This book, at times frustrating and frankly patronizing, DID teach this not so old dog some new tricks. At the end of the day, looking past Keene's Utopia, pod-people children with genius IQ's, and Brady-esque happy endings wrapping up in 30 minutes... I learned a LOT of useful strategies that I was not only able to keep in my pocket but was able to use right away in class. It was helpful that she used her own experiences personally to illustrate certain strategies before talking about how she used it to solve a problem or taught it to a group of children. I was able to piece these parts of the chapter together to aide in greater understanding. I guess I was making a 'mosaic' of my own. In the end, I'm sure that's what she had in mind.
This book has made me examine my own teaching techniques. Do I challenge my students enough? Do I collaborate with colleagues enough? But mainly... to I MODEL enough? The answer to all three is no. At least I can learn from that and improve. As it is very important to model strategies to your students explicitly- it was equally important for Keene to explicitly model for us... her readers/students. Though admittedly her tone and vocabulary occasionally made me a bit queasy, she did do her job and I appreciate it. It will be a challenge for me to adapt some of her methods to the students that I teach, not because they're special ed but because they're NOT perfect Stepford children. I do wish that there was more "troubleshooting" in the book in the case of an emergency, but overall I am glad that I read it. I gained insight into a lot areas that were very fuzzy for me as a teacher, and I was able to first roll my eyes, and then get a good idea. :)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Chapter Nine
The Contour and Substance of Meaning
This chapter starts with an article from the New York Times by David Remick from January 29, 1996. It is, might I say, an article not in the least bit interesting to me or to the author except for the fact that she was considering using it as an introduction to a chapter in this particular book on synthesis. After discussion with her co-author, they decide to use it to make a point. She states that as she read this particular article she was synthesizing during and after reading it. However, due to her experienced reading ability the synthesis didn’t come without the result of other comprehension strategies that she used as she read. It was composed of a myriad of tiny mental pieces that formed a mosaic of understanding of the text.
She continues to say that she wasn’t summarizing the article in her mind, for summarizing would be highlights of the text: a listing of parts whereas synthesis is the creation of a whole. Synthesis is the process of ordering, recalling, retelling and recreating into a coherent whole the information with which our minds are bombarded every day. Synthesis is a uniquely human trait that permits us sift through a myriad of details and focus on those pieces we need to know and remember. Synthesis is about organizing the different pieces to create a mosaic; a meaning. This is a process that we all engage in naturally every day.
The author now realizes that synthesis is absolutely basic. We must reorganize and create our own explanations for what we are learning, our own definitions of our lives at any particular point in time.
Some Key Ideas
The process of synthesizing occurs during reading:
v Proficient readers maintain a cognitive synthesis as they read. They monitor the overall meaning, important concepts and themes in the text as they read and are aware of ways test elements fir together to create that overall meaning and theme. A proficient reader’s synthesis is likely to extend the literal meaning of a text to the inferential level.
v Proficient readers are aware of text elements and patterns in fiction and nonfiction and understand that being aware of them as they read helps them predict and understand the overall meanings or themes.
v As they read, proficient readers attend more directly to character, setting, conflict, sequence of event, resolution, the theme in fiction and to text patterns such as description, chronological, cause and effect, comparison/contrast and problem/solution in nonfiction. The use this knowledge to make decisions about the overall meaning of a passage, chapter, or book.
v Proficient readers actively revise their cognitive syntheses as they read. New information is assimilated into the reader’s evolving ideas about the text, rendering some earlier decisions about the text obsolete.
The process of synthesizing occurs after reading:
v Proficient readers are able to express through a variety of means, a synthesis of what they have read. The synthesis includes ideas and themes relevant to the overall meaning from the text and is cogently presents.
v Proficient readers use synthesis to share, recommend, and critically review books they have read.
v Proficient readers purposefully use synthesis to better understand what they have read. Syntheses are frequently an amalgam of all comprehensions strategies use by proficient readers.
Barbara Stala
The Contour and Substance of Meaning
This chapter starts with an article from the New York Times by David Remick from January 29, 1996. It is, might I say, an article not in the least bit interesting to me or to the author except for the fact that she was considering using it as an introduction to a chapter in this particular book on synthesis. After discussion with her co-author, they decide to use it to make a point. She states that as she read this particular article she was synthesizing during and after reading it. However, due to her experienced reading ability the synthesis didn’t come without the result of other comprehension strategies that she used as she read. It was composed of a myriad of tiny mental pieces that formed a mosaic of understanding of the text.
She continues to say that she wasn’t summarizing the article in her mind, for summarizing would be highlights of the text: a listing of parts whereas synthesis is the creation of a whole. Synthesis is the process of ordering, recalling, retelling and recreating into a coherent whole the information with which our minds are bombarded every day. Synthesis is a uniquely human trait that permits us sift through a myriad of details and focus on those pieces we need to know and remember. Synthesis is about organizing the different pieces to create a mosaic; a meaning. This is a process that we all engage in naturally every day.
