Chapter Two
(Page 24) “As a mature reader, your mental strategies have become mainly automatic and unconscious.”
Although she wasn’t talking about reading (and we won’t get into what she was talking about!), I’ll borrow a line from Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman: “I’m like a robot. I just do it.” So many of us are like robots when we read our content…it just seems to happen without much work. I think this is why it’s so hard for us to teach our students HOW to read. We are so familiar with our material that it’s hard to break down our thinking and what’s going on in our heads when we do read. But think about when you teach something you’ve never taught before. Is it as easy as teaching a book or concept you’ve taught before? How much better to do understand a text after you’ve taught it a couple of times? Or how easy do you think it would be to read a biology textbook? (That would be too scary for me!) We need to remember that even though we’re familiar with our material, our students are not, and we need to break down our thinking for them so that they can understand how to read text in our content. This will help not only in our class but other classes in the same content area as well as those dreaded standardized tests.
Chapter Nine
(Page 202) “Book Clubs help…differentiate instruction in (the) classroom…by using temporary kid-driven forms of grouping and re-grouping.”
Ah, the magic word: differentiate. Book Clubs really are an easy way to achieve differentiation. The key is that the students get to choose what they want to read, so they can’t complain about it too much! Even though the students are reading different texts, you’re still able to cover the same concept and all of the students are able to get something from it, not just those who always do their work.
(Page 24) “As a mature reader, your mental strategies have become mainly automatic and unconscious.”
Although she wasn’t talking about reading (and we won’t get into what she was talking about!), I’ll borrow a line from Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman: “I’m like a robot. I just do it.” So many of us are like robots when we read our content…it just seems to happen without much work. I think this is why it’s so hard for us to teach our students HOW to read. We are so familiar with our material that it’s hard to break down our thinking and what’s going on in our heads when we do read. But think about when you teach something you’ve never taught before. Is it as easy as teaching a book or concept you’ve taught before? How much better to do understand a text after you’ve taught it a couple of times? Or how easy do you think it would be to read a biology textbook? (That would be too scary for me!) We need to remember that even though we’re familiar with our material, our students are not, and we need to break down our thinking for them so that they can understand how to read text in our content. This will help not only in our class but other classes in the same content area as well as those dreaded standardized tests.
Chapter Nine
(Page 202) “Book Clubs help…differentiate instruction in (the) classroom…by using temporary kid-driven forms of grouping and re-grouping.”
Ah, the magic word: differentiate. Book Clubs really are an easy way to achieve differentiation. The key is that the students get to choose what they want to read, so they can’t complain about it too much! Even though the students are reading different texts, you’re still able to cover the same concept and all of the students are able to get something from it, not just those who always do their work.
Something for y’all to think about with our class book clubs: Do you want to experience the book club as the students do where you each have a “role” when you come to class, or would you rather conduct it as an adult book club where everyone just shares their thoughts? Or do you want to do a little of both? Think about it! If you have strong convictions about one way or the other, you may want to post it on the blog to help sway your colleagues. We’ll make decisions in our next class!
10 comments:
Ch. 2: The authors kept referring to mature readers operating at an unconscious level when comprehending text. This looked so odd to me… wouldn’t the mature reader be operating at a subconscious level?
The schema paragraph on p. 26 resonated with me. Every single experience a child has builds upon his/her own construct to make their own meanings out of all life experiences. Last year at Airport High School a Social Studies teacher and I were helping her students begin their countries PowerPoint projects. One of her males had been assigned the Netherlands. I was assisting this child one-on-one and he was SO frustrated at not being able to find information about the Netherlands. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that was where Michael Jackson lived and he wanted to write about the menagerie of exotic animals. That was his schema, and he was working to the best of his ability within his own personal construct.
Ch. 9: I have always wanted to participate in an adult book club a la Oprah, so I found this chapter fascinating. I really liked the suggestions (that we could put to use at Airport High School either in our classrooms or study groups) on p. 205 that advise starting small. I can get overwhelmed reading about Book Club best practices offered by teachers who have done this for years. That being said, if we started with brief pieces of information (e.g. ideas suggested by the authors include cartoons, news clips) we could “grow” along with our students and learn how to master this process together. It’s exciting to contemplate a paradigm shift at Airport High School!
