Abstract – Picture books display literary and visual art that can engage readers. As a professional educator in the future, picture book forms and reader responses can initiate thoughtful thinking. This can initiate effective conversation within the classroom. In addition, it can emphasize the importance of picture books in the curriculum. In picture books, words and pictures never exactly tell the same story. In the classroom, readers can determine the conflict between what they see and hear when they read.

Jessica and I discussed the book and here are some things that we talked about. The beginning chapters of the book opened my eyes to the various characters in the text. It initiated my thinking as to where the characters could potentially be in their future experiences and within the upcoming chapters of the book. My thinking was generated based upon what information we know about them presently and the situations that they are finding themselves within. When looking at people in barbershops, some of their lives are working out better than others. Some are successful while others are struggling. An example is Lonnie who ends up in jail which shows how life is not working out for him. Each character tends to be a case study for Jimmy. Those that are successful have created their own businesses and have nice possessions. Duke tells Jimmy how life doesn’t work and that you have to make it work for you, which is showcased as people visit the barbershop. With the relationship between Jimmy and his mother, he recognizes that she works hard. He does not want to let her down, but his respect is not high enough to keep him on the right track. The mother seems to not have the time to correctly discipline him. We noticed the shift in Jimmy’s character and the shift with the relationship with Duke. Jimmy starts to ask for advice instead of keeping his guard up when talking to Duke. In the barbershop, we noticed that Jimmy is learning and absorbing from his experiences. The shift in Jimmy’s character creates a conflict with him and Kevin. Jimmy is tired of Kevin’s behavior. We, then, predicted what would happen between the relationship of Kevin and Jimmy. We agreed that they both would take different paths within their lives. Jimmy is growing and evolving with making a change in his life. On the other hand, Kevin does not want to change his direction in life. He wants to keep doing what is normal for him. @JessicaLeClerc

Poetry is a great way to build imagination in the written work of students. Poetry can be used and expressed to show issues within society. While formulating poetry, it can display a deeper contextual meaning. If children are exposed to poetry in their early schooling years, they can identify issues within society and form an understanding on how to approach those societal issues. Student’s imagination can expand through poetry because once they have read or heard poetry, they can formulate ideas off of that aspect of poetry. At an early age, it is significant for student’s imagination to build and grow. This will be beneficial as they progress through their educational experiences because poetry would be a way to build upon imagination. Through written works, student’s can take time during the day to write on their ideas. This would be an opportunity to express imagination through their written works. Their written work could also be a poem that expresses how they are feeling. Poetry can then be used to address issues in society and the student’s might be able to apply their personal emotions to societal issues in order to form a perspective on it. For those students who struggle with expressing their emotions, Mara Linaberger states in a journal, “some teachers even provide their students with fill-in-the-blank poems in which the meter and rhyming couplets are already laid out”. The integration of poetry is an extremely effective tool to build upon students imagination. Teachers can use poetry to address societal issues like pollution and violence. Poetry can be a way for a student to express themselves through discussing a topic.

From the reading, it emphasized that running records do not have the primary purpose of simply determining the right and wrong answers from a student. “It requires observing all behaviors to help determine the ‘thinking process’ children are using as they read the text”. Running records are a way to observe how children tackle the reading experience and what they are thinking while reading a text. It can range from the child being able to express their attitude, understanding, and accuracy of reading a text.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bhgUPnM5P66vs7q_xAk33jLn0hLXUtb7S5sdq1KQwPo/edit?usp=sharing

Initially, we discussed how the chapters were formatted and set up. We believe that the paragraphs are formulated based upon the life lessons set out in the book and that are being discussed. The book is drawing a close relation and focus on Jimmy. I believe he is going to learn life lessons that are emphasized in the reading. These lessons might steer him in a different direction within his life. @JessicaLeClerc

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mr7VDWSodrJK-zkdw8P7GF4DW3KJyXM_/view

A journal written by Christine Duthie and Ellie Kubie Zimet observed how poetry is used in the classroom and stated, “poetry is often neglected in classroom literacy experiences”. I found this interesting because this creates a significant limitation to student’s imagination if they are not exposed to poetry. It is important to expose students to poetry and teach about societal issues. It is important for students to have a way to express their emotions and build upon their imagination.

With the topic of Phonemic Awareness, the concentrated segment our group focused on was Phonemes (segment/blend). The grade level is first grade. In the beginning months of the school year, we will concentrate on rhyme. Our class will then move on to alliteration. To continue with our goals following the phonemic awareness steps, in the middle months of the school year we will learn about sentence segments. Near the ending months, our goals will be to concentrate on onset and rime. To conclude, our last focus will be on phonemes, segment, and blends. These are our loose schedule of goals from the beginning, middle, and ending months of the school year. In the beginning months, we will learn about our topics within phonemic awareness during morning meeting. During the middle and end months of the school year, we will meet our goals and learn about different aspects in phonemic awareness during center time. To describe one sample activity, I will focus on phonemes, segment/blend phonemes. In this activity, we will use a rubber band to stretch out the phonemes in each word during center time. The rubber band will be placed around the students hands, as well as the teacher to demonstrate, and the band will be pulled apart to sound out the phonemes. When pulling the rubber band back to its closed position, the student will sound the word fully together. This process can be used to isolate each phoneme. I would explain that word-stretching can be used to help students with phoneme segmentation activities. Something to note in this activity is that short vowels are used because they are the kind of words most programs start with for decoding. I would try stretching words with vowel and consonant digraphs because it would raise awareness that words such as soap, ship, and sheep only have three sounds. As the teacher, I would demonstrate the phonemes in a slow stretched-out fashion. I would pull my hands slowly apart and bounce the hands slightly at the point of the vowel to help students isolate the sound. Some examples of the words I would use would be: sun /s/ /u/ /n/, tree /t/ /r/ /ee/, soap /s/ /oa/ /p/, ship /sh/ /i/ /p/, cat /c/ /a/ /t/, sheep /sh/ /ee/ /p/, cup /c/ /u/ /p/, mad /m/ /a/ /d/, mug /m/ /u/ /g/, and wet /w/ /e/ /t/. The concentration on phonemes, segment/blend phonemes will help students understand the different sounds and isolation that phonemes have. The rubber band activity is a good sensory and visual activity because it allows for students to verbally sound out phonemes, as well as do something physically with their hands during the movement process.

Phonemes (segment/blend phonemes). This activity was done by Alyssa Bellizzi and Kelly Casale! https://docs.google.com/document/d/100kFqtKhmOas64SepH6FJHdAnAT3Zi4GoZLD-uTGneA/edit?usp=sharing