The author now realizes that synthesis is absolutely basic. We must reorganize and create our own explanations for what we are learning, our own definitions of our lives at any particular point in time.
Some Key Ideas
The process of synthesizing occurs during reading:
v Proficient readers maintain a cognitive synthesis as they read. They monitor the overall meaning, important concepts and themes in the text as they read and are aware of ways test elements fir together to create that overall meaning and theme. A proficient reader’s synthesis is likely to extend the literal meaning of a text to the inferential level.
v Proficient readers are aware of text elements and patterns in fiction and nonfiction and understand that being aware of them as they read helps them predict and understand the overall meanings or themes.
v As they read, proficient readers attend more directly to character, setting, conflict, sequence of event, resolution, the theme in fiction and to text patterns such as description, chronological, cause and effect, comparison/contrast and problem/solution in nonfiction. The use this knowledge to make decisions about the overall meaning of a passage, chapter, or book.
v Proficient readers actively revise their cognitive syntheses as they read. New information is assimilated into the reader’s evolving ideas about the text, rendering some earlier decisions about the text obsolete.
The process of synthesizing occurs after reading:
v Proficient readers are able to express through a variety of means, a synthesis of what they have read. The synthesis includes ideas and themes relevant to the overall meaning from the text and is cogently presents.
v Proficient readers use synthesis to share, recommend, and critically review books they have read.
v Proficient readers purposefully use synthesis to better understand what they have read. Syntheses are frequently an amalgam of all comprehensions strategies use by proficient readers.
Barbara Stala
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Chapter 8: The Intersection of Meaning
This chapter, devoted to making inferences, is oddly focused on our author. Although she follows her normal pattern (piece of text she likes, her interpretation of that text in the fashion of whatever the chapter's theme is, her own two cents on the subject, then an example of how she taught a child this skill or strategy at one time, debriefing), Keene turns inward in this chapter more than ever. Perhaps because making inferences involves so much connection that she really wanted to set the tone. Whatever her reason, I did find this chapter much more believable and easy to swallow.
I was able to learn a lot while reading this chapter. For starters, I've always given an inference the lame definition of "reading between the lines." Of course, it is just that but it's also much more. It's the process of creating meaning that involves the blending of text knowledge and prior knowledge and experiences. This involves making predictions, ARGUING with the author, (this was a huge realization for me- that this arguing can fit under the umbrella of making inferences. It looks like I've made quite a few while reading this book. Ha!) relating to the text, drawing conclusions, making interpretations, making connections and making judgments. This happens during reading and after reading. It can happen internally or while discussing the text with others. Readers can remember what they read and apply it in future inferences, and also respond to the text in a variety of ways.
Another lesson for me was to cut your students some "slack" when asking for their inferences. Even if it seems way off from your perspective, if they can defend their inference using the text and their own schema then it is valid, makes meaning, and should be encouraged.
Last, and perhaps the largest shock for me, was that although I have not yet properly explained to my students what the entirety of an inference is or can be, I am and have been modeling and teaching my students to do so. In this chapter, Keene takes a first grade student who appears to not have a clue as to how to make an inference and turns her into an inference-making machine simply by explaining what it was and modeling it for her. Her strategy of modeling, questioning, and asking the student to explain her inferences is something that I already include in my own teaching. Who knew? ;)
I was able to learn a lot while reading this chapter. For starters, I've always given an inference the lame definition of "reading between the lines." Of course, it is just that but it's also much more. It's the process of creating meaning that involves the blending of text knowledge and prior knowledge and experiences. This involves making predictions, ARGUING with the author, (this was a huge realization for me- that this arguing can fit under the umbrella of making inferences. It looks like I've made quite a few while reading this book. Ha!) relating to the text, drawing conclusions, making interpretations, making connections and making judgments. This happens during reading and after reading. It can happen internally or while discussing the text with others. Readers can remember what they read and apply it in future inferences, and also respond to the text in a variety of ways.
Another lesson for me was to cut your students some "slack" when asking for their inferences. Even if it seems way off from your perspective, if they can defend their inference using the text and their own schema then it is valid, makes meaning, and should be encouraged.
Last, and perhaps the largest shock for me, was that although I have not yet properly explained to my students what the entirety of an inference is or can be, I am and have been modeling and teaching my students to do so. In this chapter, Keene takes a first grade student who appears to not have a clue as to how to make an inference and turns her into an inference-making machine simply by explaining what it was and modeling it for her. Her strategy of modeling, questioning, and asking the student to explain her inferences is something that I already include in my own teaching. Who knew? ;)
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Ch. 7 - A Mosaic in the Mind
This chapter is about using sensory images to enhance comprehension. Keene starts the chapter with a poem by Jane Kenyton and then tells about the mental images she created while reading the poem. The creation of sensory images is important for readers to connect personally and sometimes permanently to a text according to Keene.
