ReadingSpecialist
docx
keyboard_arrow_up
School
Belhaven University *
*We aren’t endorsed by this school
Course
503
Subject
Philosophy
Date
Feb 20, 2024
Type
docx
Pages
3
Uploaded by roberts1980
Running head: READING TEACHER OR SPECIALIST INTERVIEW SUMMARY
1
Reading Teacher or Specialist Interview Summary
Kenterra Haynes
READ/504
September 2,2013
Sheree Inge
READING TEACHER OR SPECIALIST INTERVIEW SUMMARY
2
Reading Teacher or Specialist Interview Summary
The reading specialist I interviewed was formally a 3rd grade teacher. She currently works as the reading specialist and an academic counselor, where she has held that title for three years at the school where I teach. She was a former reading teacher of fourth grade students for six years. The school where I am employed is Otken Elementary, and she was temporarily there doing work for the upcoming year. She was very informative and she gave me insight about the materials she used in her classroom. She also gave me insight into which theories and models that were prevalent during her courses, how it helped her with her philosophy when she started to
teach, and what recent theories has altered her philosophy and teaching methods. The theories and models that were prevalent in the research during her courses while she was in graduate school were Vygotsky and Thorndike. She said that Vygotsky was prevalent because scaffolding is very important in the learning of students. By breaking up information into chunks and providing the students with the proper materials to support the chunks for the students to learn the information, the learning of the material would be successful. Some of the scaffolding ideas she presented, and used while she was taking course was: show and tell, tapping into the student’s prior knowledge, giving time for them to talk, pre-teaching vocabulary,
and using visual aids. She also said that Thorndike’s idea of active learning was prevalent throughout her courses. She believed that active learning keeps the students engaged and involved in the lessons being taught. She also believed that it makes the learning more meaningful once they start to learn the information. Without active learning the students will be bored and learning would not take place. Vygotsky and Thorndike’s theory helped her with her personal philosophy in many ways.
She was very excited to incorporate the scaffolding and active learning into her classroom once she started to teach. She said that once she put them into practice, she became a firm believer of these theories, and would not run her classroom without these things. She saw how her students benefited from them, and how it gave them the push to want to learn more and engage in the lessons. Not only that, but she said that once the students began to get the hang of the scaffolding
and active learning process it made the teachers job easier, and made prior knowledge easier to build on. A recent theory that has altered her personal philosophy is the curriculum theory. Because I was not familiar with this theory she explained that it was the views of Herbert Kiebard and Micheal Stephen Schiro. The main thing she explained was it was the concept of teaching the students to use mental reasoning. She explained the importance of it in her the society we live in. Without the use of mental reasoning students will not be able to function on a
daily basis. She said that she incorporated things like using numbers and operations and allowing the students to come up with different was to make numbers in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. She also used a lot of mental math, word problems, and reasoning to increase this skill.
READING TEACHER OR SPECIALIST INTERVIEW SUMMARY
3
She also pulled out some to the material that we were using this year. We are currently having Reading Street, and she was allowing me to see some more of the things we were going to incorporate with the program. I informed her one of my main concerns. Even though the program is wonderful at providing the students with a variety of writing prompts and stories, my students continued to struggle with the basics conventions of everyday writing and why it is used. She ensured me that reading and writing were closely related and in order for students to understand why they are reading the sentences with the type of expression they are using, the students need to understand why they show excitement when they see an exclamation mark, and why they ask a question when they see a question mark. What do they mean? She told me to incorporate a simple writing program called Written Expression, which they had in placed for many years before I started teaching. She also gave the materials to incorporate this program. The interview with the reading specialist went really well, and I gained a lot of information on her views and philosophy of teaching. By listening to her views, on which theories and models that were prevalent during her courses, how it helped her with her philosophy when she started to teach, and what recent theories has altered her philosophy and teaching methods I was able to reflect on my personal philosophy and some of it changed. I am so glad I was able to interview her and learn from her experiences.
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help