Introduction

Welcome to Paula Britton's Audit Trail!

My Boardgame

I chose to represent my journey of this audit trail through the idea of a boardgame. My favorite boardgame is The Game of Life. I think both the teacher's role in teaching literacy and the student's role in learning to become literate are similar to a game like this. I feel like my target child and I are both on our own interrelated journeys. There will be days that are setbacks, as though we have to move back 5 spaces, or we picked up a card that said, "hail storm: pay $5000 for hail damage." These days will be frustrating and it will seem like we could never get back to the spot where we were. But as long as we keep spinning the wheel and taking turns, we will eventually reach the end of the game.

Composing my Initial Beliefs

Literacy and Reading:

I know I need to find effective strategies to teach children not only how to read, but how to be literate. Literacy means much more than understanding written words on a page. Literacy can also be shown through navigation, effective communication, artwork, technological competency, questioning one's society, making a difference, and countless other modes. I believe reading can be taught in many different ways, and should be incorporated into every part of the schoolday, as well as related to the individual students' lives. I believe that reading with 100% accuracy is not nearly as important as grasping the meaning of the text.

Conferences and My Target Child:

I believe the conferences I have with my target child will be most helpful if I get to know that individual child personally. There isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to helping a child learn to read, and I will be exploring different strategies this semester (and most likely for the rest of my teaching career). I know that I will be recording my target child's progress and reflecting upon that, as well as my methods, my readings, and other parts of my educational experience.

I hope that througout this audit trail, my beliefs evolve. I want them to change, grow, and become more specific. I want to have the experiences and resources to back up my beliefs so I can be confident in them. I want to stand by my beliefs, but, more importantly, I want to know how to teach literacy. Right now, I feel overwhelmed.

My Guiding Questions

It has been so hard for me to settle on just a couple guiding questions, because right now probably have 3,102 questions swimming around in my head. As I find solutions to my questions, I will color-code them according to the colors I have chosen below. Here are the questions I chose:

1. What are the best strategies I can use to teach a child to read?

         (Some sub-questions related to this would be: What can I say besides "sound it out"? What strategies does my target child already know? How do I differentiate strategies among children with different needs?)

2. How can I find the best way to assess a child's reading?

     (Sub-questions: How do I differentiate assessment strategies for different children? How do I assess without making them feel pressured to perform for the assessment? How should I use my conference time with my target child? What if a child is grasping meaning but not reading word-for-word--how do I account for instances like that?

I hope I can find some insight throughout this journey. I have a long road ahead of me.