Take some time to write and reflect on anything you are thinking about in the area of literacy. Perhaps we can even get a conversation going on line here as you might decide to respond to what someone else wrote as well. I am curious as to what you are thinking about and why!
I actually stumbled upon an inferencing lesson a couple of weeks ago when teaching my students about similes and metaphors. We were working to find similes and metaphors in songs so I began by finding several examples to share with my class before I asked them to work on their own. In order to model this, I typed out lyrics from four songs and played the songs so they could listen while we read. My students had a fairly easy time locating the similes and metaphors. The hard part was to understand the meaning of them and how they helped the listener or reader to better understand the song.
ReplyDeleteWe started breaking apart the meaning of a song and I realized what a great inferencing lesson this was (and a great time to use the word- inference!). I confirmed several other things throughout this lesson as well... First, it does really take TIME in order to get to the bottom of meaning. Secondly, don't assume what students know.
So, one of the songs I used was Guinevere by the Eli Young Band. The first couple lines go like this... "She's got a bumper like a billboard, Covered in stickers of her favorite band..." Much to my surprise, the first thing we had to get through was the meaning of bumper. Then, we also had to figure out the meaning of the word billboard because a few didn't know that either. Once we got past these two words, we began to talk about the pronoun, she, and who we thought she was. We talked about how the simile, bumper like a billboard, helped us to decide the kind of car she might drive and what kind of stickers might be on her "billboard". It helped us to describe the type of person that we thought she was and how old we thought she was...
The lesson carried on for a bit just to get to the bottom of those two lines. My mind kept going back to the list of things that skilled readers do when inferencing from Kylene Beers' book. So, I continue to think about inferencing and also about giving students less, but making it more meaningful...
After our last meeting, I too had inferencing on the mind. We were working on character and I was able to use short passages where we didn't know much of the story, so we had to infer based on what we read in the passage. I find that my students do well with inferring, and are always willing to give the "why they think that" before I even have to ask for it. We had a lot of fun inferring about what had happened to the characters or why they were acting/feeling a certain way. One of the things I do notice is that sometimes students want to think too much outside the box or come up with an inference that is too far off, even though they can come up with a reason why they think that. Is this ok? How far should we let students go if it deviates too much from what is actually going on in a text? This is something I find myself struggling with, especially for the lower readers who want to contribute, but their inferences are a little off.
ReplyDeleteI also brought inferring into math. We were studying the properties of shapes along with area and perimeter, and I was aking the students what they could infer about the length of sides based on what they knew about the properties of different polygons.
As a teacher, I have made mistakes and from those mistakes I have learned a lot. One of those mistakes I learned from was assuming that students know how to comprehend material. I have began to notice that most assume that if we simply explain what something means to a student, that students will automatically know how to comprehend. I liked what Kylene Beers said in the book about as we teach necessary skills; we must also convince disabled readers that reading is an active process, one that requires their engagement, their active construction of meaning. I have seen so more kids just go through the motions of reading; they stop paying attention, do not stop when they come to a word or part of the text that do not understand. I have become more aware in a sense of this and whenever we read in class I have become vigilant of modeling different comprehension strategies to my students. I keep in mind that as Beers put it, comprehension is both a product and a process, something that requires effort on the reader’s part-predicting, visualizing, clarifying, and inferencing. Learning does begin with observing, right?
ReplyDeleteI tried an inferencing lesson a bit ago, using the first few minutes of Up. The kids made tons of inferences, and they were able justify their statements by citing details from the film and connections to their own life experiences. Next we looked at some Minoan frescoes, and I asked the kids to make some more inferences. I noticed that they found that part of the lesson a lot more challenging. They seemed to have a lot of difficulty using their (obviously well-developed) inferencing skills in an academic context.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed this phenomenon frequently. It's as if kids lose all of their previously acquired skills when asked to apply them to new material or situations. I suspect that lack the confidence to take academic risks in front of their peers, and that they probably also struggle with applying abstract concepts to new situations.
Overall, I guess what I'm noticing is that I can't take it for granted that the kids have any particular skills or abilities universally available to them. They might be great at generalizing, or inferencing, or summarizing within the confines of their own lives, but once the setting changes they struggle. They can't seem to apply their skills more generally until I explicitly remind them that they can.
