Group items tagged

Journal # 1 Shedd, K.M., & Duke, N.K. (2008). The power of planning developing effective read-alouds. Beyond the Journal Young Children on the Web. November, 1-6. The article that I read is about the importance of reading aloud to students and the effectiveness of read-alouds. The study has found the effectiveness of read-alouds depends on a number of factors: * open-end questions * a careful selection of high-quality text * teacher excitement while reading read-alouds are important part of children's development of literacy skills. The article gave many suggestions on how to select books appropriate for grade level and for the audience. There were also ideas on how to get students involved before, during and after the read alouds. After reading this article, it made think about how I do read-alouds in my classroom and if I incorporate all the suggestions from this article during my read-aloud.

What do you think you might do differently as you do read-alouds in your classroom? I found it interesting and found myself reflecting on my practices. I love to read aloud to students, and as a classroom teacher, did it almost exclusively for the enjoyment and the experience of story for students. As I learned more about developing literacy, my read-alouds changed, and became more intentional. But after reading this article, I think I could do even more to plan for even more effective use of the strategy. I really like the idea of using the sticky notes to mark spots to question. (PS--I love Nell Duke. She really knows her stuff. Got to see her at the MRA pre-conference last year.)

I do read alouds throughout the day, which are books that we need to read for our Reading program, science or Paragon (history). At the end of the day I do author of the week, we talk about the author, illustrator, I go to the library every week and grab 5-7 books from the same author and don't really look inside the books to see if it is age appropriate. There has been a few times that the books have been over my students heads or too babyish for them. After reading the article I really need to take a minute and look at the pages and make sure the books are appropriate for my students.

Finding effective ways to teach today's student population is perhaps the greatest challenge facing literacy educators in the United States. As classrooms become increasingly diverse, educators struggle to find curricula and pedagogical strategies that are inclusive and affirmative yet facilitate the development of academic and critical literacies.

How might you apply some of the researcher's findings in your own (current or future) practice? Do you now of teachers who have implemented aspects of this type of critical literacy?

Prof. Clinton, In my own future practice the application from this article that I found most useful was teaching popular film and media in the classroom. In the new core curriculum I know that one of the standards includes comparing text to its corresponding film and evaluating and analyzing the changes that directors have made in adapting the text to film. It would just be a matter of finding a more current relevant film that has a corresponding novel that is grade appropriate and having students study the book before watching the film. I also see value in evaluating music lyrics in a poetry unit. As of right now the host teacher that I am working with hasn't done any of this. She abhors poetry and pretty much refuses to show films in class, although we haven't had much opportunity to since our school assigns readings based on lexile and right now there is no way to have a whole class read the same novel since their reading levels are all so different. I think with the core curriculum standards rolling out next year we'll really have to.

"Teachers of English need to reach the tough guys out there, and they are probably not going to do it by prescribing another go at The Sound and the Fury. The problem is not so much that tough guys lack the brainpower to read: they simply do not want to." I like the suggestions given for books to motivate adolescent male readers given in this article. I appreciate how Lawrence Baines has collected information over the years to share with us as teachers.

I always try to do an interest inventory with students and find books that fall into these interests to offer for independent reading time. I also love informational books that center around sports and life oddities, such as Ripley's or Guiness Book of World Records. Boys seem to like these types of books. I have used Sports Illustrated for Kids also as an offer for reading. For class books, I have used "The Air Down Here" by Gil Alicea, a teenage boy from the Bronx. It is written in journal format and tells about his life in his own words. I used this with 8th graders and the boys especially seemed to "grudgingly" get interested and want to read more! I also found that books about aliens, Big Foot, Sasquatch and those types of informational books were interesting to them as well!

When I was a media center teacher, I could not keep the Guinness or Ripley books on the shelf! I think besides the "ew" factor, another draw is (of course) the pictures, and small chunks of text.

Cool Book on Reading Comprehension

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Here is the Amazon link for "Guiding Readers and Writers"

The Café Book is written by The Two Sisters, Joan Moser and Gail Boushey. The book is written in conjunction with The Daily 5, also written by them. The Daily 5 is a management system for a readers workshop style literacy block. The Café Book is the content to go along. Café is centered around the Café Board. Each letter for Café represents a reading strategy, which are also the heading on the board. The four heading are comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and expanded vocabulary. The idea behind Café is that during the Daily 5 mini lessons the teacher teaches different strategies to go under each heading on the Café board. For example, one of the first Café lessons taught to the students is "Go Back and Reread." This strategy goes under the comprehension heading on the Café Board. This board gives students a reference for all of the different reading strategies that they learn throughout the year. Along with the mini-lessons and Café Board, The Café Book also focuses on strategy groups and reading conferencing. The Two Sisters suggests that rather than meeting with students of the same abilities, meeting with students that are focusing on the same reading strategy. Along with the strategy groups, the teachers meet with individuals during reading conferences. During this time the teacher can ensure that each student is reading just right books and practicing the reading strategy that they are focusing on. I run both The Daily 5 and Café currently in my classroom. I believe both are amazing. Although I have not tried it, I think that Café is most successful when The Daily 5 is also implemented. My students reference the Café board daily. They use the strategies to help them be more successful readers. This year was the first year that I have used The Daily 5 and Café. I have not fully implemented all aspects of Café. I am using the board, but have yet to use strategy groups. I am still grouping my students based on ability