Children's Literature
Whenever someone asks me what I enjoy doing in my free time to relax, my number one answer is usually reading. Ever since I made the decision to go to school full time to get my degree in teaching, I haven’t really had the opportunity to read for pleasure anymore. When I took my Children’s Literature class, that all changed. My passion for reading has been reawakened, and my aspiration for teaching has been reaffirmed. This class has allowed me to revert back to my childhood years. I have been reading and exploring a variety of children's picture books from different genres. Some of these books have been old favorites, but many have been new finds that I look forward to adding to my classroom library collection. I learned that as a future teacher, I can use quality children's literature on a daily basis in my curriculum to teach lessons to my students, and at the same time align these lesson plans with the Arizona Standards for Reading. My main objective is to inspire my students to read more, and for them to realize that nothing can “hold them back” from succeeding and achieving their goals and dreams if they just open up a book, read, learn, discover and become worldly.
In “Philosophy of Children’s Literature: Read More To Know More,” I am expressing how crucial it is for me as a future teacher to have a literature-rich classroom environment to promote literacy in all of my students. Being a role model for my students by reading is definitely a huge plus, but it is not the only way to encourage my students to want to read more. A diverse library collection of books for my students will be accessible for them to read during class or they can borrow a book, and take it home to read. Incorporating literature and reading into my lesson plans daily will be a motivating factor for my students as well. I will challenge my students to learn about multicultural literature by having books displayed in my classroom that convey diversity and differences. The more they read books, the more knowledge they will have.
I am envisioning what my classroom library is going to look like, and it is going to be a literature rich environment that will motivate, encourage, and inspire all of my students to be excited about reading. As a future teacher, I want to be a role model for all my students, and by incorporating many read-aloud sessions throughout their school day, they will realize the importance of learning to read, and then they will want to read more books on their own time. I want my love for reading books to rub off onto my students, so that they can enter the wonderful world of fantasy, adventure, and wonderment, and so their imaginations can run wild. It is my desire to plant the seed of reading into my student’s lives so that they are eager to read. The power of an effective read-aloud is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg that will open up the eyes and minds of my students. They will see that reading is not only beneficial for learning, and becoming more educated, but it can also be very entertaining, and bring hours of enjoyment. I feel comfortable as a new future teacher scheduling times throughout the day to perform read-alouds with my students, and also incorporating read-alouds into the curriculum, but a goal of mine is to find out what books are of interest to our youth. I want to be able to choose the most appropriate books of interest for my students, so they will be more likely to listen, and learn while I am reading the books to them during the read-aloud sessions.
| literaturecollection.pdf |
| File Size: | 512 kb |
| File Type: | pdf |
Download File
I chose Eric Carle as the author and theme for my literature-rich collection because after researching and reading many of his books I realized how appropriate they would be for my future elementary/special education students. A large majority of the books I chose are geared towards primary grades, first through third graders, but I’ve come to learn that any book that has elements of quality in children's literature, such as originality, is memorable, or stimulates the reader using visual stimulus to assist in understanding or enriching the story, then it can be used to teach any age group effectively. Eric Carle books exhibit numerous qualities of children’s literature, and that is what appealed to me, and why I selected his books for my collection. Somewhere Over the Rainbow of Books, students can read and enjoy a literature-rich collection of Eric Carle’s picture books.
| lesson_1_activity_.pdf |
| File Size: | 509 kb |
| File Type: | pdf |
Download File
I was very excited about having the opportunity to teach my very first lesson to a group of 4th graders. The book I chose to read aloud was, The Boy Who Loved Words, by Roni Schotter. There was a very strong moral that I wanted the students to identify. A reader response activity that helped them to discover the message of the story was a word tree vocabulary collage. By weaving all the new words together that they learned from the book, they were able to figure out the theme of the story. This lesson taught me as a future teacher how critical it is to match the lesson plan to the Arizona Reading Standard Guidelines.
| lesson_2_activity.pdf |
| File Size: | 405 kb |
| File Type: | pdf |
Download File
Thank you, Mr. Falker, by Patricia Polacco, was the book I selected for this lesson. After I read it to the students, I realized it could not have been a better choice. The students were actually very empathetic towards the main character of the book, Trish. She could not read, and because of this she was mercilessly ridiculed by her peers. The reader response activity the students worked on was a character web of Trish or Mr. Falker. They also wrote a short paragraph on the theme of the story. Bullying is an issue that is rampant in our schools, so awareness is the first step towards putting an end to it.
