What impressed me very much with
Ms. Owens was how she states that in her class the students are “Readers and
writers from day one.” With such clear and firm goals for her students, even if
on day one they aren’t yet too proficient in these areas, they are bound to
become readers and writers with all of the skills and strategies Ms. Owens
implements. Her literacy instruction runs as follows: She provides a gradual
decrease of her responsibility and an increase in their independence. They go
from where Ms. Owens doing all of the work in read-aloud, to shared reading,
guided reading, to where the students are doing all of the work in independent
reading. Her strategies include making the learning experience as authentic as
possible to the students so that they will be motivated and interested in what
is being discussed. She also implements a lot of books, games, and
manipulatives into her lessons so that her students get varied experiences as
they listen, converse, read and write. I find this so important as it allows
for learning to be more than one-dimensional and using all these diverse
learning forms really shows the students how the language Arts can be expressed
in many diverse ways, such as through a Poem or through sentences put together
on a Word Wall and more. Almost half of MS. Owens class were English Language
learners and so, while her class is conducted in English, she encourages her
students to use their first language as it helps her reach them. She also has a
part-time bilingual aide as well. I enjoyed watching how she sang “Buenos Dias”
to one of her ELL students and he seemed really happy to have been acknowledged
in a language he most identifies with. All in all, it was a very inspiring
video. especially watching the scaffolding taking place and how the students became more and more independent with their reading and writing.
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