Gapminder Website

On January 10, I learned how to use the Gapminder website. I had only seen it used in lessons in biology and geography classes last year. I loved it then and was so excited to see it again and to begin to learn how to use it.

I still have questions about how to use it to show historical population growth and estimations for future population growth in various places. I saw this in a class in the past, but it was shown as sort of pyramid and hourglass shapes that moved over time, but I can't remember if this was on Gapminder or something else.

The implications of Gapminder in classrooms is that since it is visually stimulating, I think students will be easily drawn to it and will be motivated and able to learn how to use it fairly quickly. For me, just watching the colored bubbles bounce around brought many questions to mind and it was fun to find the answers....they kept leading to new questions. Great for inquiry lessons.

K-Buddy and Phonics

My new Kindergarten buddy is five years old. When my reading partner and I met her for the first time, she was extremely quiet and seemed shy. We talked with her a little before reading her a book called “Ella Sarah Gets Dressed.” She drew a picture for us with a house and two girls. She told us that one of the girls was her and the other was her sister. I was a little surprised at the effort it took to get her to talk with us. I haven’t read to very many children or spent much time trying to get to know kindergarteners. I am not sure why, but I thought she would be more talkative. Upon reflection, I can see how it could be intimidating to have a couple of adults whom she had never met, take her aside and start asking her questions.

Our Kindergarten buddy knew how to write some letters and a few small words. She has had this book read to her before. She knew the ending and other parts of the story. I am not sure if she could read some of the words or if she could figure things out because of the pictures and her familiarity with the story.  I will find out more about her abilities next week when we read with her and administer the Emergent Literacy Profile. 

The Fox readings were interesting and educational. They definitely helped me understand that children learn to read in specific stages and the extreme importance of phonics in learning to read. I did not know that the basic principal for phonics teachers is that learning to read happens in a predictable sequence before children ever pay attention to actual words in books. Knowing phonics is a critical basic skill for becoming fluent. Instant word recognition develops as children use phonics to read and learn new words.  It was amazing to me that by the end of first grade the good decoders will read twice as fast as the poor decoders. It follows that the good decoders will read twice as much in the same amount of time, and this will greatly enhances their fluency.

Studies show that high-fluency readers at the end of first grade will be high-fluency readers at the end of second grade. Low-fluency readers at the end of first grade will likely be low-fluency readers at the end of second grade.  Once this trajectory is set, it usually remains and the gap between reading fluency increases. Developing good phonics skills as a base for learning is critical in the very early years of literacy development.