Highlighter Activity

Dr. Behrens taught us how to use a highlighter activity in class that really caught my attention. The highlighter activity is a way to build metacognition for students. This is an activity that may not work very well with students at a young age because there may be many things they do not understand quite well yet. For this activity,  students will read a passage and highlight with two different colored highlighters. (Choose two highlighters that make a different color when they overlap.) The example in class had blue and pink highlighters that made the color purple when they overlapped. As students are reading, they will highlight what they do not understand in pink and highlight when they do understand in blue. When they reread, they can see what they can change to the color purple using their metacognitive strategies. Using this activity can not only help to build metacognition, but it can be used to summarize, predict, reread, clarifying, connecting, questioning, and using context clues. I think this would be a very engaging activity that does not require much knowledge to do. It is very simple, for a student to use one color highlighter as highlight what they know with previous knowledge and then reread the passage to go over what they did not quite understand and see where they blend. I will definitely use this in my classroom. Highlighters are so much fun :)

Frayer Model

In RED 4519, I learned how to use the Frayer Model and I found this graphic organizer to be very helpful for me as well as for students. I am a very big fan of graphic organizers because I am a visual learner and I like to see things visually and learn this way, rather than learning through listening. I also am a hands-on kinesthetic learner, but I think that seeing things visually gives me an understanding, especially when learning new words. I enjoyed learning about the Frayer Model because it is not the original word and definition sheet we are used to seeing everywhere in classrooms. The Frayer Model shows a box with the vocabulary word in the center and the space around is used to help you learn the word with the definition, synonyms, antonyms, an example, and with a drawing.  I enjoyed using the Frayer Model that I wanted to incorporate this into my AIP to have my student learn new words with this graphic organizer as well. This model gives a chance to learn through examples and definitions, and by drawing a picture, students can memorize the word visually and this is a technique they can use for the rest of their lives, even for non-vocabulary words they learn throughout the future. 

Reflection on AIP

While assessing the QRI with my student, I noticed how difficult it was for my student to recall key ideas. I thought he did a really good job reading the word lists and reading the passage, although there were a couple miscues. Recalling main ideas and details was definitely the toughest portion of the assessment for my student. I have noticed how informal assessments can be very useful in the classroom, especially when determining a child’s reading level. Informal assessments as a professional practice can assist a teacher to help their students succeed. I believe that using these types of informal assessments can also increase a student’s reading comprehension level if the student is assessed regularly. (REC 3.2, REC 3.9) I am glad I got the opportunity to assess a student using the QRI so I know what to change when I assess students of my own. In my future classroom, I would like to use words from the QRI word lists to teach my students how to read them and slowly build up onto bigger words that they will be able to read and understand. I instantly imagine a word wall in my classroom with many of the words students are supposed to know at their grade level. My RED 4519 class with Dr. Behren’s has taught me a lot about sustainable strategies that I can teach my future students to use in their everyday lives. I now know how to use informal assessments and I have learned how to interpret formal assessments also. (REC 3.3) I have learned more about the use of graphic organizers and I plan to use them on many of my lessons as a future teacher as well.