Chapter 4

        The fourth chapter of the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses vocabulary and fluency using multimedia support with regards to students from different socioeconomic homes. Vocabulary and fluency are important components in the literacy development of young children. Fluency Instruction helps students understand what they have read. Fluency Instruction is the ability to read text quickly and accurately. Students can practice orally reading through student-adult reading, choral reading, tape-assisted reading, partner reading, and readers' theatre. Reading fluency can be developed by modeling fluent reading as well as having students engage in repeated oral reading. Monitoring student progress in reading fluency is useful in evaluating instruction and setting instructional goals and can be motivating for students.

Vocabulary is important for beginning readers use their oral vocabulary to make sense of the words they see in print. Readers must know what most of the words mean before they can understand what they are reading. Vocabulary words are the words we must know to communicate effectively. Two Types of Vocabulary are oral and reading vocabulary. Oral vocabulary includes words that we use in speaking or recognize in listening. Reading vocabulary include words we recognize or use in print. There are four different kinds of word learning which are learning a new meaning for a known word, learning the meaning for a new word representing a known concept, learning the meaning of a new word representing an unknown concept, clarifying and enriching the meaning of a known word. Vocabulary develops indirectly and directly. Vocabulary develops indirectly when students engage daily in oral language, listen to adults read to them, and read extensively on their own. Vocabulary develops directly when students are explicitly taught both individual words and word learning strategies.

While vocabulary and fluency play a crucial role in literacy development, it is also important to focus not only on ways to teach, but how to address all of the needs of different students. Students who come from a poorer, lower class community have been shown to have a lower fluency rate and smaller vocabulary than students of middle or higher socioeconomic status.  Students in the classroom learn the same concepts, words, and strategies, but their indirect learning is what is different between different socioeconomic statuses. Using multimedia outlets can provide different ways of learning, creating, and expanding students’ comprehension. It is important for schools to work towards helping the children who come from low socioeconomic homes to reach their full potential. Working toward this goal will greatly improve student literacy comprehension.

Chapter 3

            The third chapter of the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses creating a classroom community and connecting with families. One of the ways to build classroom community mentioned in this chapter is a program called VoiceThread. This program intrigued me because I had never heard of it before. With this program, students and teachers can upload pictures and media to one class VoiceThread. Adding media is not complicated to do and is user friendly. Teachers can monitor the class’s progress and posts, as well as write comments to students and posting questions. This program allows different ways to explore learning across all subjects in the core curriculum. Learning can improve by providing more visuals and allowing students to communicate with other students as well as the teacher in a safe digital learning environment.

            Confidence of students can also improve with this program because students can review and edit their work before posting exactly what they want to say instead of being afraid to stand in front of an entire class, which can be intimidating and scary. Student interactions become much easier through this program and can help teachers when organizing a lesson or project on a specific topic. It is an affordable price and I would recommend current and future educators, like myself, to incorporate this program into classrooms.

Chapter 2

The second chapter of the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) with regard to technology and digital literacies. The Common Core State Standards provides an outline and guide for teachers to base their lessons off of. All teachers use these standards when creating a lesson for various subjects. Teachers should have an integrated balance using technology, curriculum goals, and instructional strategies.  

Since ELA is not a concrete academic learning like math or science, the ELA standards encompass processes and ideas about how to approach teaching for grades K-5 using the CCSS for each level across reading, writing, speaking, listening, language and media, and technology. Some teachers may struggle with incorporating technology into the curriculum and these standards provide a framework for incorporating technology into the English Language Arts Curriculum. Lessons created by teachers should support and assess student learning using curriculum goals.

For some teachers who have been in the field for a long time, integrating technology and knowing how to use it in the classroom is a new and challenging concept. It is important for teachers to be aware and knowledgeable of the variety of digital media, useful and credible websites, and comfortable using the technology before implementing lessons in the classroom. Using the standards will help give teachers a guide for using technology in ELA. Through research, teachers can utilize many different types of digital media to aid their lessons and help accommodate student learning. New technology is always arising, and by practicing incorporating technology into the curriculum more frequently, literacy in digital media will improve both for the teacher as well as students.  

With technology changing every day, it is important for teachers to constantly stay up to date on different types of digital media and adjust lessons and teaching accordingly. By properly incorporating technology using the core standards, student learning, especially in English Language Arts, can be transformed and open many doors for accommodations, support, and scaffolding opportunities for children within the classroom.