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Tracking Students in the Elementary Classroom Classroom: Bridges to be Burned
No full textTeachers and administrators can become fearful that struggling early readers may eventually contribute to their specific school being placed on academic probation. This study followed one school who opted to place struggling first grade readers into a classroom that was smaller in size but contained only students who were struggling in their attempts to learn to read. It was anticipated that, by the end of the school year, these students would be reading at the same level as other students in their same grade level. However, results showed that the children in the small, “struggling” class were not only unable to raise their reading levels to that of their peers, but also that struggling students who were placed into regular classrooms at the same school did raise their reading levels to that of their peer
Trading Places: New Perspectives for Preservice Teachers
Get PDFPreservice teachers in an EC-6 literacy methods block created a specific experiential assignment. The assignment is called the Spanish Read Aloud. This experience is easy to organize and has benefits to both bilingual children (third grade and kindergarten) as well as preservice teachers. It promoted rich, deep discussions and focused on personal feelings. This assignment pushed the preservice teachers beyond learning theory and content and encouraged them to reflect on their dispositions, emotions, and attitudes
Reading the Word and World in Haiti: Literacy Education for Social Justice
Get PDFThe first author, Dr. Altheria Caldera, traveled to Haiti as a member of a group of volunteers from the U.S. whose goals were to provide assistance to children in a privately operated primary school located in the rural community of Lamardelle. For the first author, assistance primarily focused on training in literacy education, with an emphasis on reading comprehension strategies for students who struggle to read. We examine literacy education as a tool of social justice. This paper describes the components of the first summer of this teacher development program and explains how our work was undergirded by Freirean ideas regarding liberatory education (Freire, 2000). A second aim is to analyze ways language impacts the practice of education in Haiti. In so doing, we hope to present a model of how literacy education can be a tool for social justice in similar contexts
Exclusionary Discipline Practices in Texas: Addressing the School to Prison Pipeline
Get PDFStatewide discipline data indicate that African-American and Latino students are disproportionately removed from classrooms in Texas. Students who are excluded from school are more likely to experience academic failure, drop out of school, and become involved in the juvenile justice system. Changing the culture of schools by training staff to use proactive and positive approaches to behavior managementoffers the best prospect of breaking the school to prison pipeline. In several states, improved Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports implementation has resulted in changes in exclusionary discipline. Use of this model in Texas might reduce discipline discrepancies by race
Critical Conversations: Using Picture Books to Welcome Refugees into Our Classrooms
Get PDFApproximately 11 million children have recentlybeen forced to leave their homes and lives behinddue to war, natural disasters and othertypes of trauma. Reading picture books aboutrefugees in classroom communities that includerefugee children may help these children to feelrecognized and to realize they are not alone intheir situations. All children should see themselvesreflected in the literature (Hope, 2008),and children who have arrived suddenly afterescaping some sort of tragedy are no different.Using selected children’s picture books depictingrefugee children not only provides opportunitiesfor teaching critical literacy, but also incorporatesglobal perspectives, as well as perspectivesof justice and injustice in the classroom.The multidimensional representations ofrefugees in picture books also enables teachersto promote critical conversations in the classroom
Reading the Word and the World in Haiti: Literacy Education for Social Justice
No full textThe first author traveled to Haiti as a member of a group of volunteers from the U.S. whose goals were to provide assistance to children in a privately operated primary school located in the rural community of Lamardelle. For the first author, assistance primarily focused on training in literacy education, with an emphasis on reading comprehension strategies for students who struggle to read. We examine literacy education as a tool of social justice. This paper describes the components of the first summer of this teacher development program and explains how our work was undergirded by the Freirean ideas regarding liberatory education (Frire,2000). A second aim is to analyze ways language impacts the practice of education in Haiti. In so doing we hope to present a model of how literacy education can be a tool for social justice in similar contexts
