Post #3

CHAPTER FOUR

Providing Assistance in the Construction of Meaning

When there is allotted time in a classroom for students to read and discuss text with peers, this allows students to become more engaged with in their learning and are able to discuss the text more meaning full.  Lesson Framework is the Assistance Phase.  The chapter made a great point that not every student will interpret what is being read the same way.  Sometimes this can even lead to the wrong interpretation of the information.  This is important for teachers to keep in mind.  

Improving Comprehension through the Use of Instructional Strategies

It is an instructor’s role to teach students comprehension strategies as well as text information (Elder & Paul, 2009).  I believe that is extremely important for all teachers to remember.  The MARSI (Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory) is used to help teacher create reading comprehension instruction to meet the needs of their students who are having difficulties.  This strategy also can help students self monitor their reading skills better.  A way to reinforce learning during the Assistance Phase is to use concept mapping.  The purpose of mapping visually shows the relationships of major and supporting ideas.  This is good to use for a social studies class when discussing major events such as World War two and how a bill is turned into a law. 

Constructivism and Reading

Knowledge is actively constructed by learners on the basis of prior knowledge, attitudes, and values. This the constructivism theory.  This theory emphasizes the role of the learner in literacy.  Teachers are the guides in this theory.  Their job is to guide students to learn by themselves. 

Directed Reading- Thinking Activity

This helps students understand each segment of a text to be able to figure out the next segment.  In this strategy the organization of the material is a key factor.  This strategy has three basic steps: predicting, reading, and proving.  This strategy also includes a listening and speaking opportunity. The key part of this strategy is predicting the outcomes.  Students can do this out loud in the class together.  This teaches the correct reading process: predicting, reading, and proving that the students have read the material. 

Guided Reading Procedure

This strategy uses brainstorming to collect information as accurate as it can be.  If the information is wrong, students can reread and correct the misinformation.  The second reading is important because it gives the students more motivation.  Students will want to prove that their predicting is correct.   This is a very effective teacher-directed technique.

Reciprocal Teaching and Assisting students in Learning Text Structure

This is a way to promote independent learning when reading text.  When students are being taught writing and reading comprehension.  The five more organizational formations of text are sequential or chronological order, analysis, cause and effect, comparison and contrast, and analogy or example.  Collaboration is an approach for discussion about the content area to stimulate critical thinking. 

Questioning Strategies

A questioning technique is called Question-Answer Relationship (QAR).  There are four levels: 1) right there, 2) think and search, 3) the author and you, and 4) on your own.  This would be easy to implement into a classroom to increase a students’ comprehension and questioning skills.  

PAR Lesson Plan

Topic: U.S. History

Grade Level: High School Grade 11

SOL: 

VUS.4 The student will demonstrate knowledge of events and issues of the Revolutionary Period by

a) analyzing how the political ideas of John Locke and those expressed in Common Sense helped shape the Declaration of Independence;

b) evaluating how key principles in the Declaration of Independence grew in importance to become unifying ideas of American democracy;

c) describing the political differences among the colonists concerning separation from Great Britain;

d)   analyzing reasons for colonial victory in the Revolutionary War.

Objective: Students will be able analyze and reflect in writing how the political ideas of John Locke and those expressed in Common Sense helped shape the Declaration of Independence. 

Written Purpose:

Reading Material: Declaration of Independence, Common Sense

Strategies/ Activities:

Preparation: Pre-learning concept check, K-W-L plus and written preview

Assistance: Guided Reading Procedure, Reciprocal Teaching

Reflection: Post-graphic organizers, Double entry journals

Evaluation: Paper, Test

You Lesson: Assess Students' Prior Knowledge

To assess students; prior knowledge I would use K-W-L Plus (pg.63-65), written previews (pg.68), and Graphic organizer (pg.69-70) strategies.  I feel that this strategies would work best for my PAR lesson plan for high school social studies classroom.  These strategies work well with events that occurred and people. For a history class this is what everything is about.

Analogy for Chapter 3

Preparing students to read is similar to teaching children to swim

When learning how to swim and to read you must be taught the basics to be able to build upon them.  For example, in swimming if you are not taught how to float on your back, you will not be able to swim backstroke.  When learning to read a student must be taught how to read words and understand sentence structure before they can read a novel.  Students must be allowed to practice their skills in both reading and swimming.  You must build upon prior knowledge of students.  No matter how much you teach a student something they must be aloud to practice their skills to improve them.  You must be encouraging of the students because not everyone will get the hang of it quickly.  You want the students to have confidence in their skills.  When they do the students will be more likely to continue to practice them and have interest in it. 

