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Post by kjgooden on Mar 3, 2016 11:35:53 GMT -5
Please present texts that may require reading strategy support. Please be as specific as necessary, and feel free to explain your approach.
It can be useful to ask yourself what reading means in the particular context you've chosen.
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Post by felishadake on Mar 12, 2016 15:22:22 GMT -5
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Post by janinesherman on Mar 16, 2016 8:49:08 GMT -5
For the last class we were asked to make a list of texts that would need reading strategy support for students. We listed many canonical texts with authors such as Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, TS Eliot, Steinbeck, Dickens.. Many more can be added and a lot of them are on the curriculum for high school students to be reading. All of these texts require help in order for students to comprehend it fully, they are not exactly accessible on their own without guidance.
George said not to use a form of reading strategy we are already familiar with for this post, the English Ed folks and I know a lot about scaffolding with increasingly difficult tasks to work up to something, like using reading ladders to scaffold from young adult literature to difficult canonical texts.
So I will move on to talk about a different reading strategy.. Putting reading into context is very important to aid comprehension. Building students’ background information is key to really comprehending it. Sparknote summaries, footnotes, a knowledgeable teacher, and computer research are all tools to make the reading more accessible for students. Plays by Shakespeare would not easily be comprehensible without a tool to help decode the language. I had a lit teacher in high school who knew Shakespeare plays line by line, she would act it out for effect and she would explain background knowledge and double meanings in certain words. For example in Hamlet, when Hamlet called Polonius a “fishmonger” he is actually insulting him, because in that time period the term “fishmonger” was slang for pimp! That is not to say that a reader should have someone giving them answers to everything, but there was no way I would have captured the depth of that scene without knowing that background information. Writing is a social activity; often writing revolves around historical, biographical, psychological, political factors. So by exposing students to these areas that have so influenced writing you are not only helping them understand, but sparking interest as well. So in total my reading strategy support is to dig deep, beyond the words on the page!
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Post by leahwertz on Mar 16, 2016 12:24:25 GMT -5
Janine, I really loved what you said about building background for comprehension - especially in literature. Something I recently came across while doing some research is the Google Lit Trip. It's a really awesome website that works from google earth and teachers/authors have created trips on google earth that follow the travels of characters in certain books. They're organized by grade level and there's tons of them! It basically goes chapter by chapter and you hop around on google earth and answer questions about the text and learn information about the city the person is in. It's really interesting and it offers a really unique perspective on the novel itself. I think having an understanding of setting is an overlooked concept that can really aid in comprehension and I see these as a really great support strategy. www.googlelittrips.org |
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Post by parkerh13 on Mar 16, 2016 12:37:58 GMT -5
Janine and Leah! I love both of the things y'all presented. Leah, as I was reading Janine's post I thought of Google Lit Trip! The second thing I thought of was the best approach to helping students with Shakespeare because it is ultimately one of the hardest parts of middle and high school. I have seen graphic novel of the play "The Merchant of Venice" which is now a part of the curriculum at my high school in order to help students understand the story better. I also came across a video which is simply a teacher inserting her students into the play, they are on a stage and she requires them to memorize one line of the play and try to figure out what it means and as they learn, they get to figure out why their line is so important. This not only helps them understand the story better, but also gets them interested in what they are learning.
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kasee
New Member
Posts: 21 
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Post by kasee on Mar 16, 2016 13:42:55 GMT -5
I think it's important to include as many real-life examples as possible when presenting material in my content area. For example, if I was teaching a lesson on the voting process, I would provide my student's with examples of voting ballots so that they could see what a ballot looks like and physically touch it. We could continue the lesson with a mock vote, where students go into a voting booth and actually perform the voting process. I think this will help the students to understand what the voting process is truly like and prepare them for something that they will hopefully do when they are old enough to vote and practice this right. This would be much better, in my opinion, rather than just telling them what voting is or showing pictures of ballots and people voting. I want my students to be interactive and engaged, so I think that this type of added support with be beneficial to them, both now and in the future.
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Post by ronettekortbein on Mar 16, 2016 13:55:39 GMT -5
Because I'm a math major, the texts that may require reading support look a little bit different than they might in English or Social Studies. On example is graphs and charts. Students may need help understanding the symbols, organization, and meaning of each part of the graph or chart. Another example is math problems in general. Students need to be able to draw the appropriate numbers, symbols, and processes from the question. Problem solving can be a problem for many students because they don't know where to begin, so they may need some guidance from the teacher and reading support. Some more examples are math related textbooks, history books, and articles. Students need to have background knowledge and know information about mathematical vocabulary to be able to read these texts successfully. It may take some training, time, and support from the teacher, but students should be able to because comfortable with using these texts in the classroom on a regular basis.
