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?
I really liked the definition the students made of reading. It seems like the students have a good grasp on what reading should be. I believe that reading is not really reading if you are not comprehending what has been read. Essentially, this is exactly what the students in this study were saying as well.
ReplyDeleteI like seating arrangement like a bus! What a great strategy to make a point clearer to students!
ReplyDeleteThe idea of having the students bring something in for the teachers to read was neat because it gave the students a sense of pride in the knowledge they had.
ReplyDeleteYour summary of the chapter was great! I also liked the idea of acting out visually how metacognition might look like. It made the concept much more approachable and understandable. I think having the kids then try "riding the bus" would be a fun way to continue the discussion about what distractions occur while reading.
ReplyDeleteI like the part about embracing being confused. Make it a challenge to figure out the confusion.
ReplyDeleteI liked the idea where the students bring in texts to challenge the instructor with. It's true that they may not be experts in some areas, but the instructor may not be as well. It's a cute idea that I think would resonate well with students.
ReplyDeletepenny you bring up a great point about reading. Thta is when your lips are moving your brain is not really engaged. Man, I too have that problem sometimes! In other blogs I have been reading I notice the asking questions really help the students and it worked for me aswell. Good Blog Melissa
ReplyDeleteI have never actually thought about the fact that when your lips are moving, your brain is just not there. Interesting. I also liked that your book offers solutions that appeal to a students social interests. My book stressed the importance of socialization in students' lives.
ReplyDelete