Ch.2 - Quote on p. 27 - "...the only way we can learn new information is by attaching it, connecting it, and integrating it with information we already have. You have to assimilate the information into an existing schema or revise an old one to make the new stuff fit. Either way, you have to work with what is already in the mind; you can't build on nothing."
I find this quote to be so true. Many of our students have not been fortunate enough to have some of the experiences we had growing up and therefore, don't have an extensive background to hook new concepts too. Also, they don't necessarily come from homes that value the acquisition of knowledge just for the sake of being more worldly or more educated. We have to help them acquire the background knowledge, so they will understand what we are teaching.
Ch. 9 - I think that our book clubs are going to prove to be great learning tools for all of us. On page 202, it mentions that they are a great way to differentiate instruction. As we read and discuss our books, we need to keep other teachers not involved in this course updated on what we are doing. Maybe, they will try it. I think it would be really cool if a social studies teacher did book clubs in their class with historical fiction novels.
I am a member of a book club. For many years we read professional books as an extension of our study togethter in the Midlands Writing Project. A few months ago we decided to switch to fiction and occasionally nonfiction books. This summer we read Freakonomics. If you haven't read it, you need to. It makes you think! At our next meeting we are discussing To Kill A Mockingbird. All of us love this book and wanted to reread it.
Rita: Chapter 2
Although I have used the schema approach in my math classes, I have never thought about it as preparing students to read. This connecting definitely makes sense. Teaching someone to read and comprehend now seems a little less mysterious. Geometry is an excellent math course to engage the students in expanding their schemas. With a little back ground from me, hopefully they will be able to read and apply new theorems and postulates.
Chapter 9
I agree that Book Clubs are a great way to engage students in reading. I appreciated all the key steps given to create and monitor the Book Clubs. Realistically, I don’t have the time in my classes for us to actually read a book, but I would love to find some articles relating math to different professions and connecting math problems with the “real world” that we would be able to read.
Chapter 2:
“The same happens with reading: you can “drive” through some text without explicit selfawareness, especially when the topic is as familiar as the directions to your friend’s house. But this doesn’t mean that, driving or reading, you aren’t really thinking. In both cases, you are using complex cognitive strategies, very actively and creatively as the unconscious level.”
I think this a great way to explain the process of reading. As the authors went on they described how alert and you are and how you may study the map while driving to a new friend’s house. They compared this to when you read a book with a new or more difficult content and how you use different strategies and are more aware of what you are doing to understand what you are reading. This would be a great analogy to share with our students, it would really help them to understand that all reading will not come naturally and you will have to try harder and do some things differently in order to understand some things they read.
Chapter 9:
I find book clubs as a great way for me to read books, professional and other, that I wouldn’t normally take the time to do. I also really enjoy that I have other people to discuss my book with. Being able to read a book and share your ideas and hear others’ ideas is a wonderful, and easy, way to expand our knowledge. I have heard many great ideas that I had not thought about after discussing a book I have read with someone else. Everybody that reads a book gets something different out of it and being able to share that is priceless!
Chapter 2
I am not a big reader. It is very hard for me to sit down and read a book, often because I get so distracted and don’t pay attention. My mind wanders and although I am reading, I do not comprehend the text because I really am not paying attention to what I read. As with driving a car to a familiar destination, often I just get to the end and don’t really remember or know how I got there. Therefore, it is essential for me to utilize these strategies for my self as well as teach them to other students so that they do not just glide through reading without gaining any comprehension. I try very hard to engage my students when we do read alouds in class and really strive to help them connect the text with their life and help them to truly comprehend the text. This is essential for them to be able to do so that they will be able to derive meaning from the things they read.
Chapter 9
As I said above, I am not a big reader. Therefore, book clubs are very intriguing to me because I can choose exactly what I want to read and be a part of making sure that it interests me so that I will be more actively involved in my reading. I enjoy the open conversation about the text without having to specifically answer questions that to me are not as important as possibly other parts of the text. As for my students, a book club is not very realistic because they are functioning on a level that does not allow them to truly be able to discuss a book. However, there are aspects of a book club that may be valuable to my students that I would like to try.
