Our goal, “to design instruction that empowers students as interpreters and producers of text and provides them with metaknowledge that will enable them to function in various discourse communities” (Pence, 2010).
My summer gains in literacy: reading , writing, and beyond.
1) I have become more computer literate by learning the Elluminate system. I am really glad that I have had this opportunity. Like it or not, online instruction is the way of the future. As a student and as an instructor I must keep up with the technology of education. Teachers who are able to deliver instruction through this method will have greater job security and be able to help students all over the world!
2) I have become more computer literate through the wiki experience class story. I didn't think I would like it at first. It was fun to join ideas together with others, but when the dog became a bug I was a bit thrown off. Then I realized that I needed to lighten up! The story was supposed to be fun and creative and now it was! So this experience has made me more literate in realizing that writing collaboratively forces us out of our comfort zones and maybe out of our own ruts.
3) Writing a blog and responding to others – again, I didn't think I would like it at first. I didn't think anyone would really care to hear what I had to say for one. But I see the great value in our assignment. We were able to hear about a lot of great books. I could not have read all of those books in one summer myself. Now I have gleaned from all of them and have an idea of which will be helpful for me to read myself fully. I think my students would enjoy a classroom blog. I would like more ideas about how to use it with my class. I am concerned about how much time it would take for me to monitor it.
4) Dave Marvitt's distributed knowledge video lesson taught me that by working together we are all smarter than the smartest member of the group. Collaborative work helps everyone produce a better product. Students need to learn to produce better products as this is very applicable to the work place. However, they also need to be able to produce something on their own at times, especially when assessments are necessary.
5) “What is literacy?” wiki - Putting distributed knowledge into action was another chance to grow in literacy. I found that we each brought different contributions to the plate. This made for a very nice finished article on literacy. I could not have produced such a thorough response on my own.
6) My book, Reading for Understanding, has taught me much about literacy, particularly the apprenticeship approach to helping junior and senior high school students gain more efferent comprehension from academic texts in the content areas. The main practice is the modeling of 4 strategies for students: questioning, summarizing, predicting, and clarifying. Student are also taught to take a metacognitive stance, thinking about their reading processes and about themselves as readers.
7) Gee has taught us all much about literacy. His idea that literacy is a Discourse helps us to move students into the realm of academic subjects more smoothly. When we remember to, “design instruction that empowers students as interpreters and producers of text and provides them with metaknowledge (we) will enable them to function in various discourse communities” (Pence, 2010).
8) In “Two Student Readers” teacher DeRose asked her student Jeremy, “Can you tell us why you decided that was most important?” I believe that in doing this she is causing the student to think about how he thinks, engaging his meta-cognition. I learned about literacy in the following way: students may interpret the text in a different way than I do. I need to let them connect in any way that they can before I try to help them to the efferent public understanding of the text.
9) Lea and Street helped me learn that students need to be taught the academic literacy of each subject we teach them. This helps them to switch their writing and reading styles between one setting and another, “to deploy a repertoire of literacy practices appropriate to each setting , and to handle the social meanings and identities that evoke each”.
10) Rosenblatt's transactional theory has taught me that the relationship between the reader and the text is much like that between the river and its banks, each working its effects upon the other, each contributing to the shape of the poem.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Fourth tool in the comprehension tool belt - Clarifying
Students in the Academic Literacy program in California were next taught the strategy of clarifying when reading difficult texts. A definition of clarifying was given followed by 6 methods students could use to clarify a text if they got stuck.
Clarify – to make the meaning of a text clear or easier to understand by using different comprehension strategies.
1) Ignore and read on if you understand enough to keep going
2) keep reading to see if the meaning gets clearer
3) reread what is unclear
4) reread the section right before what was unclear
5) connect what you are reading to things you already know or have read before
6) get outside help.
Students kept a journal with them as they read. They had four columns to use as they clarified.
Text Question or confusion strategy I will use clarification I discovered
Now that the four strategies had been taught, the teachers of this class wanted to try their students on a text of medium difficulty. Unfortunately, the students quickly became bogged down and were unable to even come up with questions for the first strategy.