Creating sensory images was never a comprehension strategy I focused on in past years. This year I have a student in my class who has very poor comprehension skills - the worst I have ever seen. I decided to start using a program with him called Visualizing and Verbalizing (V/V). The V/V program is used to make students aware of the images they create as they read and give them the ability to discuss their images. The program starts out with pictures and eventually ends with multi-paragraph passages.
This chapter was interesting to me because of my special interest in the strategy this year - thanks to my student. I thought Keene had a good point when she said that the images we create don't necessarily have to come from the senses, but can also come from the emotional part of our minds - like when she pictured her deceased grandfather's face for the old man's face in Kenyton's poem. These types of images are the most important to create because they help the reader understand and make connections to the text at the same time.
Creating sensory images was never a comprehension strategy I focused on in past years. This year I have a student in my class who has very poor comprehension skills - the worst I have ever seen. I decided to start using a program with him called Visualizing and Verbalizing (V/V). The V/V program is used to make students aware of the images they create as they read and give them the ability to discuss their images. The program starts out with pictures and eventually ends with multi-paragraph passages.
This chapter was interesting to me because of my special interest in the strategy this year - thanks to my student. I thought Keene had a good point when she said that the images we create don't necessarily have to come from the senses, but can also come from the emotional part of our minds - like when she pictured her deceased grandfather's face for the old man's face in Kenyton's poem. These types of images are the most important to create because they help the reader understand and make connections to the text at the same time.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Chapter Six – Delving Deeper with Questions
Another look at utopia as this chapter delves into the possibility of our students not asking themselves questions before, during and after reading text. I have a question. Does this author have a life? Her mind is constantly working on, embroiled with or planning a new concept, strategy or process concerning reading comprehension. It is wonderful that she spends so much time thinking, reflecting and questioning episodes in her own life. She truly has enhanced abilities beyond the average teacher. However, personally I wouldn’t enjoy trading places with her. Just venting, can you tell that I don’t like this author’s style of writing.
I do agree with the author with the concept that questioning is fundamental to being human – dispelling confusion, probing into new areas, and strengthening our abilities to analyze and deduce. But I thought that the trait of reasoning is what set us apart from other species, not questioning. I guess it is all intertwined.
In this chapter she assists another teacher in getting her first grade students to take more of an ownership in their participation in the classroom. This particular teacher is very organized and her classroom is well managed almost to the point of perfectionism. The teacher does not allow the children to be involved in their learning. They are not given the chance to question, to be curious, to share in the responsibility for their own learning.
The author suggests that the teacher start by showing the students how to use questions as they chose their writing topics. Since first graders are always full of questions, this seemed a good place to start. Over the next several weeks they expand their approach to reading. The students’ comprehension of what they read could only improve with the strategy of questioning. They turned the project into a study and skillfully took notes and observations. Making adjustments and adding and subtracting ideas that worked or didn’t, they found that the students found success. Again, the author was successful in a first grade classroom in just six weeks.
SOME KEY IDEAS
Proficient readers spontaneously generate questions before, during and after reading.
Proficient readers ask questions to
- clarify meaning
- speculate about the text yet to be read
- determine an author’s intent, style, content, or format
- locate a specific answer in text or consider rhetorical questions inspired by the text
- focus their attention on important components of the text
Proficient readers understand that many of the most intriguing questions are not answered in the text
However, when an answer is needed, proficient readers determine whether it can be answered by the text or whether they will need to infer the answer form the text, their background knowledge, and/or other text.
Proficient readers understand how the process of questioning is used in other areas of their lives, academic and personal
Proficient readers understand how asking questions deepen their comprehension
Proficient readers are aware that as they hear others’ questions, new ones are inspired in their own minds.
A Sample Comprehension Strategy Study Using the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model: Some Key Ideas
v Model your questions with picture books or other short text over several days-record questions on chart paper that has categories for each of the purposes and times readers ask questions
v Make clear the distinction between reading aloud and thinking aloud as you model
v Talk to the children about why readers pose questions , how questions help them comprehend more deeply, and how they use questions in other academic areas in their live outside school
v Gradually invite students to share their questions, adding them to appropriate places on the chart in children’s language – continue to model, gradually diversifying the genre of the text you use
v Invite children to meet in small groups or pairs to share and compare questions—encourage them to list new questions generated through these discussions
v Continue modeling with invitational groups of children who might benefit from more explicit instruction
v Remind book clubs to focus on questioning in their conversations throughout the strategy study
v In reading conference, focus on their questions before, during and after reading; ask students to identify places in the text where they had questions and ask them to use the class chart to categorize their questions; invite them to pose types of questions that they have not tried yet; use think-alouds to assess their use of questioning; ask the children to identify ways in which posing questions helps deepen their comprehension; model how posing questions helps deepen your comprehension
v Focus sharing sessions on questions children discovered while reading and can add to the class chart
v Continue large an invitational group modeling of a variety of texts
v Make frequent connections between questioning and other strategies on which the children have already focused
v Use the Major Point Interview for Readers to assess children’s use of questioning as a tool fro deepening comprehension before an after a strategy study
v Use a variety of tools such as coding, highlighting markers on copied text, self-adhesive notes, question maps, story maps and double-entry diaries to help children become aware of and record their questions.