Subjects Matter Chapter 9 page 207
Thanks to our coach, my most reluctant readers are on their way to better understanding. We used the roles described on page 207, but I think I took them off the sheets and directed them to write in their journals too soon. I will use “think alouds” more often to model roles of questioner and connector, too.
Chapter Two, page 31
“If we understand that reading is not just “receiving a message,” but actively building meaning upon prior knowledge...” Last week students selected books from the SCRI library, and that made a noticeable difference because they found books that matched their prior reading.
Chapter 2
I agree that for mature readers reading does become automatic and routine until we find ourselves in unfamiliar territory. When trying to hook up a video karaoke machine to my television last Christmas I really could have screamed when it didn’t work after I thought I had followed the instructions step-by-step. What it required me to do was to have prior knowledge that I didn’t have. On page 25, Daniels points out that prior knowledge is the main determinant of comprehension and after the frustrating karaoke experience I found this to be very true. I also found that in the process I had tried very hard to visualize, connect, question, infer, evaluate and recall while I was trying to read and comprehend what the manual stated. I found it very difficult to comprehend the instructions much less to read and understand the manual.
Chapter 9
I think the idea of a student book club is wonderful and it does give the teacher the opportunity to expose students to a significant amount of material in a short period of time. It also gives students a say in their education and they will be responsible for their own learning once given the training and the various roles. I wouldn’t want the roles assigned in an adult reading group but I do see the need for high school students to have a role with written records which could also be used for formal assessment.
Last week I did a read aloud with the book NightJohn and the students had a guided note-taking sheet that helped them to monitor their own understanding. When they could not understand certain key words or were losing sight of the plot of the book, students found that they were unable to answer the open-ended questions on the note-taking guide and they would stop me for clarification. I think this is what should happen when they are reading but often does not happen with our poor readers. When we finished the book NightJohn and the students asked when we were gong to read another book. The only problem I see with the book club is providing the students with enough copies of books to form a book club which is largely based on school budgets.
Chap. 2
Like Shelly Hardin, I am not a big reader either. I like to read short articles and short stories, but I have a hard time "getting" into larger books. My "down" time is spent working on puzzles. In fact, I had a hard time reading this chapter. I understand why our students have trouble each day.
Chap. 9
I enjoyed reading Chap. 9 much more than Chap 2. I have never been in a book club, but have often wondered about the books that Oprah talks about. I think that book clubs would be great for our students. As I was reading this chapter, I thought of ways that I could use "music" clubs in my room when introducing a new piece of music. I will be trying some of these strategies soon.
I had such a great time reading the assignment because Carlie’s teacher has asked parents to read with their children 20 minutes a night. So Carlie read her Lemony Snicket book and I read Subjects Matters. It was a really sweet time. Anyway…
Chapter 2 was extremely validating for me because for years I have said that one of the reasons some of our kids are such poor readers is because they lack background knowledge. The piece on the English game of cricket was obviously something I had no background knowledge for. “Prior knowledge is the main determinant of comprehension.” (p. 25) That’s so true.
Chapter 9 As an English teacher, I am familiar with the concept of book clubs or literature circles. I am not quite sure about the section on scheduling saying that book clubs “need not eat up huge amounts of time…” because most of the reading and note-writing is done outside of class. I believe that if the books are engaging enough kids will read at home; however, I don’t have enough copies for kids to take home. Suggestions?
Chapter 2: Subject Matters
This chapter reminded me of the different areas that students struggle with while reading. I don’t remember having trouble with reading and comprehension, but reading about the thinking strategies brought it home that I need to help my students with the thinking strategies before, during, and after reading in my class. Breaking down the reading into bit size pieces for struggling readers is what I need to remember. I also need to help my students to understand that it is ok for them to question what they are reading.
Chapter 9: Subject Matters
LOVE Book Clubs! I try to use them all the time. The students enjoy reading with others and working in a group setting because they know they can get help from their book club members. I do admit that it is hard for me to be a facilitator and not get involved with the discussions. Redirecting conversations is one thing, but not giving my opinion on their topic is hard for me
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