Chunking
Teachers realized that complex sentences and expository style writing were “getting in the way.” And so,they introduced yet another strategy to the class: chunking a text. The purpose of chunking is to give students practice making sense out of a text by breaking it into understandable chunks. Students were shown how to pause mid-sentence, even if no comma was present, to think about what had been said to that point. Teachers related the idea of chunking to Pizza – a favorite with most teens. Even if you are starving, you can't eat the hole thing at once, you have to eat it one slice at a time. Students found this strategy very helpful and many said that it was the strategy they would use the most.
As the time for our class draws close to an end, I realize that we are only in chapter 5 of this study. I would highly recommend that if you are the teacher of a middle or high school classroom that you check this book out from the library and read it. Through reading it myself, I have discovered many very applicable materials, which I plan to put to use in my history class.
Reading for Understanding: A Guide for Improving Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms
by Schoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko, and Hurwitz ISBN 0787950459
Clarify – to make the meaning of a text clear or easier to understand by using different comprehension strategies.
1) Ignore and read on if you understand enough to keep going
2) keep reading to see if the meaning gets clearer
3) reread what is unclear
4) reread the section right before what was unclear
5) connect what you are reading to things you already know or have read before
6) get outside help.
Students kept a journal with them as they read. They had four columns to use as they clarified.
Text Question or confusion strategy I will use clarification I discovered
Now that the four strategies had been taught, the teachers of this class wanted to try their students on a text of medium difficulty. Unfortunately, the students quickly became bogged down and were unable to even come up with questions for the first strategy.
Chunking
Teachers realized that complex sentences and expository style writing were “getting in the way.” And so,they introduced yet another strategy to the class: chunking a text. The purpose of chunking is to give students practice making sense out of a text by breaking it into understandable chunks. Students were shown how to pause mid-sentence, even if no comma was present, to think about what had been said to that point. Teachers related the idea of chunking to Pizza – a favorite with most teens. Even if you are starving, you can't eat the hole thing at once, you have to eat it one slice at a time. Students found this strategy very helpful and many said that it was the strategy they would use the most.
As the time for our class draws close to an end, I realize that we are only in chapter 5 of this study. I would highly recommend that if you are the teacher of a middle or high school classroom that you check this book out from the library and read it. Through reading it myself, I have discovered many very applicable materials, which I plan to put to use in my history class.
Reading for Understanding: A Guide for Improving Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms
by Schoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko, and Hurwitz ISBN 0787950459
Monday, July 5, 2010
Summarizing – the most frequently assigned but rarely explicitly taught strategy
How often do you require your students to summarize a passage? According to Reading for Understanding, students struggle with writing summaries for one of two reasons: they can't figure out what is important, or they can't decide what to leave out. (Sounds like Mosaic of Thought “Two Student Readers” to me.)
Authors in this program took time to teach their students how to summarize. The following describes their methods.
Students began by reading an article on the importance of an extensive vocabulary for success in the business world. They then broke in to six groups, each group taking a different paragraph, starting with the second paragraph of the article. Teachers then modeled one process for summarizing using the first paragraph. Using an overhead, they went through the text thinking aloud as they underlined phrases that they thought were the most important and explaining how they were making their decisions. Teachers then composed sentences that included the information in the phrases but not copying word for word.
Working independently students then underlined what they considered to be the most important phrases in their assigned paragraph. Groups then got together to come to a consensus as to what was essential. Then working independently again, students wrote one sentence that included the ideas from the chosen phrase but not word for word. Groups then met again to hear the members’ sentences and chose one, or construct one, which would represent their paragraph. (Sound like our professor has been putting this into practice on us.)
The summary sentence that the teacher had come up with for the first paragraph was put on the board, and then each subsequent group added their summary sentence. Even though these new summary paragraphs lack transition words and elegance, the main idea of the article was clearly portrayed.
Discussions were held regarding what makes a good summary. The class decided on the following criteria:
• shorter than the text,
• contained the most important information,
• left out details and examples,
Other activities were then given to help reinforce this new skill. Metacognitive connections were made as students were asked to reflect on and share the process they used to summarize a text.
