Chapter 3 Vocabulary

The vocabulary instruction described at the beginning of the chapter brought back a lot of memories.  I remember we were assigned vocabulary words, and we had to look up the definition of the word in a dictionary.  A majority of the time the definition in the dictionary was way over my head, and I had no idea how to use the word in a sentence.  With this type of teaching being done, and yes I still see it in every classroom I am in, it is no surprise that there is a deficit in vocabulary knowledge.  I do remember some of the richest words I have ever learned were from teachers, people or books using them.  I would hear the word and decide, "That's a nice word I need to start using it."  I would then go look the word up and from then on the meaning and use of the word was committed to memory.  I feel that is one of the best ways students learn.  When teachers speak they can use large words followed by a quick synonym for students who do not know the meaning.  That is an extra exposure to new vocabulary that is simple for teachers to do.

Some of the strategies discussed in the book I have used in my tutoring sessions at OGLE.  I have used strategies that involve personal connections, adding suffixes to words to change meaning, using illustrations to show the meaning, discussing the vocabulary words as they are being used in the books, and writing with the vocabulary words.  I feel these strategies are much more authentic than the previous way vocabulary was taught.  It allows students to make connections with words and really experience them.  I also liked how the book discussed the popularity of the use of the thesaurus.  I feel this is an oldie but a goodie.  It allows students to get experience with synonyms.  I would edit students' writings and highlight words that I would like them to change to more "juicy" words.  The students can find alternatives for these words.  It not only improves vocabulary, but it also helps students make their writing more rich.

Questioning

I think questioning is a very important tool to assess students knowledge and to help expand their knowledge.  Using H.O.T. (higher order thinking) questions is a great way to help students make connections to other subjects or ideas.  It also helps students form critical thinking skills.  Everyone seems to agree that questioning is an excellent tool to help students learn more, and many teachers think they are asking appropriate questions.  In many cases they are not.  According to the text 70% of questions asked in the classroom are basic recall questions.  Are these questions really helping our students develop critical thinking skills?  I think not.  Teachers need to expand the small percentage of questions that require students to show and construct understanding and apply knowledge.

There are many ways that teachers can ask more authentic questions.  My quick go to when coming up with H.O.T. questions is why?  Why do we do this, why do we do that.  My mentor teacher at OG has helped me pay more attention to questioning.  The one thing we discussed that she wanted me to gain from the experience was how to ask H.O.T. questions.  She said it took her years to learn how to effectively question her students.  I also liked the quick questioning guide the book gave.  It discusses asking what you learn, summarizing student answers, asking how they know, how else, and what surprised you.  I have seen my mentor teacher use all of these types of questions, and it really gets her students thinking.  They are not able to just yell out an answer right after the question is ask.  It takes even the smartest students a few seconds to formulate an appropriate answer.  I feel that when the classroom gets quiet and everyone is obviously thinking you know you have asked a very good question.

When leaving class Tuesday you asked me to discuss the class, so here goes...  I have always hear the terms ethos, logos, and pathos, but I never knew what they meant.  That is probably because I slept through English comp.  However, I never knew they related to questioning styles; I always thought they were just about writing styles.  As far as the TED video goes.  I loved it!  I have stumbleupon.com (excellent site... you should explore it if you haven't yet!)  TED videos several times, but I never watched them, because I assumed they would be boring.  I am glad that I was able to see that they are not.

Chapter 7 Notetaking

Chapter 6 3Qs blog post.

1 Q.  Quote w/ Reasoning - "When matched carefully with text, graphic organizers can help students clarify the connections and relationships they are finding in the reading."   I chose this quote because it sums up the reason graphic organizers are used perfectly.  We use graphic organizers to help students make connections and point out improtant info in texts.

2 Q.  Question - How can you use graphic organizers for assessments and check for actual understanding?   I do not feel students have to put enough information about the topic to truly show their understand of a topic.

3 Q.  Personal Connection - I personally connected with the part that dicussed when graphic organizers can be used.  It said that they could be used during a "reading" lesson not just before and after.  In high school my chemistry teacher required us to take class notes on bubble chart, graphic organizers that she created.  This was a terror!!  We needed to know way to much information to put it all on a tiny graphic organizer with no other notes.   Also, when you are taking that many notes a bubble graph graphic organizer can not be organized, and that is a pain in the but for someone who like organized notes.

"Text Talk" and Chapter 4

The article gave lots of insight about ways that teachers can fail using questions with read-alouds; however, I feel the article went in circles talking about problems and offering no solutions.  I did like how the article discussed that texts must be "conceptually challenging."  Since I do not have much experience seeing children at different grade levels, I often forget how smart students are and how much they can understand because of their limited reading abilities.  As I was reading the article said that pictures should not be shown while reading because students will focus more on pictures than the text, but how do you read a picture book to a child without showing pictures.  Isn't it important to walk through the pictures before reading to allow students to predict?  I had a personal connection with the section of the article that discussed students focusing too much on background knowledge and what they know about the subject.  Last semester when reading a book to my kindergarten class I asked a question about their experiences/knowledge, and I had great difficulty getting the students back on the task of paying attention to the book.  The article discussed how it is important for teachers to appropriately activate students' schemata, but they left me wondering how to do this without having students stray off topic.  The book discussed that shared reading promotes metacognition, and we love discussing metacognition in CIR 411!  I like the idea of using shared readings followed by think-alouds to help students practice critical thinking.  The article stated that read-alouds do not have strong effects according to studies.  I disagree with this, because when students have opportunities to practice their oral language comprehension they will have an easier time grasping concepts that teachers lecture in higher grades.  This skill will allow students to learn so much more from classes as they get older.

Writing to Learn

Until reading the article and chapter 8 I hadn't heard much about writing to learn.  After learning more about it, I discovered that it is a great teaching concept.  Not only can it help improve students writing skills and knowledge, but it can improve subject content knowledge and reading comprehension.  I enjoyed reading the different strategies and I learned many new ones.  Biopoems were one of my favorites, because used for so many different topic and subjects.

When the class discussed the article, I noticed that many people have bad feeling towards the check lists the article discussed.  I personally feel that check lists are an excellent resource for students who struggle with writing.  It also helps students write to learn, because it directs them towards important information.  I need a checklist when writing, because if not I am a nervous wreck thinking I am not doing the project or writing correctly.

Article Critique: "Making a case and a place for content area literacy instruction in the elementary grades" by Barbara Moss

While reading this article I began to think back to times I remember observing informational text being used in elementary schools I have visited, and I could not think of one time I have seen a teacher ask her students to read informational text.  All too often teachers just present students with the information they need when lecturing, or they read the information to them.  As the article discussed, the lack of contact with informational text can harm a child's development in many areas such as comprehension and subject area content.  If teachers provide informational texts for students to read, they can easily teach across the curriculum.

As I read, I also thought about how limited my experiences with informational text were as an elementary student.  I wonder if my limited  experiences as a child correlate to the problems I have now with reading and comprehending information from textbooks.  The importance of exposing young students to a variety of informational texts such as newspapers, computers, and tradebooks was also discussed in the article.  This is very important, because it gives students who might not enjoy one type of informational text other ways to learn and become interested in a subject.

The information Barbara Moss presented lead me to ask these questions:
- If children were introduced to informational text at a younger age, how much smarter would our children be?  Would the U.S. produce more scientists, mathematicians, historians, and more well rounded individuals in general?
- What are some ways present informational text to students just beginning to read?