I do agree with the author with the concept that questioning is fundamental to being human – dispelling confusion, probing into new areas, and strengthening our abilities to analyze and deduce. But I thought that the trait of reasoning is what set us apart from other species, not questioning. I guess it is all intertwined.
In this chapter she assists another teacher in getting her first grade students to take more of an ownership in their participation in the classroom. This particular teacher is very organized and her classroom is well managed almost to the point of perfectionism. The teacher does not allow the children to be involved in their learning. They are not given the chance to question, to be curious, to share in the responsibility for their own learning.
The author suggests that the teacher start by showing the students how to use questions as they chose their writing topics. Since first graders are always full of questions, this seemed a good place to start. Over the next several weeks they expand their approach to reading. The students’ comprehension of what they read could only improve with the strategy of questioning. They turned the project into a study and skillfully took notes and observations. Making adjustments and adding and subtracting ideas that worked or didn’t, they found that the students found success. Again, the author was successful in a first grade classroom in just six weeks.
SOME KEY IDEAS
Proficient readers spontaneously generate questions before, during and after reading.
Proficient readers ask questions to
- clarify meaning
- speculate about the text yet to be read
- determine an author’s intent, style, content, or format
- locate a specific answer in text or consider rhetorical questions inspired by the text
- focus their attention on important components of the text
Proficient readers understand that many of the most intriguing questions are not answered in the text
However, when an answer is needed, proficient readers determine whether it can be answered by the text or whether they will need to infer the answer form the text, their background knowledge, and/or other text.
Proficient readers understand how the process of questioning is used in other areas of their lives, academic and personal
Proficient readers understand how asking questions deepen their comprehension
Proficient readers are aware that as they hear others’ questions, new ones are inspired in their own minds.
A Sample Comprehension Strategy Study Using the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model: Some Key Ideas
v Model your questions with picture books or other short text over several days-record questions on chart paper that has categories for each of the purposes and times readers ask questions
v Make clear the distinction between reading aloud and thinking aloud as you model
v Talk to the children about why readers pose questions , how questions help them comprehend more deeply, and how they use questions in other academic areas in their live outside school
v Gradually invite students to share their questions, adding them to appropriate places on the chart in children’s language – continue to model, gradually diversifying the genre of the text you use
v Invite children to meet in small groups or pairs to share and compare questions—encourage them to list new questions generated through these discussions
v Continue modeling with invitational groups of children who might benefit from more explicit instruction
v Remind book clubs to focus on questioning in their conversations throughout the strategy study
v In reading conference, focus on their questions before, during and after reading; ask students to identify places in the text where they had questions and ask them to use the class chart to categorize their questions; invite them to pose types of questions that they have not tried yet; use think-alouds to assess their use of questioning; ask the children to identify ways in which posing questions helps deepen their comprehension; model how posing questions helps deepen your comprehension
v Focus sharing sessions on questions children discovered while reading and can add to the class chart
v Continue large an invitational group modeling of a variety of texts
v Make frequent connections between questioning and other strategies on which the children have already focused
v Use the Major Point Interview for Readers to assess children’s use of questioning as a tool fro deepening comprehension before an after a strategy study
v Use a variety of tools such as coding, highlighting markers on copied text, self-adhesive notes, question maps, story maps and double-entry diaries to help children become aware of and record their questions.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Chapter 5: The Essence of Text
This entire chapter is dedicated to determining importance in text. Following a pattern, Keene begins the chapter with an excerpt from a piece of text that she read, and recorded her own thought process as she determined what she thought was important in that piece, as well as her experiences discussing this text with others. After she "shows" us her own real life example, she then usually goes into the classroom with another teacher and writes about how this shows up in the classroom as well.
We are introduced to two students who have different skill levels in determining what is important. Jeremy, who doesn't think anything in particular is important but CAN make connections, and Rachel who thinks everything is important and tries to stuff too much information into a report that is supposed to be streamlined and easy to understand with just essential facts. Keene and the teacher she is working with conference with each student and show them strategies on determining importance that is right for them.
A problem this teacher was noticing was student's inability to determine importance with expository text. As young students, we are introduced to books with narrative, predictable fiction (referred to in the chapter as "considerate text", or text that is easy to understand for it's intended audience). Making the transition from understanding narrative text with a plot and understanding expository text (called, you guessed it, "inconsiderate text") is often difficult for students as they become more exposed to this type of text (I'm thinking of the "fourth grade slump" right now...). In my experience, students have shown their lack of understanding of what's important in the same way "Rachel" did in this chapter. They are unable to write a summary or a report and stick to the important points, opting rather to cram everything and anything they read about into their writing.