Predicting
Next, teachers introduced the third tool of predicting. Using the idea of the nightly news, teachers pointed out that the weather report was a very different part of the broadcast. This led to a discussion about how meteorologists make predictions based on signs that they see and experience. Students were given ideas on several signs which they could use to make predictions in their reading. A few examples are titles, clues in the narrative, and a list of some signal structures that tell readers what moves the author is about to make. Teachers pointed out to students the difference between making a prediction or foreshadowing of a literary piece and predicting the moves of the text.
The fourth tool students were given for their tool belt was clarifying. Tune in next time to learn more about that.
Authors in this program took time to teach their students how to summarize. The following describes their methods.
Students began by reading an article on the importance of an extensive vocabulary for success in the business world. They then broke in to six groups, each group taking a different paragraph, starting with the second paragraph of the article. Teachers then modeled one process for summarizing using the first paragraph. Using an overhead, they went through the text thinking aloud as they underlined phrases that they thought were the most important and explaining how they were making their decisions. Teachers then composed sentences that included the information in the phrases but not copying word for word.
Working independently students then underlined what they considered to be the most important phrases in their assigned paragraph. Groups then got together to come to a consensus as to what was essential. Then working independently again, students wrote one sentence that included the ideas from the chosen phrase but not word for word. Groups then met again to hear the members’ sentences and chose one, or construct one, which would represent their paragraph. (Sound like our professor has been putting this into practice on us.)
The summary sentence that the teacher had come up with for the first paragraph was put on the board, and then each subsequent group added their summary sentence. Even though these new summary paragraphs lack transition words and elegance, the main idea of the article was clearly portrayed.
Discussions were held regarding what makes a good summary. The class decided on the following criteria:
• shorter than the text,
• contained the most important information,
• left out details and examples,
Other activities were then given to help reinforce this new skill. Metacognitive connections were made as students were asked to reflect on and share the process they used to summarize a text.
Predicting
Next, teachers introduced the third tool of predicting. Using the idea of the nightly news, teachers pointed out that the weather report was a very different part of the broadcast. This led to a discussion about how meteorologists make predictions based on signs that they see and experience. Students were given ideas on several signs which they could use to make predictions in their reading. A few examples are titles, clues in the narrative, and a list of some signal structures that tell readers what moves the author is about to make. Teachers pointed out to students the difference between making a prediction or foreshadowing of a literary piece and predicting the moves of the text.
The fourth tool students were given for their tool belt was clarifying. Tune in next time to learn more about that.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Comprehension Tool Belt
In our past muse over Reading for Understanding, we have discovered that the beginning steps in helping students learn to comprehend difficult texts involves guiding them to read with their minds, not just their mouths, helping them think of reading as problem solving, and teaching them to monitor and control their own attention while reading.
The next step in helping these young adults with comprehension involves equipping them with appropriate problem-solving tools, i.e. teaching students strategies for problem solving. Teachers explained to their class that understanding difficult texts is a form of problem solving - like fixing a car, or playing a video game- it requires special tools. They explained that they would help their students assemble a mental tool belt which would include four tools: questioning, summarizing, predicting, and clarifying.
Keeping in mind that we cannot just teach a comprehension strategy and expect students to use it because full acquisition of strategies develops only with practice over time, teachers first introduced new cognitive strategies with less demanding texts that were thematically linked to units of study. Ultimately , students practiced with the kind of texts they would be expected to read in various subject-area classes.
(To me, this is the beauty of this program for a content area teacher. These tools can be taught, helping our students to comprehend the materials we are assigning, without taking very much away from our limited time.)
Questioning
Seen as one of the most powerful tools in comprehension, questioning causes students to engage more fully with the text, pushing them to read with a greater purpose and therefore with greater focus. Using this strategy involves asking students to write questions that the author might expect the reader to answer after reading the material. (Reminds me of Gee, asking the students to think like a historian, scientist, etc.)
