I really enjoyed the article, Meeting academic standards through peer dialog at literacy centers that we read for class this week. The importance of literacy centers is rarely questioned. In her article, Putting Literacy Centers to work: A novice teacher utilizes literacy centers to improve reading instruction, Rebecca Stout provides a great summary of all the good learning that can go on in a well designed literacy centers. She writes, “ In summary, literacy centers enable teachers to differentiate instruction, address the interests of students, keep the learning child-centered, create socially-based learning, and teach children within their zones of proximal development.” Centers are a great way for us to scaffold what is taught through whole and small group instruction.
While I have never doubted that children do a lot of learning at centers, I was really surprised by the amount of learning they get from their peer interactions. The Maurer article states, “Research has shown that many word are learned without direct and explicit teaching, but rather through social interactions with peers.” Further on the author writes, “Children learn sight words, use inflectional endings, discuss homophones, create compound words, and learn definitions while engaged in peer dialogue at literacy centers.”
I’ll admit that last year I tried to keep the noise level down during our centers rotation. This article has definitively made me rethink that strategy. I know I need to keep the noise to a manageable level but I am backing off on constantly asking the students to be quiet. I’ll also be listening to hear the second level of learning that is going on through the peer interactions. I think this is an area where new teachers stuggle - if some noise is good, how much noise is acceptable? I guess we all need to determine the best level for our sanity and the learning of our children.
References:
Stout, R. (2009) Putting Literacy Centers to work:A novice teacher utilizes literacy centers to improve reading instruction. Networks An On-line Journal for Teacher Research (11) 1 - 6 Retrieved from http://journals.library.wisc.edu/index.php/networks/article/viewFile/181/185.
Maurer, C. (2010) Meeting academic standards through peer dialogue at literacy center. Language Arts 87 (5), 353-362. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org.proxy1.library,jhu.edu/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/LA/0875-may2010/LA0875meeting.pdf
I agree with your blog comments totally, Stephanie. When my children were in kindergarten, the teacher encouraged parent volunteers to be in the class at various times. I loved being a volunteer especially when the reading or math centers were taking place. I have two memories of that special time: 1) the children in my small group accomplished the task usually with my assistance and 2) the children always had something else to talk about besides the task at hand. I remember asking the teacher about the fact that there were sometimes multiple conversations going on while work progressed and the teacher remarked "It is controlled chaos - believe me", with a smile. This kindergarten teacher was a 30 year veteran and I never questioned her abilities, teaching style or classroom management skills. It seemed to me, as on occasional observer, that whatever she did on a daily basis seemed to work seamlessly. Now after reading your blog, and learning what we have learned in class these past few weeks there was a definite method to her "madness" shall I say. This kindergarten teacher embraced literacy centers, and allowed peer dialogue to flourish in her classroom at numerous times throughout the day. She welcomed chatter among classmates while completing work in small groups. I don't think noise bothered her at all, in fact I believe she knew what every child was doing at all times and knew when the noise level had to be adjusted. I'll never forget one day when the noise level did get pretty loud and all she did was turn out the light for 2 seconds and calmly said "Class please work on your projects in a quieter fashion" and that's what everyone did instantly.
ReplyDeleteI have to remember her words sometimes -controlled chaos - and be comfortable with noise that is managed to the best of my ability.