Lucky for me, the end of this chapter summarizes it's own important points (oh that Ellin Oliver Keene!) so just to share:
3 Levels Where Proficient Readers determine importance of text:
1. Word level- lingering longer on words that carry meanings (contentives), rather than words that simply connect (functors).
2. Sentence level- finding sentences that carry the weight of the meaning of the passage. In my experience, finding the main idea sentence or topic sentence. In non-fiction this can sometimes be in bold print or refer to a table or graph.
2. Text level- finding key ideas, concepts, and themes in text.
Everyone's process of determining importance can be different. That process is usually based on the following:
Reader's purpose, reader's schema for the text content, reader's beliefs, opinions, and experiences relating to the text, reader's schema for text format, concepts another reader mentions before, during, or after reading, pointing out non-examples, and interesting discussion.
FINALLY our buddy Keene has given a straight-forward strategy step-by-step at the very end of the chapter.
1. Teacher models their own process of determining importance and WHY and HOW they came to this conclusion. They WHY and HOW are very important during modeling.
2. Student's provide their own examples and give their own "why" and "how's".
3. Students meet in small groups for discussions. Discussions should include themes of the text to enhance their comprehension.
4. Book club discussions using same format'
5. Reading conferences where student demonstrates their own think-aloud while reading for your assessment.
6. Create needs-based groups for students who need more modeling and explicit instruction.
7. Text sets can be used to have students discover themes of similar texts.
8. Reader's workshop should include time where reader's share their thought-processes from independent reading time.
9. Make connections between this strategy and other comprehension strategies they know.
10. Model using a variety of texts that vary in content, genre, and difficulty. Students must eventually assume responsibility for their own modeling.
I am anxious to use this in my teaching. They make a very good point in this chapter that often when we ask students to determine what's important, such as finding the theme or main idea, we ask them to "really concentrate" to find out rather than modeling ourselves. Obviously a lot of this comes down to modeling, which we've all learned is key in any type of instruction. The thing I really took from this chapter was that modeling what you're doing is just as important as explaining how and why you come to your conclusions. That one point is what I, personally, found to be the most important. :)
We are introduced to two students who have different skill levels in determining what is important. Jeremy, who doesn't think anything in particular is important but CAN make connections, and Rachel who thinks everything is important and tries to stuff too much information into a report that is supposed to be streamlined and easy to understand with just essential facts. Keene and the teacher she is working with conference with each student and show them strategies on determining importance that is right for them.
A problem this teacher was noticing was student's inability to determine importance with expository text. As young students, we are introduced to books with narrative, predictable fiction (referred to in the chapter as "considerate text", or text that is easy to understand for it's intended audience). Making the transition from understanding narrative text with a plot and understanding expository text (called, you guessed it, "inconsiderate text") is often difficult for students as they become more exposed to this type of text (I'm thinking of the "fourth grade slump" right now...). In my experience, students have shown their lack of understanding of what's important in the same way "Rachel" did in this chapter. They are unable to write a summary or a report and stick to the important points, opting rather to cram everything and anything they read about into their writing.
Lucky for me, the end of this chapter summarizes it's own important points (oh that Ellin Oliver Keene!) so just to share:
3 Levels Where Proficient Readers determine importance of text:
1. Word level- lingering longer on words that carry meanings (contentives), rather than words that simply connect (functors).
2. Sentence level- finding sentences that carry the weight of the meaning of the passage. In my experience, finding the main idea sentence or topic sentence. In non-fiction this can sometimes be in bold print or refer to a table or graph.
2. Text level- finding key ideas, concepts, and themes in text.
Everyone's process of determining importance can be different. That process is usually based on the following:
Reader's purpose, reader's schema for the text content, reader's beliefs, opinions, and experiences relating to the text, reader's schema for text format, concepts another reader mentions before, during, or after reading, pointing out non-examples, and interesting discussion.
FINALLY our buddy Keene has given a straight-forward strategy step-by-step at the very end of the chapter.
1. Teacher models their own process of determining importance and WHY and HOW they came to this conclusion. They WHY and HOW are very important during modeling.
2. Student's provide their own examples and give their own "why" and "how's".
3. Students meet in small groups for discussions. Discussions should include themes of the text to enhance their comprehension.
4. Book club discussions using same format'
5. Reading conferences where student demonstrates their own think-aloud while reading for your assessment.
6. Create needs-based groups for students who need more modeling and explicit instruction.
7. Text sets can be used to have students discover themes of similar texts.
8. Reader's workshop should include time where reader's share their thought-processes from independent reading time.
9. Make connections between this strategy and other comprehension strategies they know.
10. Model using a variety of texts that vary in content, genre, and difficulty. Students must eventually assume responsibility for their own modeling.
