Group items tagged

What are 21st century skills? ➢    21st Century Skills are the set of skills students need to succeed in learning, work and life in this century. ➢    To ensure success, students need both deep understanding of the major principles and facts in core subjects (such as math, language, arts, science, history, etc.) and also be able to apply this knowledge to important contemporary themes (such as global awareness, financial, health and environmental literacy, etc.) using a variety of skills, such as: Learning and Innovation Skills (critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation) Digital Literacy Skills (information, media and technology literacy); and Life and Career Skills (initiative and self-direction, leadership, adaptability, etc).

 These skills are vital for everyone’s success in our times, and global competition, increased access to technology, digital information and tools are only increasing the importance of these 21st century knowledge-and-skills.

 The skills are not new (with the exception of some of the Digital Literacy skills), but for centuries have been offered to only the privileged and gifted students. Yet all students need these skills to succeed.

One option teachers have is to read the text aloud. The benefits of reading aloud to children are well documented. Unlike round robin reading which has many strikes against it, reading aloud has many benefits, including:  It models what expert reading sounds like. It helps kids know and love many different authors. It exposes children to many genres. It actively engages children in thinking and meaning making while enjoying the piece being shared. It conditions the brain to associate reading with pleasure. It creates background knowledge. It builds vocabulary.

If the issue remains that we want our students to do the reading, then why not have them read it silently? Teachers often worry that student won’t actually read or might not understand what they read. If that’s the case, we’ve got to consider the underlying issues. Are they not reading because they don’t have the stamina they need to get through the text? Are they not reading because the text is too hard? It is only through honest reflection that we are able to answer these questions and in answering them, we inevitably find our way to better alternatives to round robin reading.

Research on round robin reading tells us: It slows down reading rates. It lowers the quantity of reading students do. (Research estimates that students actually read between two to six minutes in a typical round robin reading session. Any way you slice it, it’s not much.) It is ineffectual at improving reading comprehension. When reading aloud, pronunciation is emphasized over meaning. In turn, text is often read slowly and disfluently which interferes with meaning making. It is detrimental to fluency because children are often asked to read texts that are too difficult which leads to choppy models of what reading sounds like. It highlights the displeasures of reading leaving children feeling disinclined to pick up books and read on their own.