So, this year I have been really focused on "beefing" up my reading program in my classroom. I am trying anything and everything. I want my students to have the education that I didn't have growing up. As a kid, I remember being labeled in K, 1st, and 2nd as a good reader. I was quite interested in books WAY before I ever started school (and I started kindergarten at 4). But, I was really good at answering the teacher's questions. When I got into upper grades, middle school, and high school (don't even mention college), I have slunk back into being an average reader. Either my primary grade teachers didn't understand what makes a good reader, I wasn't challenged enough, or I wasn't taught what skills I needed to stay on top. By the time I hit middle school, I was completely turned off to reading. I remember when I discovered CliffNotes, it was like a present sent from the heavens above. It meant I never had to read again, just graze over the notes and take the test.
In college, I realized very quickly, I had a huge whole in my comprehension. I was never fully taught (or in my case, I never learned) how to read below the surface. Never had a seen the importance of that... until it was too late. Struggling through my literature and composition classes, I was at a loss when I was to analyze a Shakespearean sonnet or write a story with a deeper meaning or a hidden storyline.
It is for this reason that I want my students to be better than I was/am. I am learning, as my students learn, how to become a better reader. Good readers question, make connections, make inferences, make prediction, analyze unknown words, find parts of text that they love... I just answered the checklist of questions. No wonder I hated books... no wonder some of my students hate books. I would too if this is all I was expected to do with words on a page.
So... this is not an original idea. Paula had just returned from a conference and she shared a way a high school teacher assessed her students for their learning. This teacher would copy the same text for each of her students and have them write on the copy connections, inferences, questions, and any other ideas that came to their heads as they were reading. They would hand it in and she would know where to go from there with her teaching as well as know where her students are.
I decided to do the same. I took an article the kids have all read from the National Geographic Magazine about volcanoes... or so I thought. The kids had read through this National Geographic Magazine on their own, but I wanted to read it to them (especially for the struggling readers... give them all the same base point). Before I told them what they were going to do, I put the "I can..." statements on the board for each reading topic we have covered so far this year (WOW... it was a lot!). I told the kids that I had to do their report cards and I needed a way to see if they could do these things. I told them we were going to take the article, read it, and write all over the page about anything they thought was interesting, any connections they could make, or anything else that showed me they could do the things on the board. They took 25 minutes to dissect the article. They used pens (which they LOVE to do). They wrote in the margins. They asked questions. They underlined words they didn't know. They wrote about the author's purpose. They made connections. They used Post-Its. It was pretty amazing. High readers and low readers alike were both analyzing the text beautiful.
I realized that I don't give enough credit to these AMAZING minds. These kids are totally cool. Their minds are FULL of questions... I just don't give them enough time to explore and expand on those questions.
What worked: this idea... one of my favorite things I've done
What didn't work: this article was kind of lame, not enough background knowledge, too many abstract ideas, not enough practice to make it an assessment for the report card
What now: I want the kids to buddy up and talk about it some more. I can't leave it at that. I have too many questions and so do they. I can't wait to hear more... from them individually. We'll talk about some of the things I noticed with the class... and then I'll try to conference with the kiddos about it. Hmmmm... I don't know... so many ideas. Glad I got at least these down.
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