Week 2- Assignment #3

 There were many interesting things explored and discussed throughout the 10 mini-video clips. I especially enjoyed the portrayal of the parents exposing their young children to the pleasure of reading at a very young age and I watched how the young girl pretended to read, displaying print awareness before she can actually read! The study on how highly developed infant’s language abilities are is fascinating to watch and you actually have to see it to believe it! A lot of what I watched reinforced information I already knew such as importance of read aloud and modeling literacy skills, such as phonemic awareness. The puzzle activity where the students changed letters to create new words was very useful and one I would definitely implement in my own classroom. It was also great to watch how the teacher used the activity as an assessment to see which student would need help with reading later on. The use of pig Latin to display advanced phonemic awareness was an interesting tidbit I would’ve never thought of regarding something like pig Latin! The use of a word web reinforced what a useful tool it is in the classroom especially when building fluency and comprehension. Other tools and strategies discussed, such as semantic gradients, helped with developing vocabulary and extending word knowledge, which helps with overall comprehension and fluency. The spelling word study program was also very interesting to watch and recognizing spelling patterns is a very effective strategy for students to utilize without making spelling seem difficult. Overall the videos all held interesting strategies and techniques that I could learn from.