacher. It can be difficult sometimes to think about all of the different reading levels in a classroom and it might appear easier to assign everyone the same book so that the teacher only needs to plan around 1 book; however, that is not the most beneficial way for the students. If a student is struggling so much with reading a book then chances are that they will retain that much material because they are so focused on just being able to read it. If a student is reading a text that is way above their reading level then no gains will be made. All we are doing as teachers is pushing them further down the reading disability list. There are plenty of wonderful books on all levels for most academic content areas so there is no reason as to why we should not strive to meet the needs of all learners in our classrooms. What I really appreciated about this article are the lists that are provided in the back. I love having information right at my finger tips that will not take me all night to look through. This article is great for teachers!

Swashbuckling: Pirates in Historical Fiction and Nonfiction; and Pullout

megcockrum — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:38:42 +0000

I found this article to be very helpful. I liked how it gave a clear outline as to what is to happen during the Pirate unit. The article states different questions, different artifacts, and different activities that can be used in the classroom. This article was very clear and straight to the point without leaving out any information. I really appreciated that the Pullout article was selected handouts that can be used during the unit. Something wonderful about the layout of this unit is that it can be used with any unit topic. Any topic in social studies, health, math, or even science can be made into a unit that follows some of these guidelines. It gives great suggestions for starting out a unit that should be taken into consideration for unit topic.

Love That Poetry: Teaching Poetry Through “Love That Dog”

megcockrum — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:53:28 +0000

I like that this article gives a very reliable outline that one can follow when teaching this book in the classroom. I always had a hard time with poetry in school and I always knew that poetry would be one of the hardest things for me to teach just because I never understood it or liked it. I appreciated how the author of the article continually refers to other works of writing either for teacher use or for student use. I feel that it is very important for students to connect among different works. From a teacher’s standpoint, I appreciated how the author gives definitions of different types of poetry instead of just assuming that the reader knows what the author is talking about. This article appears to be very useful and beneficial as a teacher.

Notebook Know-How #2

megcockrum — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:31:57 +0000

The more I read this book, the more I like it. The author had some great ideas for motivating students to write. She mentioned a lot of great ideas that I would have never thought of, like “lifting a line”. I never liked to write as an elementary student (actually I never really liked writing) and I am actually getting very excited about getting my students to write as I have been reading in this book. I really like how the author makes writing personable for students. I am very excited to keep reading this book and gain more ideas that I can implement in my classroom.

Love That Dog

megcockrum — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:54:12 +0000

At first I did not like this book. It was not until about half way through the book that I actually started to enjoy it. I did not understand why the writer would write the book until I really got into the story. I do not like poetry so I can definitely relate to the main character in the story. I appreciated the book more and more as I read because of that connection with the character. I found it interesting the ways the teacher kept trying to pull the poetry out of her student. I enjoyed seeing how the teacher kept working with the student since he did not like poetry from the beginning because as a person who does not typically enjoy poetry I always knew that teaching it would be a challenge for me. I believe that this would be a great novel to have a student who does not like poetry to read. They could easily relate to the story and the main character. Through this book students (and teachers who do not like poetry either) can realize that everyone can do poetry. Once that topic is found that moves the author (student or teacher) then poetry becomes less of a challenge.

HOT Blogging Sept 1, 2009

megcockrum — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:40:11 +0000

I found this article to be very helpful. It was easy to read and understand. I have never used my own blogging site like this one before and I have always wondered how I was going to go about using it in the classroom. I have known for a while that I wanted to integrate technology into my classroom whenever possible, but I had no clue as to how to go about using blogging. I obviously knew that I wanted my students to post things on the blog but I was not aware of how to begin to introduce it to students. This article really opened my eyes to using a classroom blog. I really appreciated how it gave specific websites and examples of how blogging can be used. Sometimes when I am reading about technology and how to use it I become very confused because the language in the article can be very difficult to read. I really liked this article and really enjoyed reading it. I printed it so that I would have it for the future.