I am anxious to use this in my teaching. They make a very good point in this chapter that often when we ask students to determine what's important, such as finding the theme or main idea, we ask them to "really concentrate" to find out rather than modeling ourselves. Obviously a lot of this comes down to modeling, which we've all learned is key in any type of instruction. The thing I really took from this chapter was that modeling what you're doing is just as important as explaining how and why you come to your conclusions. That one point is what I, personally, found to be the most important. :)
Sunday, March 8, 2009
I also envy the teacher that has five weeks to focus on one reading strategy! I completely agree that we are often spread too thin, rushing to cover too much material in too little time. I've been worrying a lot this year that I am giving my students more information than they can handle and not really devoting enough time to developing those concepts. In trying to keep up with the curriculum, sometimes it feels like they are on information overload. I especially feel this way about my struggling learners that need many exposures to new concepts. I would love to see our curriculum focus on fewer concepts, allowing us to slow down and go further in depth!
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Chapter 4: Homes in the Mind
In this chapter, Keene discusses the concept of schema, how it is used by readers and how it can be taught to young students. A reader's schema is basically their background knowledge and how they use it to understand new information while they read. In my district, we talk about schema with our students, but we use the more student-friendly phrase "Making Connections" to discuss it. It is, by far, the hardest of all the comprehension strategies for fifth graders to apply. The students always seem to understand what a connection is, but they find it very hard to write down their connections in their literature circle packets. I've always thought their trouble may be because true connections can happen so quickly and are such personal thoughts. For a fifth grader to read a text, have a connection, realize and remember it, write it down and then share it with their group - well it takes a small miracle for all this to occur.
I agree with Keene that making connections while reading a text adds a dimension for the reader. How boring and awful it is for someone to read about a subject on which they have truly no background knowledge. Connecting to what we read is not only part of understanding the text, but it's what makes the text interesting and worth reading. Also, I thought Keene's choice of words to describe building background knowledge with students was perfect. She called it "activating mental files before reading" and she wrote that it is one of the most effective ways to improve comprehension.
Keene mentioned two thoughts in this chapter that were actually unrelated to schema building, but they caught my eye. The first was on page 53 and she said that as educators we rarely see classrooms being studied and replicated. This made me think about a comment from a coworker of mine who wished our district would allow us time to observe in other classrooms. As teachers we typically work in our own little classrooms and never get to see the work of others throughout our own buildings even. Keene and my coworker made me think of how wonderful it would be to observe in other classrooms and learn from their best practices.
The second thought was on page 65 where Keene mentions that a unit of study was focused on for five weeks in a classroom she observed. Having this kind of time to spend developing one reading skill seems so nice. I know time is an issue for all teachers, but I feel as if I'm spread too thin much of the time. I think focusing on less material for longer would result in a better education for my students and a less scattered day for me!
I agree with Keene that making connections while reading a text adds a dimension for the reader. How boring and awful it is for someone to read about a subject on which they have truly no background knowledge. Connecting to what we read is not only part of understanding the text, but it's what makes the text interesting and worth reading. Also, I thought Keene's choice of words to describe building background knowledge with students was perfect. She called it "activating mental files before reading" and she wrote that it is one of the most effective ways to improve comprehension.
Keene mentioned two thoughts in this chapter that were actually unrelated to schema building, but they caught my eye. The first was on page 53 and she said that as educators we rarely see classrooms being studied and replicated. This made me think about a comment from a coworker of mine who wished our district would allow us time to observe in other classrooms. As teachers we typically work in our own little classrooms and never get to see the work of others throughout our own buildings even. Keene and my coworker made me think of how wonderful it would be to observe in other classrooms and learn from their best practices.
The second thought was on page 65 where Keene mentions that a unit of study was focused on for five weeks in a classroom she observed. Having this kind of time to spend developing one reading skill seems so nice. I know time is an issue for all teachers, but I feel as if I'm spread too thin much of the time. I think focusing on less material for longer would result in a better education for my students and a less scattered day for me!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Chapter 3 - What Lies Beneath
The chapter begins with a passage from the book Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra
Cisneros entitled “Salvador, Late or Early”. It is a very difficult piece to comprehend even for the most gifted reader on the first reading. It did evoke a picture in my mind with the descriptive language it contained. As the author stated, the piece did leave me with an impression but no clear picture. The interpretation was mine to make.
The author chose this passage to use in a workshop where she was conducting a session in comprehension. It was her intent to challenge the participants at that conference to experience what their students experience: "to struggle as their students sometimes struggle, to be on the edge of understanding, but not quite there." Even she admits that she was forced to think more critically and carefully about her own thinking as she read the piece.
