Welcome. I am glad you made it here. This is a place where we can share ideas and continue our conversations from class. You will be asked to respond to this blog every other week.
This week I would like you to think about the list of questions that you came up with in class. Take one of those questions and write to it. Where does your thinking take you? Remember, there are no right answers here and we are all in this together "thinking it through."
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I was thinking about the question that I put on the board and its still a question that i wonder about - how do you get studentd to think about thick ?s instead of thin?s I remeber last yr w/ my 1st graders when I was teaching them about questioning, it seemed difficult for them to grasp the differnce between those types of questions and even though we discussed questioning, what it was, I modeled how to do it, it was dtill hard for me to get those thick ?s out of them. When i look back to that its frusterating becuase i wasn't sure how else to get them to understand what i was looking for out of them and now i htink about teaching readers qorkshop and i think about how to teach kindergartens questioning i don't to have the same difficulties with them in termas of what im looking for out of them, so im apprehensive about how this yr is going to go with readers workshop.
ReplyDeleteNicole,
ReplyDeleteI would be happy to come in when you are settled in and do a lesson with your kids on questioning. I think your goal is to get them questioning and perhaps not worry about thick versus thin. Let's talk more and be thinking about a time that would be good for you when we meet next time we can set up a time if you want.
Have a great weekend!!
One of the things that concerns me is whether or not I’ll be able to integrate what we learn in this course into what I’m already doing. I have never been a fan of the McGraw Hill series and when we were told we could supplement the program, I went back to using trade books. My goal has always been to develop a love of reading in my students and that was really hard to do with a basal. For each of the books, I have developed questions and activities that are meant to develop deeper thinking and inferencing. There’s no point to reading if you don’t understand what you read. I really hope that I’ll be able to integrate my new knowledge into what I’m already doing and enhance my reading instruction.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been thinking about the question that I wrote on the board for several days now. That question was, “How do you teach the strategies when the students are unable to read or are not yet emergent readers?” As we were reviewing the questions, Thomasen made a good point, which was the students can still think. With this being said, the students can think about the strategy as they process the text that is being read aloud. I guess my concern at this point in time is how do I teach the strategies so that the students will apply them to their own reading when they do learn to read. I know the strategies are valuable tools that will help the students get the most bang for their buck while they are reading. I want to make sure that I instruct the students in an effective way that will allow them to fully utilize this knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThinking about the question “what will I do about grades”. . . . . .
ReplyDeleteWhat’s funny to me about this question, is that I’m not unsure about how I will assess students--I know from what I did with readers workshop last year, that conferences and running records and reflections gave me a tremendous amount of authentic information-Just one reading conference told me more about that student than a week’s worth of worksheets and reading quizzes. So, what’s funny is why I am struggling so much with how to translate this info into grades? Grades that I can justify to parents, if need be. That’s really what McGraw Hill was good for--grades-:) There were weekly reading quizzes, comprehension writing prompts, etc. We all disliked them, but boy did it make grading easy. So, this year, as we try to fully implement a reader’s workshop I’m grappling with where the grades will come from --not the growth -I can show that --THE GRADES---
The question I wrote on the board was about the ways regular education teachers can work with specialists. From my experience, I know that a “push-in method” is good for those ESOL students who are at the intermediate or advanced level of language proficiency. On the other hand, if there is a newcomer in your class, he/she would benefit from an individualized one-on-one instruction. There are so many ways we can all work as a team, meeting the needs of all the students. As we are taking this course, I will be definitely asking myself how I can use this new information to become a more efficient team member.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think about my question on how to teach the strategies individually, I guess I struggle with where to start with the struggling readers I see in Title I. I know that from doing running records and conferencing with my students, I will be able to see which strategies they tend to focus on. I find it is hard to get students to see the big picture--to see that they will switch between the different comprehension strategies as they read. I hope to get my struggling readers to see these strategies as aids to them and my goal is that they will become automatic when they read independently. Since the class I have also thought alot about Natalia's question since I am also in a support role as a title I teacher. In this role, I want the classroom teachers to see me as a help and not a hinderance. I want to be able to work cohesively with the classroom teacher in teaching these strategies to the struggling readers.
ReplyDelete(Denise) The question that puzzled me was: “How do we teach inferring when the children may not be developmentally ready to use the strategy effectively?” I teach grade 4 and I have found that some of the children just do not ‘get’ the whole inferring thing. I have tried using leading questions, such as; what do you think the character was feeling, thinking etc. but that doesn’t always work. I have also tried some of the puzzles that try to make the children ‘guess’ what the object or thought is, (it is round, it is shiny, is a copper color, ….). This gets them in the right frame of mind, but doesn’t always lead to deeper thinking and inferred meaning in the text. Any thoughts or ideas would be helpful.
ReplyDeleteTo Denise- I think you will find the text we are reading will help you with this. There are some great "concrete" lessons that I have tried with my kids in the past. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteMy question in class was about inferring and when is it developmentally appropriate, but when I went back into my classroom and was trying to incorporate some of the strategies in my read alouds I began to wonder about another question that was on the board, how do we teach the strategies to non readers and emergent readers? Most of my class right now is not independently reading and I am curious how I am able to teach some of the strategies while they are learning how to read at the same time. I know that it was stated that even if they can not read, they can think! I do believe that students have a lot going on in those little minds that at times they may not be able to articulate and how do we move them from just learning how to read the words on the page to reading those words and creating meaning.
ReplyDeleteAs the school year progresses the only question that continues to plague me is "how do I do it all." There is so much I have to/want to do, but I just don't know how to do it all. I also don't necessarily know what to do for certain students or when to do it. For example, I am currently attempting to benchmark each of my students to find out their reading levels and strengths and weaknesses, but it's hard to know what to do once I have that information. While assessing one student I noted that she didn't pay attention to punctuation while she read aloud. Obviously I pointed this out to her and encouraged her to slow down and watch for that, but what else can I do? I feel comfortable instructing in the strategies with my class as a whole, but I'm not sure how to reach individual students.
ReplyDeleteMy question was how much will I let go this year of the "old way". I am trying to get settled this year...I've been doing the Words their Way program and it's taken a lot of time...but certainly worth it....I am using the McGraw Hill right now as I feel overwhelmed of how to start with this....I know I can do it..but it will take me some time to adjust to this.....I am looking forward to getting started as I see the benefit to the students and I'm excited about it! See you all tomorrow..sorry for the late post!!!!!
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