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This excerpt from Chapter 7 gives insight on essential early literacy behaviors and how to effectively teach and embed the teaching and modeling of these behaviors within small group instruction, as well as throughout other parts of the day.

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After reading, respond to the following: 

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After reading, respond to the following: 

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1. What did you think about as you read this excerpt from "Catching Readers Before They Fall?"

2. What are you still wondering about this topic?

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Catching Readers Before They Fall - Katelyn Gross 

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Catching Readers Before They Fall - Katelyn Gross 

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1. There was a lot of interesting points made in the article "Catching Readers Before They Fall". As an EC teacher, specifically for those with Autism, building connections for the students with the literacy experience is essential in building on their skills. The article discussed using their names for several activities. This is the way one of the ways that I teach the concept of print and letter identification in our class. I loved the idea of having the name anchor chart! We have several things in our classroom with their names and pictures, but I think being intentional with the anchor chart and maybe creating the chart together would be a great idea to help reference during activities and songs. I also really resonated with the phonemic awareness aspect that the article talked about. We try to expose our students to hearing different rhyming words through songs and games so they can begin to hear different sounds of words.

2. I am wondering about an activity that we can create to help make/build the anchor chart for their names and then finding ways to put that into our daily activities to help them begin to make connections with the letters in their names and their friends names.

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Catching Readers Before they Fall Response.

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Catching Readers Before they Fall Response.

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1. This text resonated with me because I am the interventionist at my school so a lot of these topics are things I am seeing with my kindergartners this year. This role is still fairly new to me, so when I had kinders who knew no letters or sounds I was very overwhelmed and did not know where to start with these students. One quote really stood out to me. In the text it said, "The way we choose to spend our time with students sends a message to them about what reading is all about.: If most of our time is spent with letter identification activities and words on cards, children quickly begin to believe that learning to read is about saying the words right." When I first got this group of students for guided, I was thinking how are these students going to read if they do not even know their letters! I met with my district coach and she said put books in front of them. At first I was hesitant, but as I have been working with these students for a couple of weeks I see how much this is helping them! Just like the text said, they are getting meaning out of their reading and are able to notice patterns and practice one to one correspondence.

2. I am wondering if the program Words Their Way can still be used to help support these students as well to see word patterns and manipulate sounds.

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Catching Readers Before They Fall Response

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Catching Readers Before They Fall Response

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1. As I was reading, I like the reminder that we can reinforce directionality and one-to-one correspondence in other subject areas like math and writing. I know we do this automatically, but we should allow the students to realize that strategies we use in one subject area can also be in used in other subject areas. That way students don't compartmentalize strategies. I also thought about how important that idea of searching and gathering for information is for many students. Thinking about my struggling readers, building their background knowledge about the text beyond just looking at the cover, is crucial for comprehension and for them to feel connected and successful with a text. Lastly, the idea of recognizing features of letters was such a great reminder for me since I do teach second grade and most of my students  come in with letter knowledge. However, those few students who are still working on letter (and number) directionality, thinking about the features of the letters would help greatly when asked to write reading responses. Many students get "stage fright" when asked to write because they truly don't know how to make their letters correctly.                                                           2. I am wondering how more direct grammar and spelling instruction could be used to support students in the primary grades. We embed it into instruction now, but would something like Words Their Way or daily grammar lessons better reinforce how words and sentences are constructed and in return help them learn how to read?

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Catching Readers Before They Fall- Courtney Sherman

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Catching Readers Before They Fall- Courtney Sherman

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1. I found this text to be very interesting. I teach first grade, and I have found that I need to go back and work with children on their letter sounds this year. I really like how they pointed out that students always should be predicting and thinking about what they are reading as they are reading. With my students, I always see improvement with their reading if we are reading about a topic that they are interested in. I also like how this author pointed out that we should always connect phonics to a book. Teaching these in isolation is not always a great use of our time and will not be effective with our students,
2. I'm wondering about independent work that these students can complete during guided reading. In the text, it said that all reading should be tied to actually reading and ensuring that students are engaged. I would love to see some additional examples on how these students can complete some independent activities during guided reading where they can practice learning their letter sounds.

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Catching Readers Before They Fall - Chelsea Baker

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Catching Readers Before They Fall - Chelsea Baker

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1.  As I was reading this excerpt from "Catching Readers Before They Fall," I was consistently reminder of the importance of going back to building blocks when necessary in order to provide our students with the opportunities to push ahead.  As a First Grade classroom teacher, I am regularly amazed by how much students have grown not only in the context of being a First Grade student, but being a First Grade student whose initial school experience was unlike the experience occurring this school year.  An incredible amount of learning is occurring beyond the typical year, and these students are truly rising to the occasion - and then some!  Along those same lines, however, it is important to remember their previous year's experience may or may not have provided all possible opportunities that this year is providing be back in person fully - and that it is ok to step back to ensure complete understanding of such concepts as reading print from left to right.  I also enjoyed the visual anchor chart examples provided in the text, especially the name anchor chart.  I felt this was a great way to easily engage students and make these letter/sound connections more meaningful for our approaching students.
2.  I am still wondering about additional strategies that can be utilized in small group for those students whose progress is more steady at the current time; what additional visuals have been shown to effectively move the trajectory forward for students whose progress may be currently held consistent?  What additional connections can be made?

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Catching Readers Before They Fall Response - Marissa Smith

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Catching Readers Before They Fall Response - Marissa Smith

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1. I found this excerpt from "Catching Readers Before They Fall" to be very helpful and interesting. As a first-year Deaf and Hard of Hearing teacher, the students I teach range from Kindergarten-6th grade. In terms of the primary grade levels, this year I have one kindergartener and one 1st grade student. Both of these students already had one-to-one correspondence, directionality, and letter identification when I began teaching them. While they do not need the supports for those essential building block skills, I may have a student who does in the future, so I feel much more prepared to teach future students who would benefit from extra support with those foundational skills after reading this chapter. I also thought a lot about which strategies would work best for my students who are Deaf and communicate using ASL. One point that stood out to me the most was that students should constantly be thinking about what they're reading and predicting what word would make sense to come next. I really appreciated the fact that they gave concrete examples of techniques and activities that could be used.

2. After reading, I'm still wondering about some more strategies that could be used with a student who has a limited vocabulary in English, as it is their second language. Due to their limited vocabulary, some of the strategies mentioned, such as using the pictures to predict words, typically aren't as successful, so I would love to learn how to better go about using this strategy with them or about other strategies that tend to work well for students learning English!