Picture Book Lessons

All of my articles that I read dealt with read alouds so, I chose read aloud picture books for each of my lessons. The books that I used were: When Marian Sang by: Pam Munoz Ryan; Moses - When Harriet Tubman Led her People to Freedom by: Carole Boston Weatherford; Martin's Big Words by: Doreen Rappaport; and Ella Fitzgerald -The Tale of a Vocal Virtuoso by Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney. I used different strategies with each lesson and had a good deal of success with each lesson.  I think the students really enjoyed looking at music from a different persepctive than performance.  The following lesson was my favorite. We actually got to discuss a lot of social studies in this lesson.  It's great for students to see what battles have been won so, that they can enjoy the liberties and freedom that they have.

Lesson #1

Read Aloud

Performance Standard: MMSIC.7 – Evaluating music and music performances

MMSIC.8 – Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts

MMSIC.9 – Understanding music in relation to history and culture

Essential Question: What is the relationship between music, history, and visual arts?

Objectives: Identify and describe relationships between music, history, and visual arts.

Identify and comprehend new vocabulary used in the text.

Demonstrate literacy skills through reading and discussing musical settings of varied literature.

Supplies: When Marian Sang

By: Pam Munoz Ryan

Alpha Boxes worksheet

1. Read the story aloud, showing the pictures after reading each page.
2. During the read aloud, the teacher references many songs in the text by singing the lyrics. The students joined in singing “My Country ‘tis of Thee” during the reading of the text.
3. Students discussed the new vocabulary notated in the alpha boxes and developed a definition of their own with a partner.
4. The class discussed all of the new vocabulary words that they encountered in the reading of the text. Student-created definitions were shared and discussed and the book was summarized through student-led discussion.
5. Vocabulary: opulent; trepidation; metropolitan; momentous; and contralto

Lesson Two

When Marian Sang

Performance Standard: MMSIC.7 – Evaluating music and music performances

MMSIC.8 – Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts

MMSIC.9 – Understanding music in relation to history and culture

Essential Question: What are the stylist techniques in Marian's vocal performance?

Objectives: Identify and describe relationships between music, dance arts, theatre arts, and visual arts.

Demonstrate literacy skills through reading and discussing musical settings of varied literature.

The students will study the correlation of reading phonemes and singing phonemes.

Discuss stylistic characteristics of a varied repertoire, including world music and analyze vocal performance.

Discuss the relationship between music, world events, history, and culture.

Supplies: When Marian Sang

Comprehension Worksheet
Recording of "Deep River"

1. The students will independently answer the questions on the worksheet.
2. The class will discuss the answers to the questions.

Extension activity: Students will listen to a recording of Marian Anderson's "Deep River" to analyze the techniques used and observe the opulent range that is displayed in the song. The Students practiced the techniques using “My Country ‘tis of Thee” from the book. The vowels of singing were discussed and the syllables were broken down into phonemes. The students practiced these to develop correct singing diction.  This method works very well for ESOL students as well as English speaking students. We use hand signals for the vowels and extended the vowels sounds into syllabic formation. This made it very easy for all my students to accomplish.

The next time I teach this lesson I will focus on the comprehension of the text and use a different worksheet for vocabulary. I feel that the KWL chart might be more helpful with the content that I want them to focus the most on. The alpha boxes were not as functional for the higher level vocabulary. Having some vocabulary in the beginning would have served as a great hook for the story (even though the students were enthralled in the story)!

Reflection: I loved seeing how the different methods of teaching vocabulary had an impact on how the students learned the material and responded to the material. Talking about prior knowledge and terms that students might encounter in the text, gives them a "heads-up" on what to look for when listening. Sometimes students have a hard time listening if they don't have something to listen for; listening should always have purpose (spoken like a true musician)!

Discussion of the content from this book led to many ideas about how history has a direct correlation with art and music. Students that did not have a American cultural background were able to grasp what it was like in the early nineteen hundreds and how things have changed over the course of a century. Students with different historical and cultural backgrounds were able to share about the similarities and differences between American history/culture and their own history/culture. This helped to encourage respect for other cultures. People who respect others and have the courage to stand up for their beliefs are the people who knock down barriers!

Revisiting Read-Aloud: Instructional Strategies that Encourage Students' Engagement with Text"

This article was very detailed and gave so much wonderful information that included activities that can be tried in the classroom. I found it very fascinating that the data collected from this research concluded that social activity and social collaboration are essential to cognitive development. I whole-heartily agree with this. I think that I should be teaching in a Montessori school somewhere, due to the fact that I think learning is "hand-on" not "hands-off-sit-behind-the-desk-and-be-quiet-and-never-say-a-word-to-another-kid". Many teachers buy into this philosophy and it is not a productive one. People are social creatures and we are designed to communicate.

This article relates the idea that reading is a transactional process. Meaning does not reside in the text alone or in the reader alone, but it occurs when the two transact. Readers draw from several knowledge sources in order to assimilate meaning. These include: comprehension strategies, prior knowledge, making connections, question answering, question generating, and presenting alternative perspectives.

Read Alouds increase literacy learning and significantly impact vocabulary development and comprehension growth. Read Alouds motivate students to read and builds knowledge that is essential in the development of successful writing skills. This strategy supports listening and speaking abilities, which enhances overall language development.

Strategy engagement fosters meaning. Alpha boxes, making connections, and discussion webs are great strategies that encourage comprehension development. These strategies paired with small group collaboration will promote motivation, interest, and retention of knowledge.

"Vocabulary Development during Read-Alouds: Primary Practices"

For many children, books come to life when adults read aloud. In Doc's blog she stated how excited that she was that her high-school-aged students loved it when she read to them. From the article, I gleaned that reading aloud is a powerful motivator because students are engaged. This provides the context for extended vocabulary enrichment. That is probably why Doc's students were so motivated; because she engaged them!

In my assessment of the article, read-alouds could become the way to bridge the gap from everyday language to book language. Read-alouds introduce formal language to students in an informal context that extends beyond everyday conversation language to novel language. This activity is widely accepted for the development of vocabulary for obvious reasons.

Repetition and practice help students to move to a more critical level of word knowledge. However, only high quality read-alouds and adult mediation will assist students in obtaining the highest level of vocabulary comprehension. This is mastered by questioning, discussion, and conversation about the text.

Some Really Cool Sites

Here are some sites that I have enjoyed perusing:

http://more.starfall.com - I love the fact that this web site uses a variety of different methods for reading development and reading enjoyment. The use of the word machine is very clever and it even incorporates music into the learning activities......always a plus in my book!

www.readinga-z.com - This site features free downloads and is the greatest cheerleader for differentiated instruction strategies.

http://abcteach.com - This is a great site for reading comprehension strategies for middle and high school. These sites are hard to come by especially since they have free downloads.

www.funbrain.com - My son and I had so much fun playing the word games on this site.

www.readwritethink.org - I think this is my favorite site. Musicians analyze songs all of the time to better portray the character and mood of a piece. This web site helps teachers to write lesson plans that concentrate on the critical thinking skills that students will need to analyze texts.

www.smarttutor.com -  This site is an individualized resource for parents and teachers with free games and downloads. I love the fact that it has links for special needs children and gifted children.