Procedure
- have students write questions based on their reading. (may be done at home or in class)
- ask students to volunteer to read one of their questions to the group
- ask classmates to raise hands to answer the question
- have first student call on a classmate
- class discussed the correctness of response given
- proceed until all students have asked and answered questions.
Any question is acceptable in learning this strategy, but over time students are introduced to different types of questions, which align with Bloom's taxonomy , and are challenged to create these higher level thinking questions. In subsequent class discussions students are asked to answer each others questions and tell what type of question it is.
I'd like to try this in one of my history classes this year. In the past, I have assigned reading with hopes of having a class discussion the following day. However, many of my students were not able to really get much from reading the material, little discussion followed, and I ended up mostly giving a lecture. I am hoping that by teaching this method my students will get more out of their reading and the following day we can have our class discussion in the form of this, what I will call, game. (So much better than a lecture - as long as the material is still thoroughly covered.)
The next tool for the comprehension belt is summarizing , which I will cover in the next blog...same bat time, same bat channel.
The next step in helping these young adults with comprehension involves equipping them with appropriate problem-solving tools, i.e. teaching students strategies for problem solving. Teachers explained to their class that understanding difficult texts is a form of problem solving - like fixing a car, or playing a video game- it requires special tools. They explained that they would help their students assemble a mental tool belt which would include four tools: questioning, summarizing, predicting, and clarifying.
Keeping in mind that we cannot just teach a comprehension strategy and expect students to use it because full acquisition of strategies develops only with practice over time, teachers first introduced new cognitive strategies with less demanding texts that were thematically linked to units of study. Ultimately , students practiced with the kind of texts they would be expected to read in various subject-area classes.
(To me, this is the beauty of this program for a content area teacher. These tools can be taught, helping our students to comprehend the materials we are assigning, without taking very much away from our limited time.)
Questioning
Seen as one of the most powerful tools in comprehension, questioning causes students to engage more fully with the text, pushing them to read with a greater purpose and therefore with greater focus. Using this strategy involves asking students to write questions that the author might expect the reader to answer after reading the material. (Reminds me of Gee, asking the students to think like a historian, scientist, etc.)
Procedure
- have students write questions based on their reading. (may be done at home or in class)
- ask students to volunteer to read one of their questions to the group
- ask classmates to raise hands to answer the question
- have first student call on a classmate
- class discussed the correctness of response given
- proceed until all students have asked and answered questions.
Any question is acceptable in learning this strategy, but over time students are introduced to different types of questions, which align with Bloom's taxonomy , and are challenged to create these higher level thinking questions. In subsequent class discussions students are asked to answer each others questions and tell what type of question it is.
I'd like to try this in one of my history classes this year. In the past, I have assigned reading with hopes of having a class discussion the following day. However, many of my students were not able to really get much from reading the material, little discussion followed, and I ended up mostly giving a lecture. I am hoping that by teaching this method my students will get more out of their reading and the following day we can have our class discussion in the form of this, what I will call, game. (So much better than a lecture - as long as the material is still thoroughly covered.)
The next tool for the comprehension belt is summarizing , which I will cover in the next blog...same bat time, same bat channel.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
The Personal Dimension to Academic Literacy
When high school students in the Academic Literacies program were asked if they ever read for pleasure, the answer was a resounding, “NO.” But that all changed over the course of the yearlong program.
The instructors came to the realization that unless the students could develop their own reasons for reading there would be little chance that anything else they were taught would have an impact. And so, the teachers talked with the students about the connection between literacy and power. Teachers specifically selected materials for students to read which showed people whom they could identify with addressing the importance of reading. In their case, teachers had materials from Malcolm X, Fredrick Douglas, and Emily Dickinson. Students then made charts with the different authors and the reasons these authors gave for the questions, “Why read?”.
Students were reminded that even though they see themselves as non-readers, they are readers in other settings, such as reading the sports page or reading at youth group. etc. The instructors also helped students see that reading is not all or nothing, reminding them that everyone has things they can and cannot read.
Next, students were asked to record their hoped for future dreams. They then created two columns for recording the fast and slow ways to achieve those goals. Fast ideas such as “win the lottery,’ or “get rich on the streets” were listed as were the slow but steady ways to reach goals such as education. Discussions that followed focused on the ideas that the slow but steady ways may seem more difficult, but would more likely get you to the goal.
