Monday, June 27, 2011
chapter 1
Chapter 1 serves as a great introduction for this class. The author, Cris Tovani, discusses why she's in a specific classroom and her goals for the day. I think this is an essential initial step when beginning a process. As teachers, setting goals can help us to help the students focus on the task at hand. This subtle detail is a great teaching strategy. The class she is in is a biology course, "and the students taking the class are struggling readers who will most likely not be going to college (Tovani, 1). She then discusses her thought process as to why these students are struggling. Is it because they cannot understand the words, the vocabulary is to advanced, or they simply are not interested? These are the types of questions educators wrestle with incessantly. She notices that her lesson is to be about viruses. She acknowledges the fact that she is not an expert in this field, and compares her reading to that of the students because of this. Teachers play such an important role in the education of young students that perhaps sometimes, they forget that they are experts in their given content area. I think this fact, among many, is why we do not see reading with such importance. It also depends on content area. You can have the best speed reader, but when it comes to math text books he/she could be considered the worst. I think we should not label students as those who can and can't read until we figure out the reason why. A great teaching strategy Tovani uses is having the students write their questions down as they remember them. This is effective because if students are having trouble understanding the reading, they are able to collect their thoughts and hopefully make sense of any questions they have. Obviously nobody has the ability to fix every reader, but there are steps to take to facilitate this process and help students feel more comfortable in the classroom.
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I have read quite a few posts about this book and it seems like a very interesting book. I think that setting up goal is very important for teachers. Without goals a lecture or a homework assignment could just end up being redundant. It is also important to set goals so that the students know about the same amount in every subject.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that a great strategy is to have the students write down their questions as they go along! Perhaps there could even be a "parking lot" on the chalk board to write questions on and then students could help each other find the answers and then teachers could be sure that any questions that are unanswered could be addressed at the end of the day or week. Also, what is the title of your book? (I may have missed it, but I didn't see it anywhere!) :)
ReplyDelete--Candice (for some reason it signs my name as "unknown"...)
Your book sounds so interesting and useful. I like what you said, that we shouldn't label students who can and can't read until we understand why . So powerful! I also realize that I should have been stating objectives and goals to the students so they knew what the point of the lesson was. I definitely will be doing that in the future.
ReplyDeleteI agree that giving struggling readers scaffolding techniques is an excellent thing to do. Eventually they will be able to find strategies that they will find useful and come to rely on them whether they are reading a math book or a science text book.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of making the goals known to the students is a good idea so students can know what is expected of them. Secondly having an understanding that students may hate the subject we teach is important because we love it they may not. So when teaching we need to take it into consideration. Finally having students write questions about concepts and words they don’t understand is a very good idea to use in class.
ReplyDeleteI am reading the same book and I like the point that teachers forget that they are experts in their subject area. I think the point is not how much you know but can you convey that information. We had a teacher who was a Ph.D. in Biology and he lasted about 2 months because he was a research professor and not a high school teacher. Good post. - Omar
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of writing down questions as they occur. I think most educational systems don't focus enough on what students are struggling with because they are forcing too much information with little time to sort things out. Students constantly suffer from cognitive overload and I guarantee that the questions in their brain are most often times overloaded by a steady stream of new information with little time to comprehend.
ReplyDeleteColin - I agree with writing down questions and then I would like to work towards finding the answers as a class or have a group find the answer. Kids have it in their mind that teachers should know all the answers!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite idea in your post is the idea of writing questions down as students read. This, I feel, is a great tool to use. This is such a great tool because it allows the students to collect their thoughts as they read, just as Rebecca said in her post. When being able to see the questions as one reads, it can help them answer then as they go along. I like the idea that was posted above, that students could answer the questions in a group, this allows for collaboration and can show the students that other may have the same questions as them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that we should not label students as readers and nonreaders. We as teachers need to focus on what we can do to help the student become better readers. Many teachers’ label students quickly and that sticks with them throughout their years.
ReplyDeleteThis book sounds really interesting. I think that having goals set is really important to stay on task and keeps the teacher and the students on the same page. It seems that students often forget why they are learning. They often get side tracked and don't really understand what their assignment is. Having goals set allows students to come back to what is important and why.
ReplyDelete