Chapter 3: Post #2

CHAPTER THREE

This chapter details techniques to help prepare students to begin learning.  According the chapter 27, percent of twelfth graders read below the basic level.  As an aspiring secondary social studies teacher this is alarming to me.  The statistic is way too high.  Not only should reading skills be taught in elementary skills, but it should be continued all throughout the rest of a child's’ schooling career.  Just because a teacher tells the students to read does mean that the students will have the motivation to read.  It is the teachers responsibility to motivate the students to read.  To motivate students to read, teachers must build upon students prior knowledge.  To do this teachers must determine what knowledge students already have.  I completely agree with the author that teachers are similar to sport coaches.  I believe teachers should be there to help and improve students skill and be there to encourage students with their work. 

The Importance of Determining Prior Knowledge

Students who have prior knowledge about a subject can focus on what is their learning task, but when students do not have this knowledge they cannot decipher between material that is important and material that is not. This is why it is so important to determine prior knowledge.  “Reading is more than extracting meaning from text and that the reader’s perspective shapes what is understood (Richardson, Morgan, and Fleener, 2012, pg.54).”  This quote expresses what teachers must express to their students about reading.  Reading is more than memorizing what is on the page. Teachers have to make sure that they are teaching from their students’ point of view.  This is to make sure that students are building on the knowledge they have.  

The Problem of Matching Reader with Text

A very important thing that good readers do is sizing up the material before reading it.  This is important to get an idea what the material is about before reading.  Another critical thing that good readers do is to chart a course before starting the book and to see if there is any prior knowledge.  Not every student is capable of doing this.  Because of this a teacher must plan out each lesson and give enough time to introduce the subject to determine the prior knowledge of the students and build upon it. 

Schema Theory and Prior Knowledge

Students come to class with their schema and a teacher must present information in a way for students to understand and have it fit into their own schema. The schema theory is a good way for teachers to understand students and how students think to better prepare them to read an assignment.  Teachers must make connections with prior knowledge that students have for students to understand and learn the information.

The Role Prior Knowledge plays in Heightening Interest

When students have a lack of schema it can create a lack of interest. When teachers realize that students have a lack of interest he or she can create lesson plans around creating interest. Teachers must show that what the class is learning is important and relevant in the real world.  Creating relevance is one of the most important things a teacher can do for their subjects.

Prelearning Concept Check

Give a list of vocabulary in the reading to the students and have them rate the vocabulary words based on the amount of information each knows about the material.  Then as the students are reading the material have them focus on the words. This would be great for major historical events or people in social studies classes.

Written Preview

Teachers write a preview of the material about to be taught including information that the students need as background knowledge.  The teacher also writes the preview in a way that the students would understand.  I would use this technique in my classroom as a way to introduce the lesson.  It is a great way to introduce the beginning of a lesson with background knowledge.  

Chapter Three gave a lot of useful information about techniques to use in the classroom to give students the background knowledge before they begin to read their assignments.  I will use some of these techniques in my classroom. 

Source

  Richardson, Judy S., Raymong F. Morgan, and Charlene E. Fleener (2012). Reading to Learn in the content areas. United States: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Introduction, Chapter 1 and 2 (Learning Blog Post #1)

Welcome to my Read 680 learning blog! My name is Jenna Rowlands. I am a graduate student at Old Dominion University (ODU) working towards a master of Secondary Education with initial licensure in social studies.  I have bachelor of arts in history from ODU as well. I look forward to having you read my many posts. 

Prior to the first day of class, I was not aware of what this course was really about.  After reading the first two chapters and attending the first class, I am very glad that I am taking this course.  I feel that it will be very informative to help make me a better teacher and improve my students reading levels.  When I go out into the world of teaching I want to be equipped with as much information and teaching techniques as I can and I feel this class will help do this. 

In chapter one, a comment was made that it is no longer enough to focus on literacy just in elementary school.  This is a great point that literacy should be taught in every subject and at every level.  As people we continue to learn at every age and we should not stop working on our literacy after we initially learn in elementary school. As an aspiring secondary social studies teacher, reading and writing is vital to my subjects. Just because I am not an english or language arts teacher does not mean that I cannot continue to improve my students skills and teach them social studies at the same time.  This chapter makes great points about the benefits that literacy has for every subject. 

The twelve principles of effective content teachers were very informative about how important learning and reading are to students.  I found principle number four to be the most interesting.  As a teacher, I will always have to keep in mind that not all students use standard english at home, so using it in school can be a foreign language to them.  I have never really thought about the dialect of my future students and things that I find normal may not be the same for all my students.  Principle number eight, is important for everyone especially parents to understand and execute. Parents need to instill that reading is important and fun, so children will read on their on own.  Teachers need help from parents because if students never see their parents read they will be less likely to read themselves. 

Since I have never taught before I am nervous about motivating students to learn and to do their homework. I want to make everything I teach the student relevant, so there is a connection for them and an interest.  Chapter two, gave some good tips to motivate students.  For example, page 35 stated keeping journals about experiences. This is a technique that can be used in one of my social studies classrooms. I believe weaving the students’ experiences with history is important.  I want to do this as much as I can when I have my own classroom.