Once students were of the mindset that reading was important, the goal was to begin to move them away from their nonreader identities. Students then wrote letters and dialogue to those who hate to read explaining themselves a few strategies that can be used. Students then began to think of themselves as new readers in this way. Authors next wanted to move students into the mind set that not only could reading be useful to get you where you want to go, it could also been done for enjoyment. To this end, they introduced SSR – sustained silent reading. Teachers showed students how to select a book they would enjoy. They offered the following hints.
Read the back of the book to see if it is something interesting
Find the subject you like to read
Ask a friend
Look for an author you like
Skim through a book – read a few pages
Find a book that relates to you.
Students were also taught to give a book the ten - page chance. If a book that was chosen didn’t seem to be what they wanted student were asked to read at least ten pages before selecting a different book.
Rules for SSR were established and activities from this experienced followed. Metacognitive logs were implemented for tracking students’ thought while reading. Monthly assignments included a letter, about the book, which was written to the literacy teacher and a book poster, which would include six quotations from the book. Students would also have a monthly class check - in where they would briefly tell their classmates about a book they had finished. This helped maintain accountability and create curiosity about the book to others.
In the beginning students found reading for 20 difficult, even if they had found a book to their interest. To build stamina, sessions of SSR were begun at 10 minutes and progressed to 20. By the third quarter students were asking for more time to read silently!
Students were taught about concentration and created a plan for themselves regarding staying tuned in. A book called Keeping a Head in School, which is written for young people, was useful in this.
Although the personal and social dimension discussed in these chapters were very helpful in student motivation, the authors knew that they alone were not enough to develop students success in reading academic texts. The following chapters discuss the specific strategies introduced to these high school students.
The instructors came to the realization that unless the students could develop their own reasons for reading there would be little chance that anything else they were taught would have an impact. And so, the teachers talked with the students about the connection between literacy and power. Teachers specifically selected materials for students to read which showed people whom they could identify with addressing the importance of reading. In their case, teachers had materials from Malcolm X, Fredrick Douglas, and Emily Dickinson. Students then made charts with the different authors and the reasons these authors gave for the questions, “Why read?”.
Students were reminded that even though they see themselves as non-readers, they are readers in other settings, such as reading the sports page or reading at youth group. etc. The instructors also helped students see that reading is not all or nothing, reminding them that everyone has things they can and cannot read.
Next, students were asked to record their hoped for future dreams. They then created two columns for recording the fast and slow ways to achieve those goals. Fast ideas such as “win the lottery,’ or “get rich on the streets” were listed as were the slow but steady ways to reach goals such as education. Discussions that followed focused on the ideas that the slow but steady ways may seem more difficult, but would more likely get you to the goal.
Once students were of the mindset that reading was important, the goal was to begin to move them away from their nonreader identities. Students then wrote letters and dialogue to those who hate to read explaining themselves a few strategies that can be used. Students then began to think of themselves as new readers in this way. Authors next wanted to move students into the mind set that not only could reading be useful to get you where you want to go, it could also been done for enjoyment. To this end, they introduced SSR – sustained silent reading. Teachers showed students how to select a book they would enjoy. They offered the following hints.
Read the back of the book to see if it is something interesting
Find the subject you like to read
Ask a friend
Look for an author you like
Skim through a book – read a few pages
Find a book that relates to you.
Students were also taught to give a book the ten - page chance. If a book that was chosen didn’t seem to be what they wanted student were asked to read at least ten pages before selecting a different book.
Rules for SSR were established and activities from this experienced followed. Metacognitive logs were implemented for tracking students’ thought while reading. Monthly assignments included a letter, about the book, which was written to the literacy teacher and a book poster, which would include six quotations from the book. Students would also have a monthly class check - in where they would briefly tell their classmates about a book they had finished. This helped maintain accountability and create curiosity about the book to others.