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Post by hannahhiester on Mar 23, 2016 14:31:29 GMT -5
For graphs and charts, I also wonder about letting students pick/design their own representations and then asking another group to "read" it, determine the meaning and give feedback.
In physics, there is a lot of modeling - drawings, 3D representations, pictures in our heads. All of these are representations of the physical world and as a result to read the model you have to know what the representations mean. For example, is an arrow a force or a velocity? Is a circle an electron or an atom? Teaching students about models, requires them to learn about how to create this picture. There are commonly used representations, several of which may be used in exams. The teacher, therefore, needs to introduce them at some point. This could be explicitly at the start or part way through, perhaps after students have designed their own model and representations first. Another key area for instruction with models is that as all models are representations, they have inherent simplifications. Students need to learn to recognize there and to work within the limitations of the model. I think this takes time to build and should form a part of the discussion/lesson each time a model is used.
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Post by keturahyoung on Mar 30, 2016 16:25:45 GMT -5
Leah, I never knew about google lit trips, but it sounds like a lot of fun. I think it will really help students dive into the text. Another strategy to use provide reading support could be using transmedia texts. This may count as scaffolding but I'm not sure. For example, if you use a transmedia text, it would probably help to read the original text first as the support. But I do agree with Janine about providing background knowledge as a foundation. I think this also helps to bridge the gaps of when students have different amounts of background knowledge. If the teacher provides the knowledge for the students or allows the students to do further research in class (about the author, time period, themes, topics, etc.)they can essentially learn about the topic together.
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Post by taylorbelleglaze on Apr 6, 2016 10:23:18 GMT -5
One kind of text that I can think of that would require reading strategy support would be poetry. Poetry can be very intimidating to those who have never been exposed to this type of writing before, but with the right instruction, it can become easier to comprehend. As an educator, you could help students comprehend the text with reading strategies by trying to decode each line one at a time-- perhaps, you could put students into different groups and have each student assigned a certain line in the poem. They will look through each word and try to figure out exactly what the author means after the teacher has given them background context on the author and the poem. The students will be making inferences in their groups on what they believe each word and line means, and then the teacher will help the students by giving them constant feedback and providing them with a graphic organizer to organize their thoughts. I found an interesting article on helping students comprehend poetry if anyone wants to check it out! www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/strategies-read-and-analyze-poetry |
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Post by alicenburnett on Apr 6, 2016 13:40:17 GMT -5
Taylor I really like your idea. I think it's something that could be used in your future classroom (winky face). I also loved that you gave us a resource to use. Another thing I thought about is using images or asking students what do they think of when they hear a certain phrase. It would be neat if you found how challenging word or phrase was used in pop culture. For example, there was a poem we were reading that had the word Elysium in it. Elysium is the Roman afterlife. I knew this because my favorite movie is Gladiator and Russel Crowe does this speech about dying and waking up in Elysium: "If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you're already dead!" Super awesome battle cry right? and yes I pulled that out of my memory. But it stuck with me since it's iconic and it's not something I knew I knew. I'm sure your students will be able to make some of those pop culture references as well that will elicit some sort of image. Also don't be surprised if your students hit up Sparknotes because that's what I used to do and I was able to make my own explanations stronger if I could see another interpretation.
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Post by chelseahickox on Apr 19, 2016 10:25:16 GMT -5
I think it's safe to say that people in general love to feel related to. We love to feel connected and not alone. I think it's because of this reality that everyone is always talking about the importance of relating texts to students and making it relevant to them, because if they can feel a connection with the themes or characters then they would probably want to continue in it. So in addition to simply relating texts to students, even though that's important, I feel like it's something that is obviously something they will do. I guess I'm questioning whether or not students need us to help them relate texts to themselves. I kind of think they would do that naturally because its something we as people just kind of look for. A reading strategy that I think would be great to look into when teaching students whether you all are reading through a novel or poem or chart in science or billboard on the street, would be to teach them to look for they why in things. Like why do attractive women sell hamburgers? What is the significance of a German family hiding a Jew, and what can you learn from numbers in a chart. Let them bounce ideas around and find their own conclusions and then let them practice these ideas.
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