Reflection from the Video 

 

I had a new impression of how to teach children to read after watching the video, “Becoming Readers and Writers”. When I was in Kindergarten, we knew how to read when we could sound out each word in the sentence. The teacher in the video, Sheila Owen, made her students feel that they were learners from the very first day that they entered her classroom. They didn't need to know how to sound out each word in order to know how to read. Sounding out was just one method of figuring out what a word was. They also used pictures and context clues. Ms. Owen had the students constantly engaged with reading. By listening to her read, reading with her, and then reading with guidance, they were able to read on their own. I thought that making time for each type of reading everyday was a great way to facilitate independent reading. The students were encouraged to write sentences using words that they saw around the classroom because the room was full of words and pictures. So even if they didn't know how to spell on their own, they were able to create sentences. The fact that children may not know how books work was a new idea for me. I realized that I cannot assume that children will know concepts that to me seem obvious. When Ms. Owen paused to explain the book and asked them questions of how the book applied to their own lives, this made sure that the children understood the story. It was interesting to learn that ELLs should use their first language because that would help them learn to read; I would have thought otherwise. It was good that the teacher spoke some words in the language that the students are more familiar with it because it will make those students feel more comfortable in the classroom.