In the beginning students found reading for 20 difficult, even if they had found a book to their interest. To build stamina, sessions of SSR were begun at 10 minutes and progressed to 20. By the third quarter students were asking for more time to read silently!
Students were taught about concentration and created a plan for themselves regarding staying tuned in. A book called Keeping a Head in School, which is written for young people, was useful in this.
Although the personal and social dimension discussed in these chapters were very helpful in student motivation, the authors knew that they alone were not enough to develop students success in reading academic texts. The following chapters discuss the specific strategies introduced to these high school students.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Motivating Students to Take Control of Their Reading
Ch 4 Motivating Students to Take Control of Their Reading
Creators of the academic literacy course sought to develop classrooms what fostered both the sense of community necessary to support students’ engagement with reading and the development of students’ individual identities and motivations as readers. Therefore instruction was developed in both social and personal dimensions.
Social dimension
In order for the course to be successful the authors knew that the students must be on board with them. Teachers needed to create a sense that it was cool to be in that community. The authors used the following methods to achieve this goal.
1) The explained that reading was not something that was taught once and for all in the primary grades.
2) They assured students that they could learn strategies that would help them to become stronger readers.
3) Instructors gave students simplified definitions of terms that would be used throughout the course.
4) Encouraged kids that it was cool to be confused about certain types of texts. To this means they invited students to bring in written material that they could make sense of and challenge the instructor to try to read it. Students challenged their teachers with lyrics to rap music and computer manuals. This proved to the students that they had skills in areas that the teacher did not and that they were not the only ones who struggled with certain texts.
5) Teachers helped students to craft a more specific definition for reading.
“When a person is reading a text with their mouth and lips, and their mind is not focusing on the certain text, they’re not reading. Reading is reading the text in your head. For example when I was reading my SSR book, I read with my lips, but my head was thinking about what I should eat later, and the book was about murder.”
This understanding shows that reading involves mental processes of which a reader can be explicitly aware and therefore can control.
6) Instructors used a teen’s self-absorption as an ally, encouraging students to think about
how they though as they read and to compare that with a friends thoughts.
7) Teachers used the following analogy to help students understand metacognition.
“ I put two chairs …positioned like seats…on a bus. I sat in the first chair and pretended I was trying to read but kept getting distracted… I told the students, ‘ok. That’s me reading.’ Then I left the book in the first chair and moved to the second chair. ‘Here’s me watching myself get distracted.’… Then I started talking as thought I was reporting what the ‘me with the book’ was doing…. ‘Oh, there you go again, you’re e checking out all the cute ones. Oh, yeah, aren’t you supposed to be finishing reading that for class? Well, so you say it’s boring?’ I told them that is me being metacognitive.” Pg 58
8) Once students were able to talk about their reading problems they were given 4 ideas of what to do to clarify confusion when reading.
· Ignore the unclear part and read on to see if it gets clearer
· Reread the unclear part
· Reread the sentence before the unclear part
· Try to connect the part to something you already know.
The second part of chapter 4 explains how the personal dimension of the apprenticeship program was developed. But we are out of time for that today.
Y’all come back now. Ya hear?
Creators of the academic literacy course sought to develop classrooms what fostered both the sense of community necessary to support students’ engagement with reading and the development of students’ individual identities and motivations as readers. Therefore instruction was developed in both social and personal dimensions.
Social dimension
In order for the course to be successful the authors knew that the students must be on board with them. Teachers needed to create a sense that it was cool to be in that community. The authors used the following methods to achieve this goal.
1) The explained that reading was not something that was taught once and for all in the primary grades.
2) They assured students that they could learn strategies that would help them to become stronger readers.
3) Instructors gave students simplified definitions of terms that would be used throughout the course.
4) Encouraged kids that it was cool to be confused about certain types of texts. To this means they invited students to bring in written material that they could make sense of and challenge the instructor to try to read it. Students challenged their teachers with lyrics to rap music and computer manuals. This proved to the students that they had skills in areas that the teacher did not and that they were not the only ones who struggled with certain texts.
5) Teachers helped students to craft a more specific definition for reading.
