John Bishop's CIR 411 M/W Class Blog-Abigail Foreman: September 2012

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Vocabulary Acquisition

While reading, I thought it was very interesting that the article discussed that "how" teachers engaged students during a read aloud affected vocabulary acquisition and comprehension (465). This makes perfect sense because "how" the discussion on the book (or the lack of discussion) is handled will help the students digest the information differently. The just reading method was the least affective of the three methods for the read alouds because there was not any reaching out to the students to engage them in deep discussion. The other two, performance and interactional methods, had the students more engaged in the reading. The engagement happened differently, but it was there in both accounts. I can see how having periodic stops through out the read aloud will help the students break up the material into small manageable parts. I can also see how reading the text as a whole and discussion it at the end has benefits. I liked that the article pointed out that the reading style in higher grades may be different because of the style the students like the be read in (467). I believe part of this shift is due to the fact that the student can now keep in their memory more details of the whole story in sequential order. This is due their teachers helping them develop their intellectual skills through reading.

I agree with the article that read alouds will help students increase in their understanding more than silent reading. Students being read to can focus on the words and meaning of the story, without being distracted by the words on the page. They can hear the story read with prosody and correct pronunciation of unfamiliar words.

My first question/observation is that there was not a great regular attendance from the students. I wonder if the results would have changed significantly if there had been better attendance.

My other question that I had deals with the vocabulary test scores comparing the performance and interactional styles. On page 470, the article discusses how "for vocabulary acquisition from [the two books], interactional reading produced significantly higher mean gains over all subjects than performance reading." Then on page 471, it states " students whose teachers used a performance style did better on vocabulary tests than students whose teachers used interactional styles." The article then discusses that this is contradictory to the results for the vocabulary acquisition, but I would have thought that these would be more connected. The article did point out that there is not "one" best reading aloud method, which I agree with. I fee that I will use a mixture of the interactional and performance methods depending on what I am trying to accomplish that day in the classroom.

Read alouds are greatly connected to comprehension and vocabulary acquistion. This connection can either be embraced or forgotten. I plan to remember to embrace this even when the school days become hectic and chaotic.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Read Alouds

Reading aloud definitely has a place in the classroom. When you (Dr. Bishop) read to the class about marsupials, I remembered a lot of the details. When I randomly started telling my friends marsupial facts, they were very perplexed on how I knew so much. This was all because a teacher read to me in an engrossing way. I remember my favorite time in kindergarten was rug time which was when the teacher read to us. Then, I did not know that she was modeling for us on how to be engaged and active learners. All I heard was a great story.

As in my experience and as the article stated, the amount of read alouds dwindled as the grade in school increased. In all my English classes school memory, the teachers called on students who read with prosody to read passages outloud. As long as the teacher does not solely rely on students to read aloud, this is not bad. It allows the class to hear the passages with different voices. The teacher still can chunk the text so that there can be discussion on the thinking process that should be going on while reading. In my other classes, I do not have that many memories dealing with read alouds. I remember occasionally reading out of the science textbook, but only to glean information from it.

In the article, I thought it was interesting that the researchers did not define a read aloud. This allowed the teachers to elaborate on what "they" thought a read aloud was. I thought it was very fascinating that many teachers included reading directions and work sheets. This is NOT a read aloud. It is simply reading words out-loud. Promoting read alouds in a classroom and explaining WHY read alouds are so helpful is very important. I feel that my teacher classes at USM have taught me the value of reading aloud to my students. This will help them become independent learners.

One thing that I could not answer at first was how to incorporate read alouds into a band lesson. The article stated that the survey included band and choir classes. The more I thought about it, I thought of a few ways. The teacher could read an article about the composer or the type of music out-loud to the students. But how do they chunk the text to pause and have discussion on the thought process on an article of that nature.

In all the reading, one thought that kept occurring is "Read alouds are great, but how do teachers have time to do them often?" I want to incorporate read alouds to my class; my concern is that I will not have enough time to do this all the time. Time is precious and teachers never have enough of it in a day. How do you do read alouds in higher grades and still cover all the curriculum that is required?

PS: Here is a link for newborn baby marsupials pictures (Google images) :) ...they are tiny... and very pinkish red.

https://www.google.com/search?q=brand+new+baby+marsupials&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=b5hWUI6GHIam8QS-sYGQCw&biw=1217&bih=632&sei=d5hWUNTZFYWE8QTDgIGoBA#um=1&hl=en&authuser=0&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=newborn+baby+marsupials&oq=newborn+baby+marsupials&gs_l=img.3...10390.11959.0.12416.7.7.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1c.1.fPtyd3-noZc&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=e48d27f5eac1cd28&biw=1217&bih=632

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Writing to Learn

Writing to learn needs to be incorporated in all subjects. With the focus being switched from a final polished product after many drafts to the thinking process, writing can become easier for many students. The reason is that the students are focusing and collecting their thoughts on the given topic without worrying about being grammatically correct. Their sole focus is to write what they are thinking. I as the teacher can now know more clearly where they are in their understanding of the topic. The book discussed how the vocabulary will begin to appear when students grasp the knowledge. Having to write about the topic will force the students to process the information allowing the knowledge to become theirs to use, not regurgitating with no understanding. I appreciate that this will let the teacher and the students see where there needs to be clarification for better understanding.

In my classes, we have learned that it is very important to involve a variety of DOK questions. When reading about the three different types of knowledge (Fisher/Frey 151), it reinforced that it is important to be sure to include questions that require deeper thinking. The Knipper/Duggan article also discusses how writing to learn dives deeper than declarative knowledge. (462) I know in my studies when I actually made the knowledge my own, I became more confident and knew the information better and for a longer period of time. I could not cram for a test; I needed to understand the topic to do well. I have learned that writing greatly helps me collect my thoughts. In my freshman college English class, I remember using a quick write while researching my research paper. While writing, I felt that I was writing with no connection. Afterwards, I was amazed at how there were pieces towards the end of my quick write that I could transfer to my paper. This was because the writing made me think more deeply about my topic. I plan to take this knowledge to my classroom where I can help my students see writing as a tool that can help them learn. Helping the students think through their thinking process by having them write is one of the best ways for them to relay what they know. Writing is more detailed than listening to a verbal response. Also it allows everyone to participate and allows the ELL's to focus their thought before group discussion. Another part that I enjoyed in the article was writing the microthemes on notecards. This allowed the students to also realize how to make notes to study from later at the same time. It helped the students break down the large topic into small manageable parts.

My first question is how would I have writing to learn in a classroom that I am told what and how to teach the children? I have heard of teachers getting into trouble if they are "caught" teaching more than the standard curriculum. I would think that the best method is to persuade the authorities that it is important for writing to learn to be in every classroom's curriculum. My second question is how to use writing to learn with students who are not yet well developed in their writing? I see how writing to learn lets them write in a non-pressured way, but there will be a gap. How do bridge this gap?