On the other hand, the Applegate article mentions teachers using questioning as a way to guide readers/students through what they might want to be comprehending and this is actually something that I see my CT doing a lot. I think that by her doing this it is setting the students up for skills and ways to make sure they are comprehending and for them to eventually be able to do it on their own. Example: by the CT asking students certain questions, it gets them in the habit of asking themselves those questions when they have to do readings on their own. I think that my CT's classroom has a lot of "literalists" in it based off of what I have read in this article because they tend to focus on what the text says and sometimes have trouble with thinking outside of the story. I think this goes to show that they may be on the lower end of being able to comprehend things well because they are looking to the text for specific answers and not actually thinking about what the text is saying.
The guided reading section in Tompkins made me think of the guided reading I see my CT doing with students in the classroom. I was a little unsure of what guided reading was exactly because I have not had the opportunity to sit in with my CT as she does it and I know that each teacher varies with how they set up their guided reading, but this section helped me get a better understanding for what it is and what to expect when doing this task.
Kristy,
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the problem for most students is that they've never been exposed to this type of discussion before so they don't know where to start. We can't just expect our students to just know how to background connections on their own. It's our job to show the students how to make connections. I can also imagine that there are often times students will think, "this is nothing like my life...how am I suppose to make a connection when it has nothing to do with me?" This is when we need to encourage text to text connections or text to world. But my point is that we need to introduce these concepts first! And model them!
I also don't really like the thought of the question, "what did the story remind you of?" I feel like it's a little vague. Do you think that maybe there would have been more responses if the question was, "Do this story remind you of anything in your own life? How about another book that you've read? Anything that's happening in the world?" This way, it's a little more apparent that they can draw from multiple aspects of their life.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Melody
When reading both these comments I made so many connections to my classroom as well that I had not thought about before. I have seen often in my classroom then when students are asked to do a worksheet/write-up/summary/project/etc the students often ask if they can look at the book. I often wondered were they not listening to the story? Did they not understand the story? Do they just not care? When you talked about students saying "this story does not relate to my real life" this is something I have ran into many times. When they say these things to me I have been in my classroom long enough that I know things about the students were as I can help them to make these connections. Ill say things such as well you play such and such so doesn't that go along with or anything along those lines to push students along. Our job is just as melody said to guide our students and push them to think outside of what they are or are not thinking about.
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