At the conference many voiced their own interpretations concerning the piece: each with a slightly different slant, some critical, others liking the piece immensely. These educated adult professionals all agreed that it was all about engagement with the text. We know whether or not we are engaged with the text and what strategies to utilize if needed. It was concluded that students are not as engaged with text as they should be and that they do not know when or if they comprehend a given piece.
She mentions a first grade classroom in a bad area of the city that she had visited at a previous time to the attendees at the conference. It was fall and the class was conducted by a masterfully highly respected teacher with much experience. She read to her students not one but three different books during the span of a week. The same response was elicited from the students – lack of engagement. The members of her session on comprehension shared experiences from their own classrooms all different but eerily speaking to the same problem that “the children were missing out on the pleasure of losing themselves in a book or learning passionately from its content”.
This teacher was anything but defeated. She needed to get her students engaged with their reading and began taking steps to solve the problem. She thought aloud about difficulties by modeling as she read: asking questions, sharing her own interpretations, wondering out loud what the author meant, slowly soliciting interpretations from her students; a slow, long journey.
Upon visiting this teacher at a later point in the year, she saw the same children with a different attitude toward reading. The teacher had worked on different strategies to encourage her students to be engaged with the text. She had used a model developed by David Pearson’s, process of the Gradual Release of Responsibility. Ultimately, she helped the students to think about their own thinking. They were using metacognition to comprehend their reading; a central piece in the mosaic of reading.
Key Ideas of Using Metacognition
Proficient readers monitor their comprehension during reading – understanding, not understanding , whether information is critical or not
Proficient readers can identify when text is comprehensible and the degree to which they understand it
Proficient readers can identify confusing themes, ideas, and/or surface elements and can use a variety of different means to solve the problems they have
Proficient readers are aware of what they need to comprehend in relation to their purpose of reading.
Many readers must learn how to pause, consider the meanings in text, reflect on their understandings and use different strategies to enhance their understanding.
I am not at all enjoying the author’s approach to describing and introducing us to the different parts of the mosaic of thought. I’m a sort of cut and dry type of person. Give me the information, examples of how to use that information or applications of that information and then let me apply it. After reading three chapters I understand that her long descriptive, colorful and vivid narratives seem to be her style, I am not enjoying or looking forward to reading the next chapters. The book does not make me want me to be engaged with my purpose of reading - for information. The book seems to take the long way around to make her point.
Cisneros entitled “Salvador, Late or Early”. It is a very difficult piece to comprehend even for the most gifted reader on the first reading. It did evoke a picture in my mind with the descriptive language it contained. As the author stated, the piece did leave me with an impression but no clear picture. The interpretation was mine to make.
The author chose this passage to use in a workshop where she was conducting a session in comprehension. It was her intent to challenge the participants at that conference to experience what their students experience: "to struggle as their students sometimes struggle, to be on the edge of understanding, but not quite there." Even she admits that she was forced to think more critically and carefully about her own thinking as she read the piece.
At the conference many voiced their own interpretations concerning the piece: each with a slightly different slant, some critical, others liking the piece immensely. These educated adult professionals all agreed that it was all about engagement with the text. We know whether or not we are engaged with the text and what strategies to utilize if needed. It was concluded that students are not as engaged with text as they should be and that they do not know when or if they comprehend a given piece.
She mentions a first grade classroom in a bad area of the city that she had visited at a previous time to the attendees at the conference. It was fall and the class was conducted by a masterfully highly respected teacher with much experience. She read to her students not one but three different books during the span of a week. The same response was elicited from the students – lack of engagement. The members of her session on comprehension shared experiences from their own classrooms all different but eerily speaking to the same problem that “the children were missing out on the pleasure of losing themselves in a book or learning passionately from its content”.
This teacher was anything but defeated. She needed to get her students engaged with their reading and began taking steps to solve the problem. She thought aloud about difficulties by modeling as she read: asking questions, sharing her own interpretations, wondering out loud what the author meant, slowly soliciting interpretations from her students; a slow, long journey.
Upon visiting this teacher at a later point in the year, she saw the same children with a different attitude toward reading. The teacher had worked on different strategies to encourage her students to be engaged with the text. She had used a model developed by David Pearson’s, process of the Gradual Release of Responsibility. Ultimately, she helped the students to think about their own thinking. They were using metacognition to comprehend their reading; a central piece in the mosaic of reading.
Key Ideas of Using Metacognition
Proficient readers monitor their comprehension during reading – understanding, not understanding , whether information is critical or not
Proficient readers can identify when text is comprehensible and the degree to which they understand it
Proficient readers can identify confusing themes, ideas, and/or surface elements and can use a variety of different means to solve the problems they have
Proficient readers are aware of what they need to comprehend in relation to their purpose of reading.
Many readers must learn how to pause, consider the meanings in text, reflect on their understandings and use different strategies to enhance their understanding.
