Genre Presentation

On Thursday's genre presentation, we had the privilege to watch a story recorded by the group. Their presentation was over multicultural literature. This topic was very interesting and we learned that there are all sorts of good literature around the world. Some stories even have a good moral to them. By reading multicultural literature, we get familiarized with the type of cultural the story is based on and with the customs. I think the group did an excellent job on re-telling their story with the paper figures they created and even with background music.

Chapter 8 Fiction

What can I say about fiction stories? It is our window to escape out of reality and go into a world where anything can happen. When I hear the word "fiction", I think about magic, monsters, and heroes. There are different type of genres of fiction, but out of all of them, i have to say that fantasy is what draws me in. One of the popular fictional stories that is selling like crazy right now is the Twilight series. All the young people are into this love story between a mortal human and a vampire. My favorite fiction stories are scary stories. Fiction explores possibilities limited only by the imagination. I like how our text book quotes that stretching the imagination through literature has wonderful psychological rewards, extending the boundaries of what we perceive as reality (Living Literature 179). Every child loves to daydream and imagine a different world of human beings and of creatures that talk. Reading fiction stories to our classrooms will keep our students interested in reading because we are showing them that there can exist a whole new world where anything is possible and can happen.

Nonfiction

Believe it or not, when we hear the word nonfiction, we tend to push it away. It doesn't fascinate much people as the fiction stories do. But I stop and realize that in the literacy world there needs to be a balance; a balance between the real world and the fantasy world. Nonfiction can be about biographies and facts of all sorts of things. I think that it is important to feed true facts to our children so that they may gain knowledge. Visual information is the main ingredient in nonfiction books. Without illustrations, the books would be pointless to our young readers. Illustrations and other visual material are an increasingly vital feature of nonfiction books. Today's books are filled with extraordinary photographs and illustrations. It clarifies and expands the understanding of the readers. It is also always interesting in reading about other people's lives and the experiences they went through.

Shared Reading

The article was very insightful. I think it is very important to conduct shared readings in our classrooms. I learned that it it gives young children an enjoyable experience so that they grow to love stories and become independent readers and writers. Reading aloud is bringing literature alive to the children. I love reading to children and i read the stories dramatically to the whole group. The children become so fascinated and more engaged to the story as i get into it. Any child can pick up a book and read but they can never compare the experience with the shared reading with the whole class. It becomes memorable for them because of all the connection they had with the book and the rest of the class. As they reread the stories, they pick up new information that they probably have missed in the first time. It turns out that reading aloud needs to happen for every student at all grade levels. It is very effective in developing and supporting many aspects of literacy like: interest in reading, language development, building vocabulary, developing listening comprehension, understanding different kinds of sentence structures, and so much more.

Traditional Literature "LiL Red"

Well, what can i say about traditional literature? Never thought that it could be dirty. Some folktale were unclean and unappropriate for little children. One of them was Little Red Riding Hood. When i first read the original story of little red, i was astonished on what i was reading! It turns out that some folktale literature were made for adults; more like a rated "R" story. The big bad wolf chopping up the grandma and putting her in a jar and having little red eating and drinking the blood of her own grandmother was really something! So the story of little red riding hood came a long way and was cleaned up for the children. I can imagine for the children if they were to find out about the original version, how freaked out they would be. It was mostly written or told for adult entertainment. Good thing most of the stories have changed and are appropriate for children to enjoy. I think that they should come up with childrens literature of their own and not use a dirty adult story to clean it up and re-tell the story in a clean version. How gross is that? Why pick up trash?

Chapter 4

In this chapter, we learn that it is important to meet the interest of the students. Now we're talking about students of all ages and each have their own preferences. The text gives us a perfect example on page 61 of how to approach the students to find out the type of literature they are interested in. Our professor also encouraged us to pass out a survey to the class to get to know our students and to make the perfect selections of literature. Growth has wide variations; children change at different rates and their development is affected by many social, cultural, and biological factors (Kasten, Kristo and McClure). Not every child read at the same level. We are given helpful tips of selecting the perfect literature on page 63. We have a wide range of books and it is possible that the child would want to read a certain nonfiction book, but it may not be in there reading level. I learned that we need to be careful to select a book that is easy for them to read to help build confidence. It's a good thing that we can give options to the children of what they would like to read. I would like a great response from my class having great interaction and feedback. Another important review was the cultural influences, to find literature based on their unique background. I remember as a child that one of my elementary teachers read this book about how people from Mexico celebrate Christmas. I could relate to the book because i would celebrate the same way when i would travel to Mexico to visit my family. I connected right away. We should connect our readers to the story.

Comprehension is the understanding of what you read. I like how Frank Smith describes what comprehending is in the text book and he quotes," It is the interaction between the visual information a reader perceives and the nonvisual information that the reader connects to". In other words, every letter, word, and other symbolswe read in a book, our ninds paint a picture of how it would be like or look like. Our imagination kicks in. Our role as a teacher id to find good literature that relate to their interests and experience. Not everything students read suit their interests and so it is important to engage our students into reading to expand their minds. One thing i learned on this chapter is about scaffolding. It is a very supportive teaching tool that enables readers to grow and to make the as independent as possible. The importance of making the child read is to enlarge the reader's vocabulary and word knowledge. When scaffolding, we are getting the feed back of the student to see what they got from the reading. By asking questions or opinions about the reading gets the students involved instead of having the whole focus on the teacher. There are different ways of assessing comprehension listed in the chapter and each are great tools to use. There is no such thing as just one way to do it, but we find different creative ways to to examine the students to see how well they are comprehending. We want to get the attention of the students and not bore them to death. Reading should be fun!