Talk About Text

Most of our talk about text occurs during “Get Ready to Read” and “Read and Comprehend” in our Reading Street curriculum. Although it is not as natural as I would like it to be as a teacher, it does suffice as discussion in the classroom. Each week, we have a new story that we discuss. We talk about the plot, characters, theme, vocabulary and much more. I think that Reading Street has its positives in that we do cover a lot when we have classroom discussions about a text; however, it often feels forced. Most of the talk is teacher-led and based off of questions that we have in our curriculum. The discussion usually starts with a teacher question and leads into student responses. This discussion time happens about every day in both sections of the Reading Street material. There are significant opportunities for “Surface Knowledge” talk where the students are able to discuss personal opinions/ideas about a topic and share stories. Here, they are often connecting their background knowledge to our story. We also do a great deal of “Inquiring into Text” because we ask the students so many questions throughout the story such as, “Why do you think the main character did that?” or “How do you think he will change his behavior in the end?” With the Reading Street curriculum, there is also a lot of “Reflecting” happening – the students have time for summarizing and a type of community share. Although Reading Street seems to cover the majority of the “talk about text” that should be happening in the classroom, I don’t think it does a very good job at allowing student-led discussion because so much of it is teacher-led and question-response based. I know that my MT agrees with me on this issue, and we are working toward incorporating more student-led conversation about each text within the classroom.

Things to think about: How can we transform these teacher-led conversations from Reading Street into student-led conversations? Is it possible? Would student-led discussion take up more time in the classroom?

If Regie Routman Visited My Classroom

In my third grade class we have not done a lot of writing thus far. I am, however, teaching a Daily 5 lesson tomorrow on "Working on Writing". This will be used to introduce writing in the classroom. With that being said I feel that if Regie Routman visited my classroom she would give me advice on how to talk to my students about writing. This would only enhance my Daily 5 lesson and any further lessons I might give on writing. I feel as though I could use some help teaching and talking to students about their writing skills, and different aspects of their writing. I feel that Regie would specifically mention things like, the purposes of having a writing conference between you and the students. She would also explain that as a teacher I can (agency) use whole-class sharing to teach (action). The students can listen for specific language, correct tense, and grammar. This is also a good way to show the students examples of what their writing should look like.

While reading chapter nine specifically I thought it was interesting when Regie talked about a quickshare. This was especially interesting to me because this year has really helped me realize how much teachers have to fit into one day and a lot of times it does not all get done. This quickshare allows the teacher to take one minute for each student and give them some positive feedback on their writing. It is important to focus on what they have written, not what they have not done. It would be beneficial to make sure the students are on the right track without having to listen to them read their whole text. It gives the teacher a snap shot of what is being written.

I also liked the peer teach conferencing. I feel that it is really important for the students at the third grade level to be able to work without needing the teachers help with everything. If students work together to improve their writing they are themselves gaining a deeper understanding of the concept and of its importance. This also means that the students may not hear teacher praise as often and for some students that is crucial in their efforts. How could you make sure to give each student positive feedback when they are peer editing?

Comprehension Instruction

Last year I was in a first grade classroom and I was there during their literacy blocks. First-graders work a lot with reading strategies, especially comprehension and literary aspects. I was able to actually implement whole group lessons relating to comprehension. One that I particularly remember was about inferring. At first I was really confused what it meant to infer, but after going through the lesson and seeing what their ideas about inferring were, I was more clear about it. The Book Club Plus book also cleared up what exactly inferring is for me. Because of these experiences I think I would feel comfortable planning and teaching about inferring and questioning text, which is a big part of comprehension. I was also able to use modeling a lot, which is talked about in this book often. I will be teaching a literacy lesson on Monday in my classroom about how to read the pictures first and then the words to gain a larger understanding of what the book is about. An area I don't feel very comfortable teaching or planning is writing. I have not been exposed to much writing instruction in my experience in classrooms. I feel like I would need to watch more writing instruction to gain a better understanding of how it works and what it looks like.

The readings talked a lot about modeling and scaffolding as two of the main ways to go about literacy instruction. My CT has already begun using both of these strategies in the small amount of literacy instruction I have seen so far. I think I will get a lot of opportunities to watch and to teach using these strategies this year. I am interested to see the students' progression in literacy with the teacher's use of these types of instruction.

In the Strategies That Work book, the authors give many ways to find out what students are thinking. In previous TE classes we have had projects where we have to find out what students are thinking. I was never aware of many of the strategies listed. For the projects we had to interview the students and give assessments, which are only two simple ways to find out student thinking. This year I think I will be able to use the other strategies they listed such as: listen in to their conversations with each other, observe behavior and instruction, chart their responses in large group settings, keep anecdotal records of conferences and conversations, script what they say (comments and questions), and confer with kids. I think given this variety of ways to find out student thinking, it will be easier to figure out what they are each thinking and where you need to take your instruction in the following lesson.

What CAN I do? I CAN use the strategies I have learned from the readings and implement them this year in my classroom to see how well they work.

Welcome :)