I am not at all enjoying the author’s approach to describing and introducing us to the different parts of the mosaic of thought. I’m a sort of cut and dry type of person. Give me the information, examples of how to use that information or applications of that information and then let me apply it. After reading three chapters I understand that her long descriptive, colorful and vivid narratives seem to be her style, I am not enjoying or looking forward to reading the next chapters. The book does not make me want me to be engaged with my purpose of reading - for information. The book seems to take the long way around to make her point.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Chapter 2: Mind Journeys
In chapter 2, Keene starts the chapter off visiting what appears to be the ideal classroom. It is large, inviting, full of sunlight, decorated as if a home itself, it looks great and smells even better. The students are all engaged with a book of their choice around the classroom. While it does seem to be the perfect environment to foster a love of reading and learning, the teacher confides in Keene that she feels she isn't really teaching. Keene chooses this point to further reminisce into her own past as a teacher and a reader. We learn of her and her colleagues' experiences both hating to teach from basal readers and to give excessive worksheets, and loving their own discussions about books they loved and were currently reading. Many places started shifting from textbook instruction to more hands-on, discussion based teaching strategies. There especially was a need for this shift after more and more data showed the same thing: too many students could read but not comprehend.
The problem later became that the shift was too drastic, and now there was virtually no "teaching" in the classroom, therefore they wanted to find a happy medium. This happy medium started being born when new data surfaced that showed that proficient readers use the same seven or eight strategies when reading. The idea now was to first make students aware of their own thinking when reading, delving further into the world of meta cognition, then helping them improve and develop their own strategies to mirror the strategies that have proven successful. This instruction of meta cognition and reading strategies could be the "teaching" everyone had been longing for, without resorting to basal readers.
These proven strategies that most proficient readers use are: * Activating relevant prior knowledge before, during, and after reading text. * Determining the most important ideas and themes in a text. * Creating visual and other sensory images from text during and after reading. * Drawing inferences from text. * Retelling or synthesizing what they have read. * Utilizing a variety of "fix-up" strategies to repair comprehension when it breaks down.
** This chapter was difficult for me to relate to entirely. Being a special education teacher, I am accustomed to teaching a variety of "fix-up" strategies but I do not feel I spend enough time developing what is not "broken". Also, as many of you have heard me whine about before, I AM teaching from a reading program (SRA Corrective Reading) as per my orders so I definitely do not spend enough time on strategy instruction. I'm looking forward to incorporating the other strategies into my teaching. We're almost done with SRA!
The problem later became that the shift was too drastic, and now there was virtually no "teaching" in the classroom, therefore they wanted to find a happy medium. This happy medium started being born when new data surfaced that showed that proficient readers use the same seven or eight strategies when reading. The idea now was to first make students aware of their own thinking when reading, delving further into the world of meta cognition, then helping them improve and develop their own strategies to mirror the strategies that have proven successful. This instruction of meta cognition and reading strategies could be the "teaching" everyone had been longing for, without resorting to basal readers.
These proven strategies that most proficient readers use are: * Activating relevant prior knowledge before, during, and after reading text. * Determining the most important ideas and themes in a text. * Creating visual and other sensory images from text during and after reading. * Drawing inferences from text. * Retelling or synthesizing what they have read. * Utilizing a variety of "fix-up" strategies to repair comprehension when it breaks down.
** This chapter was difficult for me to relate to entirely. Being a special education teacher, I am accustomed to teaching a variety of "fix-up" strategies but I do not feel I spend enough time developing what is not "broken". Also, as many of you have heard me whine about before, I AM teaching from a reading program (SRA Corrective Reading) as per my orders so I definitely do not spend enough time on strategy instruction. I'm looking forward to incorporating the other strategies into my teaching. We're almost done with SRA!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Chapter 1: The Mosaic Takes Shape
In Mosaic of Thought the author Ellin Keene examines what happens when a reader interacts with text. In Chapter 1, Keene analyzes her own thought process after reading the poem First Reader by Billy Collins. She realizes that by rereading certain sections of the poem she is taken on a journey that ranges from her first grade classroom (where her background allowed her to enjoy reading Dick and Jane, but did little for her ability to create meaning and opinions about what she read) to her high school Honors English class where she was asked to look beyond the text and find symbolism in literature (a task she found difficult due to its newness).
At the end of the chapter, Keene writes that the journey she took through the poem is one that good reader's frequently take, but rarely discuss. The importance of having this discussion with ourselves and with children is invaluable in our efforts to construct meaning as we read. Keene writes that meaning from text is constructed socially and by conversing about text we deepen our understanding of virtually everything we read.
At the end of the chapter, Keene writes that the journey she took through the poem is one that good reader's frequently take, but rarely discuss. The importance of having this discussion with ourselves and with children is invaluable in our efforts to construct meaning as we read. Keene writes that meaning from text is constructed socially and by conversing about text we deepen our understanding of virtually everything we read.
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