Group items tagged

Carnegie report follow-up to Writing Next. This report provides evidence answering the following three questions: 1. Does writing about material students read enhance their reading comprehension? 2. Does teaching writing strengthen students' reading skills? 3. Does increasing how much students write improve how well they read?

Hedin, L.R. & Conderman, G. (2010). Teaching students to comprehend informational text through rereading. The Reading Teacher, 63(7), 556-565. Doi: 10.1598/RT.63.7.3 "Striving readers may view the purpose of reading as decoding an assigned section rather than building knowledge." When I read this quote, I knew that this article would be of interest to me. As my building continues to examine the ramifications of the Common Core, informational text is something of concern. Should other content teachers be required to teach reading strategies using informational text? (Here, I am hoping, my readers reply with a resounding "YES!") This article gives specific strategies to use with students, with a focus on encouraging rereading. Below is an email that was sent to my colleagues:  Subject: The Secret to Informational Text  Perhaps my subject line was a bit misleading... Attached may not be "The Secret" to our informational text woes, but the article details strategies we can use in our classrooms now that will help our students with comprehension. After reviewing our NWEA scores, we have all seen the difficulties our students have with informational text and comprehension. The Common Core has a significant focus on informational reading and writing. In order to prepare for this shift in instruction and curriculum, I have found this very useful article. "Teaching Students to Comprehend Informational Text Through Rereading," details key ideas like helping our striving readers set the purpose for reading, identify text features, and strategies we can use in our daily instruction to strengthen their comprehension of texts. It questions whether our students are simply great "decoders" (they can read the words because they understand sound/letter relationships) or are they truly constructing meaning. The role content teachers play in the development of successful readers is HUGE! Many of these strategies seem basic, but because of that, they will be simple t

Mike Schmoker's "Focus" is a tremendous commentary on the elements of good instruction and the current state of education and teaching.

This reference text is divided into two sections: "What we teach, How we teach, and Literacy" and "Curriculum, Instruction, and Literacy in the Content areas." If one was to read this book, you would not necessarily need to read it "cover to cover." I believe that Section I is important for all teachers or those who have a hand in education. Section II, because of the way it is divided, could be read based on interests. There are specific discussions about how to integrate literacy into content areas. I felt that the discussion of literacy in mathematics and science was extremely interesting. Mike Schmoker's message was calling educators "back to the basics." As I read, I found myself scribbling in the margins, because the comments being made were so true they were almost "taboo." Schmoker contradicts the current "educational bandwagons" that so many administrators and districts may jump on. He quotes Pfeffer and Sutton, saying "leaders resist simplicity; they are often irrationally enamored by novelty and complexity" (p 16). It was refreshing to read such a strong argument for "pure, effective teaching." Regardless of the technology or other tools in the classroom, without a firm grasp on the ways to provide clear instruction, students will not learn. I have already used sections from this text in my building's PLC time. Though I have not used a specific strategy, I opened the dialogue about what should "be in a good lesson." Schmoker encourages the "five minute limit" where lectures cannot span longer than that before students are given a moment to talk or write. Formative assessments need to be used throughout daily lessons in order for the teacher to be guided into the next portion of the lesson. I have started to integrate more of these checks for understanding into my teaching, and I have found that I catch more misconceptions sooner than I would have normally. I also see that sections I felt required more time were grasped at a faster rate than anticipated

I found this site that has free reading worksheets and short stories that are geared towards beginning ESL students reading levels. It incorporates lifeskills lessons as wells as geography, history, holidays, and famous Americans. It seems like a great resource for social studies. I actually found a worksheet with a camping theme to use with our "Camp-Reads-A-Lot" theme day we are doing tomorrow. This particular worksheet has a paragraph, true/false questions, personal questions, and a little writing section. I also found a worksheet about the American Flag, which is great, because we are studying American symbols. This worksheet has 3 paragraphs of information about the flag, true/false questions, and a Daily Oral Language type "correct the sentence" section. These aren't something I would use in isolation, but they are a great resource for adding to and differentiating instruction.

This site gives instruction on how to set up a scientific paper and how to read one. Students very often don't understand how to set up a scientific paper and this gives a breakdown of exactly how to do it. It also gives instruction on how to interpret results, and how to decide if all of the criteria that need to be in a scientific paper have been met. Students very often don't understand how all of this can be accomplished. This would be of use for students who were having trouble writing a scientific paper.

+2

Also very useful for how to read a scholarly article in any discipline, not just science! I'm going to tag this one to use with future classes. Thanks!

For my first journal, I read this article about multi-sensory language arts instruction.  It claims that if you can provide students with visual, auditory, and tactile-kinesthetic methods for learning, they are more likely to be successful.  One of the things that I agreed with most strongly that it seems many educators today shy away from is the idea that students should "practice to the point of automatization."  Automatic reading is not the key to comprehension but it is surely a necessary foundation for meaningful reading.  When I was a student, we practiced grammar and spelling until it was second-nature and generally my current abilities testify to that.  However, we have steered away from correctness in favor of sparing student egos.  I do not think that it has done them any good.  I wholeheartedly agree with this article that we MUST train our students to be good readers and writers. 

More emphasis is being placed on fluency. You can't understand what a text means if you can't figure out what it says. We don't want students to simple "bark at print" but there has to be a balance between fluency and comprehension.Was there anything in the article you would apply to your own teaching?

This article provides five strategies for improving adolescent literacy. The first stragegy is to help students with explicit vocabulary instructions, and then on to comprehension strategies like being careful about what text you select and showing them the strategies to use for that type of text. The third strategy was providing extended forum for discussing vocabulary and text, and that is something that I need to work on with my ninth graders. One of the goals of this article is to improve adolescent literacy and the strategy is to increase student motivation and engagement, which I latched on to right away. One of the ways this article suggest doing it is by making "literacy experiences more relevant to student interests, everyday life, or important current events." I am using this technique in my Ninth-Grade Civics class this semester. Students are learning that the way you read a newspaper is different than reading a textbook. Each week they must select a current event related to Civics and write a brief report about it. Three students are randomly selected to give information on their current event each week. I use a form to help guide them through current event articles, and focus on textual evidence in articles. In other words, what statistics and facts are the writers using to make his/her point? Also, what adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs does the writer use to convey a message or tone of the article? The students' vocabulary and reading are increasing, and they are becoming more informed citizens. It brings Civics alive for them and into the present day.