Subjects Matter Ch. 12 Recommendations from Reading Research

In this chapter there was an immense amount of crucial information. But of these ten tips on what to read and how to read, two main ideas stood out me.

The first is the line, “Frustratingly, though, while choice is a major factor in students’ potential engagement, both the classroom opportunities for choice and access to a variety of books are very limited in most schools” (299). This felt like the biggest obstacle in many of the ideas from the past few chapters. For example, in a balanced-reading diet students should have more choice, in inquiry units students should fuel the inquiry and not to aid good readers, students should choose the book. What this makes me wonder is do we have the time, structure and resources in our education system to allow this much student choice? If not, is it something I can change to make sure I do have it in my classroom, my team and my school? How do we prepare our lessons and work with our school and local libraries to make sure students are doing more work than the teacher but that they have the proper support and resources necessary? Additionally, beyond just resources how do we ensure that in a typical high school where a teacher may have 100 students a day, every one of them is reading or involved in something they chose? I’m thinking this is something in an ELA class that could be solved using jigsaws, literature circles and independent reading. Are there any other ideas to allow more choice and still meet requirements?

The second thing that stood out to me in this chapter is something I’ve been hearing a lot about this year; teacher read-alouds. I love this idea primarily because it’s something I don’t remember ever happening in school past the age of- well as soon as the class could read.  While this chapter gave some great research behind why it’s helpful for readers to hear it and see a model, I’ve also been learning this idea of modeling in depth in my “Writing in Secondary Schools” class. This idea that we often show students finished models, a final essay, perfect reading, the successful science lab; but we rarely show them how we’ve failed along the way. And the fact is, by showing them mistakes, or simply processes and work we go through along the way, we create safe spaces- we actually model LEARNING. The very thing we want to happen. Learning is not the finished product, it is not the excellent reader- not that we don’t want both of these things in our classrooms- but learning is the process we take to get to the goals.  If we’re expecting our students to be life-long learners not life-long experts, then we must show them how and when we learn. This includes at the chapter mentioned, talking about what we’re reading. How great does that sound to go into your class and start a day off by taking a few minutes to tell your students about the article on foreign affairs you just read from NPR, or the scientific discovery just mentioned in TIME, or the culturally relevant historical novel. If we love our contents, if we chose them for a reason, are we still involved in them and are we showing our students we are?

 

Subjects Matter Ch. 10,11 Inquiry Units and Help for Struggling Readers

This chapter on inquiry units seemed so fitting after the discussion we had in class Tuesday with Mr. Laplante.  He specifically mentioned how the trend in 21^st Century education is collaboration and communication. Inquiry units create opportunities for students to be involved in both of those. I especially like the key points of authentic activities, and student choice.

       This is also in line with what I’ve been learning in my middle level class about literacy in the content and especially writing assignment and how to make sure students are engaged in activities that are most closely related to real –life activities in that field. Additionally, this idea of student choice is something that we’ve seen over and over again in the promotion of RAFT assignments. One thing that they pointed out here which hasn’t been discussed in great detail in class, is giving the choice of final assessment. Allowing students to take the information they’ve gathered and use output which is most comfortable or challenging for them or most appropriate for the content they are learning.

         I have one idea I’m struggling with or at least wondering about from this chapter.  They reiterated more than once the idea of planning the unit of study or topic and then aligning it with the standards which will apply.  This feels backwards to everything we’ve been learning about setting the intention of the lesson first, looking at the standards first and then creating the activity. I’m wondering why they decided to plan the unit then apply the standards and if there’s a way to pick the standards you want to focus on first then plan the unit.  I’m also thinking in terms of UbD, is planning the topic first the same thing as building backwards from the big idea down? Or would you need an enduring concept, then the topics, then the standards? These are some of the technical planning pieces I’m trying to place in my head still.

From the chapter on struggling readers, this idea of not being able to create the mental picture while reading is what stands out to me the most. I am an avid reader and when I reflect on things I did not enjoy reading in the past (and the list is pretty short) more times than not it was because I could not create those mental images because I was missing something which would’ve allowed me to engage with the text. This may have been attention span, prior knowledge, motivation and personal enjoyment of the topic, or the reading level was not the right one for me. Imaging is a tool I recently covered in my SPED class that I think is really important o explicitly teach and for me personally was something I almost overlooked.  Taking the time as a during reading activity to stop and teach students to physically draw what is happening, or turn and describe it to their partner.  I also heard of an example in my SPED class where the teacher drew a picture for what they read that day and then each day as they finished the text the students added significant pieces until they had a book mural. If we do these activities and explicitly teach how to visualize the reading, eventually it will become second nature for our students and will be another tool we’ve allowed them access to be able to make reading materials easier.

                                                       

                In addition other tools such as front-loading the text and giving any prior knowledge they may need before they even enter the text can afford them success right from the beginning.  Advance organizers are another way that we can grab their attention, activate prior knowledge students already have, and make connections which will help students have a “file” to put the new material in as they read.

               I’m wondering about this idea that reaching struggling students works best if you can build trust with them first, and show them this experience will be different from all their previous ones. How and when is it appropriate to have these conversations to get to know why are students are struggling or have lost their confidence in their literacy of our particular content? I’m wondering how to push just enough to get to the specific problem but not so much the student feels threatened. I’m also wondering how much should be done up front at the beginning of a school year as you get to know your students and how much of this is something that will fluctuate and change and be a cyclical process that we work on throughout the year.