“When a person is reading a text with their mouth and lips, and their mind is not focusing on the certain text, they’re not reading. Reading is reading the text in your head. For example when I was reading my SSR book, I read with my lips, but my head was thinking about what I should eat later, and the book was about murder.”
This understanding shows that reading involves mental processes of which a reader can be explicitly aware and therefore can control.
6) Instructors used a teen’s self-absorption as an ally, encouraging students to think about
how they though as they read and to compare that with a friends thoughts.
7) Teachers used the following analogy to help students understand metacognition.
“ I put two chairs …positioned like seats…on a bus. I sat in the first chair and pretended I was trying to read but kept getting distracted… I told the students, ‘ok. That’s me reading.’ Then I left the book in the first chair and moved to the second chair. ‘Here’s me watching myself get distracted.’… Then I started talking as thought I was reporting what the ‘me with the book’ was doing…. ‘Oh, there you go again, you’re e checking out all the cute ones. Oh, yeah, aren’t you supposed to be finishing reading that for class? Well, so you say it’s boring?’ I told them that is me being metacognitive.” Pg 58
8) Once students were able to talk about their reading problems they were given 4 ideas of what to do to clarify confusion when reading.
· Ignore the unclear part and read on to see if it gets clearer
· Reread the unclear part
· Reread the sentence before the unclear part
· Try to connect the part to something you already know.
The second part of chapter 4 explains how the personal dimension of the apprenticeship program was developed. But we are out of time for that today.
Y’all come back now. Ya hear?
Developing Academic Literacy
Ch 3 Developing Academic Literacy
Is it possible for students who are past elementary grades to develop academic literacies, or is it too late? It is not too late. Says who? Say the authors of Reading for Understanding. And as they say, “The proof is in the pudding.”
These women conducted a study from Oct of 96 through May of 97 in which they gave specific instruction in academic literacies to the entire freshman class at the high school where two of the authors worked. Their results showed an improvement in reading comprehension by an average of two years, as measured by standardized reading tests. Sound like something you want for your class? Then read on.
The authors believed strongly that all freshmen could benefit from becoming more conscious of the mental strategies involved in reading different types of texts. They also believed that diverse readers would learn from each other, and did not want to establish a school culture in which only the so-called slow readers improved their reading abilities. And so, a plan was crafted.
The course was designed as an inquiry into reading, with teachers as master readers and students as their apprentices. Students were invited into a yearlong inquiry that would explore what reading is and what proficient readers do when they read. They were encouraged to get to know themselves as readers and to build their motivation for reading.
Key instructional strategies employed in all four units were silent sustained reading (SSR), reciprocal teaching (RT) and explicit instruction in self-monitoring and cognitive strategies that facilitate reading a variety of texts.
As I read this chapter I became very excited, wanting to discover what these strategies were and to determine whether or not they would be applicable and effective in my classroom. And so I read on…
Is it possible for students who are past elementary grades to develop academic literacies, or is it too late? It is not too late. Says who? Say the authors of Reading for Understanding. And as they say, “The proof is in the pudding.”
These women conducted a study from Oct of 96 through May of 97 in which they gave specific instruction in academic literacies to the entire freshman class at the high school where two of the authors worked. Their results showed an improvement in reading comprehension by an average of two years, as measured by standardized reading tests. Sound like something you want for your class? Then read on.
The authors believed strongly that all freshmen could benefit from becoming more conscious of the mental strategies involved in reading different types of texts. They also believed that diverse readers would learn from each other, and did not want to establish a school culture in which only the so-called slow readers improved their reading abilities. And so, a plan was crafted.
The course was designed as an inquiry into reading, with teachers as master readers and students as their apprentices. Students were invited into a yearlong inquiry that would explore what reading is and what proficient readers do when they read. They were encouraged to get to know themselves as readers and to build their motivation for reading.
Key instructional strategies employed in all four units were silent sustained reading (SSR), reciprocal teaching (RT) and explicit instruction in self-monitoring and cognitive strategies that facilitate reading a variety of texts.
As I read this chapter I became very excited, wanting to discover what these strategies were and to determine whether or not they would be applicable and effective in my classroom. And so I read on…
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