I forgot to take a picture this week and I can't find a good example on the internet, bu I think everyone will know what I'm talking about. A literacy resource I see used in my kindergarten classroom is the alphabet border name tags where each child sits. It shows them the upper case and lower case versions of each letter of the alphabet, as well as a picture that helps them identify the sound made by each letter. I think this helps enhance student learning because they are still learning to write all of these letters and having them right there all the time is very useful when they are working on writing assignments. I think it also helps to just see the letters of the alphabet often and my MT has many different places around the classroom where they are displayed for everyone to see. I would definitely recommend it to others, its a simple thing that seriously comes in handy for the students. I'm sure they don't cost much and most of them will last throughout the whole year. I don't really think any modifications are necessary to this particular tool, but I would change my MT's classroom to have more literacy tools throughout it. Because there isn't much throughout his classroom it took me a very long time to think of a resource I could write about for this blog.

Literacy Resources in the Classroom

Due to technical difficulties, I don't have a picture of my chosen literacy resource from my classroom. Each of my students have a book box. It's almost like a maganize holder or file organizer and is made from cardboard. On average, each student has 5-7 books in it that they are supposed to choose from during independent reading time. I think that it is a great idea to have students select books ahead of time so that when it is time for daily independent reading time they are wasting time and being disruptive to their classmates when selecting reading material. However, I would make several adjustments to this resource in order to make it more beneficial. My students don't have a set day or time when they switch out their books; several students have had some of their books in their box for months. I think that starting each week by having students swap out their books would be a good way to keep kids interested during reading time because they would have new options. Also, I would have each student keep a book log so that I could monitor whether or not students have already read a book they've selected. Additionally, many of my students do not have books that are at their independent reading level. Some of them have chapter books that are incredibly too advanced for them, or picture books that list Spanish vocabulary. In my classroom, I would be sure to monitor students as they select books, as well as periodically check my students' book boxes to make sure that they had appropirate level books. While I think the concept of book boxes is great, my MT does not effectively incorporate this literacy resource into her classroom.

This image I found online, however in my classroom we have something very similar. This picture board uses the letters of the alphabet to represent different objects and brands. In my classroom my teacher also uses the students names and puts them under the corresponding beginning letter. This helps enhance the students learning because it puts emphasis and examples of the sounds letters make. It help the students see that letters can have different sounds in different words. It also helps the students recognize letter sounds with pictures. Sometimes students have difficulty deciphering what sounds letters make and using pictures helps them hear the sounds better. I would recommend this to others because I think students benefit from it. I think students learn best through examples and this is a great representation. It is also fun to include the students names so they can see others that share the same first letter. This is also a fun and easy way to decorate your classroom. I don't think that this could use any modifications, but if you wanted to make it more advanced you could not just use starting letters and sounds. You could include pictures of a letter sound in the middle of the word to make it more complex.

Literacy Element

The picture above illustrates our classroom word wall. I am in a kindergarten classroom, and find this resource to be extremely convenient for the children. Each week, my mentor teacher introduces new words to the word wall, after discussing the words to the class. The words that appear on the word wall are either high frequency words that the students must know, or words specific to the theme of the lessons for that week. This week, for instance, they are discussing St. Patricks day and all of the concepts that go along with it. The word "lucky" listed at the bottom is a special word that the students will be working with often during this week. This word will be frequently seen in books being read, as well as on math worksheets and writing responses.

In our class, the words on the word wall are known as "popcorn words." When working in the work books, the students "butter" the popcorn words (use yellow crayons to color highlight them). The students look at the word wall so often and practice highlighting the words, that they quickly are able to read and spell a majority of the words on this wall. The students are also able to take a word off of the wall to take back to his/her seat if having a difficult time spelling it. I like that this is easily accessible for the students, and that they are able to use it when needed but without taking advantage of it. I would suggest a word wall in this format to others, as the students are able to visually see the high frequency words that are important, and can access them if needed.