I have been doing a lot more of deconstructing the meaning of readings with my class. The level at which they can think about, and talk about the readings have floored me. After the first time I modeled, we did it together, they did some on their own, then we came back together as partners and then as a class to talk about I was surprised about many things. They were uncomfortable at first inferring different things from the same reading. After having the discussion that it was okay, everyone brings their own perspective and could have a different view as long as they could support it I saw the students becoming more confident about their thoughts. That talk opened up many students to discussing and becoming more forthcoming with their thoughts. At the end a student raised their hand and exclaimed that this was a lot of work and did he have to do that every time he read. Many students nodded along but as we got to talking more students understood the benefit of doing all the thinking during reading that we had written all over the piece. We talked about reading just to read the words and reading for meaning and how different that is. I wonder though those students who want to do the minimal amount of work possible how can I motivate them to read for deeper meaning not just read the words?
ReplyDeleteOver the last few weeks I have changed my approach in teaching reading comprehension. Kylene Beers’ book has helped me to re-think what it means when students do not understand a reading. I have changed my understanding of what students need, and what tools they lack which could hold them back from understanding a reading
ReplyDeleteIn the past if a student approached me and said “I don’t get it”, I would simply tell them to re-read the passage and try again. My understanding was that they were either reading too fast, or simply weren’t paying attention to the reading. I inferred the student’s lack of effort was keeping them back, and trying again would solve the problem.
I think in many instances this is still the case. Students rush through their work and look for the easiest and quickest way to complete an assignment, which is often asking the teacher to help. But now, when students tell me they “don’t get it” I try to separate the lazy students from those who are struggling with the text.
To encourage students to slow down and connect with the text I used the “thought bubble” assignment. Students are required to write down thoughts, questions, or any other connection they have with the text in the thought bubbles next to each paragraph. This ensures that students are not only reading, but thinking about the text.
I also realized that struggling students often have a difficult time understanding the main idea of each paragraph, and are therefore unable to understand the reading. I created assignments where students need to recognize the main idea of paragraphs, and write summaries based on the main ideas. Many students still struggle with the concept of main ideas, but I have seen an improvement.
From Pam:
ReplyDeletePam’s Third Blog
3/1/11
READING: The ability to make sense of the printed word for knowledge or pleasure.
5 things I would teach students about reading and why:
1. I would teach them to make connections because they help with visualization and personalization of reading.
2. I would teach them how to enjoy the company of a good book so that they would never say, “There’s nothing to do.”
3. I would teach them how to scan a textbook for an overview and information framework so that they would know what to expect when reading.
4. I would teach them strategies for when they get stumped so that they wouldn’t put a book down without knowing how to understand it.
5. I would teach them to appreciate different genres so that they could say things and write things in more than one way.
LInda Madden Says...
ReplyDeleteSince I’m not currently teaching I've been thinking about the best way to use the knowledge I’ve gained from this course to make a difference in my position as a Student Services Coordinator. I have written in some comprehension strategy suggestions into observation reports. However, I only observe a few teachers so this doesn't provide much for outcomes. I have enjoyed and appreciated how Tomasen has modeled teaching a comprehension strategy during each one of our classes. So, Tomasen if you don’t mind me stealing your idea I’ve decided to take a few minutes out of each Student Services meeting to teach/model a reading comprehension strategy. I have 10 special education case managers in my department. Each case manager teaches 2 classes. If the strategies are used in their classes it could reach about 200 students. I meet with case managers 18 times during the school year. Now, that might make a difference. I’m excited about this opportunity. I’ll plan it all over the summer and implement my idea at our first meeting in September!
If I could do only one thing for reading instruction, it would be my read aloud. In our text, the author cites Becoming a Nation of Readers “the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading” when discussing the importance of reading aloud to students. I have always had the sense that this was the best part of the class, but the longer I teach, the more convinced I am of this. It helps bond us as a class, but it does a lot more than that.
ReplyDeleteJuan, a student from a multi-lingual home asked me, “How do you know what the characters are supposed to sound like?” I never thought about the amount of comprehension that goes into that. That started a long discussion about why I read certain characters with a tough New York accent, and others with a slow, southern drawl. We discussed that this was really my interpretation of these characters and it is how I hear them in my head. It became a new form of “imagery” for some students.
Some students say they understand the book much better when hearing it. We have discussed why this is. First of all, they don’t need to work hard at decoding, if that is difficult for them. I have also pointed out the fact that I really slow the text down. Sometimes students still think that the faster they read, the better they are at reading. Hopefully this gives them permission to slow down and reread.
Today we finished reading Katherine Patterson’s The Great Gilly Hopkins, a book that I know most of them would never pick up and read. There were quite a few tears by the end. Perhaps this gave some students a real, emotional connection to a text that might have been new for them. As a parent, I remember finishing Roald Dahl’s The BFG with my daughter when she was in second grade. She cried when it was over. Not because it was sad, but because it was over and she didn’t want it to end. If I can give any of that to my students, then maybe they will go on to love reading too.