Chapter 4 Well Read Promoting Comprehension Through Read Alouds and Shared readings

I like the idea that teachers can read text to students that vary in complexity.  This process is a good way to expose students to informative text beyond their current level. This is also, a good way for the teacher to model fluency.  In the shared reading and read aloud strategy the spotlight is on the teacher to model, help interpret information, and to teach comprehension strategies. Typically, text complexity is raised in secondary school and problems with comprehension become more apparent as the student handles more complex readings. I like the read aloud strategy, but I lean more toward shared reading because as a teacher I would want to target all areas of comprehension. Student’s should listen, speak, view, and write while exploring text because it may help them to process the information better. At the end of the chapter the author suggested that teachers should choose text to read based on content and from the attention that is drawn to a particular strategy. It also said that instructional time should not be used on unrelated readings. If the goal of the teacher is to introduce variety of text that range in complexity what things should be considered when searching for the right text for engagement? The chapter also, talked about the think aloud process. I had problems last semester trying to incorporate a think a loud in my lesson plans. I wonder what are some good ways to throw a think a aloud in the shared reading process?

Writing to Learn Article and Chapter 8

         Writing is an important skill that will follow you throughout your life.   As a college student I understand the pressure associated with writing to produce a final document. I like the concept of writing to learn because the writer is writing to process information and to organize thoughts. I think that this is an important strategy that will help student learn about themselves and how they learn.  This type of writing is also beneficial to the teacher because the teacher can see what students know or do not know about a topic. The article talked about reading and writing working together to help students.  Reading a passage does not say that a child understood the material but if the child writes about the passage the teacher would have a greater chance of  identifying comprehension problems. The strategy that I liked the most was the quick write. I think that it is a good way to starts students thinking about the upcoming topic or tapping into their background knowledge.  In the chapter it talked about using prompts to generate writings. Last semester I saw a teacher use this technique during bell ringer work. Every day she had a new or old topic on the board.  The students would write down what they knew or learned about the topic in their journals. The teacher would walk around and read some of the writing and ask individual students about their writings.  At the end of the chapter it talked about teachers getting a glimpse inside the child’s mind and the thinking process my question is how can teachers create rubrics and checklist that allow the child to process information as well as meet the requirements?

Barbara Moss Article

I understand the overwhelming need for teachers to start early with literacy instruction in the early grades. But, I do not think that standarized test should be the only driving force. Students will need comprehension skills no matter where they end up in life. If teachers are always teaching to the test how will they find the extra time to help student with life skills? It is important that teachers spend time helping students make sense of the world and how things are interconnected. I think that some teachers get stuck just trying to expose students to the different kinds of  practice test that they forget to teach important problem solving strategies. I think that teachers can get a early start by extending the topics used by basals to  build  comprehension skills. Personally I believe that comprehension is the key to effective literacy instruction and if students cannot understand the material then they will naturally have poor scores as a result. With the new expecations on teachers I wonder can teachers teach to the whole child and still maintain a balance?