Chapter 10 and 11
1. Engagement and social interactions in reading are keys in successfully learning to read and developing as a reader.
It is really great when students discuss what they have read. This happened to me a lot when I used to teach high school. Not only did it really help a lot of my students when we held discussions on the characters in The Great Gatsby, but just to see how much some of them got into it was really rewarding. In my current after school program, which is all boys, I chose a really high-interest thriller to read, and it got some kids who absolutely hate reading begin to enjoy it and also discuss it with their classmates.
2. As literacy coaches visit the teacher’s classroom, they establish themselves as part of the classroom milieu.
a. This is absolutely the best type of professional development. Often teachers need to sit through some meetings or seminars in which only a fraction of the information is useful. But to have a helping hand right in the room would be so great; the coach can directly help you individually with what you need to work on and how to improve instruction.
3. In other study groups, the literacy coach organizes book clubs to help teachers use in-depth thinking, discussion, and strategic processing in their classrooms.
a. My principal often does this. A few times so far this year she has introduced books to the faculty to read together so that we have and share a sort of “common knowledge.” They aren’t really on literacy, but the same idea holds true. For example, one of the books was on bullying, which is a very important theme for a middle school faculty.
4. When developing lessons for your student, it is important to determine what kind of teacher support he needs.
a. The student I am working with for my project seems to need a lot of teacher direction. I had him in my class for 13 weeks, and now that I have completed the QRI with him, I realize that he may have a lot of bad habits that he needs to break. By modeling good reading behavior, this will hopefully help him strengthen his ability to do better with more difficult passages.
5. Writing makes learners reconstruct their understanding and thus prompts a more thoughtful response.
a. At the end of my first lessons with my student I plan on having him write a response that is directly connected with the chapters read. In the story the character faces a very difficult situation, and my student is going to write about a time that he felt the same way. I do this a lot with my students because most of my curriculum is based on writing skills. I have become very happy with the way a lot of my students are taking information from articles, shorts stories, etc. and are putting it into a well-organized response.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Chapter 9
Chapter 9
1. When material is too difficult, students cannot construct meaning or flexibly use reading strategies. Students will become flustered and decrease their attention, and just try to make “sense” of the words.
a. I learned this the hard way during my first year of teaching in high school. I was given a list of novels I could teach for each grade level. I taught 10th grade inclusion classes, so the reading level of many of my students was very low. But according to the curriculum, I had no choice but to begin the school year with Lord of the Flies, which most of my students enjoyed, but it was very difficult for some of my special education students to read on their own. We struggled through a lot of books last year, but I think in the end it gave a lot of my lower level students a confidence boost.
2. Some publishers are taking classics, such as novels by Jack London, and are re-writing them so that a lot of different readers can enjoy the books.
a. While having a lower level text of Lord of the Flies would have definitely helped some of my students, I am not sure that I agree with this practice. A lot of the texts publishers are doing this with are classics, and many can be considered a form of art. I am not saying that I don’t want lower level readers to have access to a wide range of texts, but the book lover in me just can’t stomach this practice. Either way, I probably would have sucked it up and just taken the lower level format of LOTF and used it.
3. Using a 300 word passage and deleting 50 words is a good way to match a reader to a text. The reader has to fill in the blanks with words that he thinks will make sense.
a. I really like this method because it seems like it can also serve as a good literacy strategy and not just a way to match books to readers. For instance, if we are in the middle of a novel, I could delete some dialogue between characters and have the students fill them in using their knowledge of the characters. I tried doing the one in the textbook, and it was even a little bit of a challenge, so I think this would be a great strategy for students.
4. If the topic and story line is engaging, then the book is usually easier to read.
a. This is so hard to pull off in a general education classroom. At the end of last year, the only book that was available for me to teach was A Separate Peace – and if you know anything about this novel then you know an urban population isn’t going to take too well to a text about private school kids. It was such a terror getting through it that I never want to see that book again! On the other hand, I feel that my 11th graders really liked MacBeth and The Great Gatsby because there was a lot of action and drama in them.
5. One of the best ways to determine interest is by letting students choose the book they want to read.
a. This is another very difficult strategy to pull off in a general education classroom, but it has been done well before. Lit circles were a great success in high school. The class was divided into several groups, and each group had their own novel that they all chose. Each student in the group usually had a different task, and there was a list of questions that could pertain to all of the books that they needed to answer. This was incredibly interactive and supported a wide range of literacy skills.
1. When material is too difficult, students cannot construct meaning or flexibly use reading strategies. Students will become flustered and decrease their attention, and just try to make “sense” of the words.
a. I learned this the hard way during my first year of teaching in high school. I was given a list of novels I could teach for each grade level. I taught 10th grade inclusion classes, so the reading level of many of my students was very low. But according to the curriculum, I had no choice but to begin the school year with Lord of the Flies, which most of my students enjoyed, but it was very difficult for some of my special education students to read on their own. We struggled through a lot of books last year, but I think in the end it gave a lot of my lower level students a confidence boost.
2. Some publishers are taking classics, such as novels by Jack London, and are re-writing them so that a lot of different readers can enjoy the books.
a. While having a lower level text of Lord of the Flies would have definitely helped some of my students, I am not sure that I agree with this practice. A lot of the texts publishers are doing this with are classics, and many can be considered a form of art. I am not saying that I don’t want lower level readers to have access to a wide range of texts, but the book lover in me just can’t stomach this practice. Either way, I probably would have sucked it up and just taken the lower level format of LOTF and used it.
3. Using a 300 word passage and deleting 50 words is a good way to match a reader to a text. The reader has to fill in the blanks with words that he thinks will make sense.
a. I really like this method because it seems like it can also serve as a good literacy strategy and not just a way to match books to readers. For instance, if we are in the middle of a novel, I could delete some dialogue between characters and have the students fill them in using their knowledge of the characters. I tried doing the one in the textbook, and it was even a little bit of a challenge, so I think this would be a great strategy for students.
4. If the topic and story line is engaging, then the book is usually easier to read.
a. This is so hard to pull off in a general education classroom. At the end of last year, the only book that was available for me to teach was A Separate Peace – and if you know anything about this novel then you know an urban population isn’t going to take too well to a text about private school kids. It was such a terror getting through it that I never want to see that book again! On the other hand, I feel that my 11th graders really liked MacBeth and The Great Gatsby because there was a lot of action and drama in them.
5. One of the best ways to determine interest is by letting students choose the book they want to read.
a. This is another very difficult strategy to pull off in a general education classroom, but it has been done well before. Lit circles were a great success in high school. The class was divided into several groups, and each group had their own novel that they all chose. Each student in the group usually had a different task, and there was a list of questions that could pertain to all of the books that they needed to answer. This was incredibly interactive and supported a wide range of literacy skills.
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