Final Thoughts

Well if you read any of my blogs thank you and if I bored you I'm sorry but please go back and read and read it again :) JK. There were only 9 chapters so I had to finish with my own thoughts. 

 

Cris Tovani taught elementary school for tens years before becoming a high school reading specialist and English teacher. She is the author of many other books and developer for the Denver-based Public education and business coalition (PEBC). Some of her other books if you are interested are I read, it, but I don’t get it and videotape sets Thoughtful Readin and Comprehending content.

 

I really enjoyed this fun book with some great ideas on how not only to teach but teach you. It seemed to be the theme of all the chapters. Tovani is a teacher that encouraged her students to read and re-read. Tovani thought her students to learn how to turn nothing into something and way too much into an assignment. 

 

 

 

I have learned that you should put yourself on the line "If teachers are going to make the process of reading visible, they can't sit safely at the edge. As older, more experienced readers, they have an obligation to talk aloud about groping for understand or reaching for a genuine reading" Dennie Palmer Wolf.

 

I just read in Reading Rockets on Autism and Comprehension http://www.readingrockets.org/article/36973/ one of our assignments about thinking aloud. If we read to our students and ask questions along the way we can help our students learn how and where to stop and think about the importance of what the write is saying. Like this class we were challenged with challenging pieces of text and ourselves struggle. 

 

Tovani would talk a lot about struggling and continue to challenge ourselves to become better teachers. I must have a reason for reading the piece. There must be something in it that will make my life as a teacher or a person better. If the piece isn’t going to entertain, teach, or improve my life in some way, I throw it out. (Tovani, p.61). 

 

She teaching building on the experiences gained in her own classroom. She does note some scientific evidence but this was from her own hands on experience. She also quoted a lot of her colleagues from different disciplines.

 

A recap of the book:

1. Examples of how teachers can model their reading process for students
2. Ideas for supplementing and enhancing the use of required textbooks.
3. Detailed descriptions of specific strategies taught in context.
4. Stores from different high school classrooms to show how reading instruction varies according to content.
5. Samples of student work, including both struggling readers and college-bound seniors
6. Variety of “comprehension constructors”. Guides designed to help student recognize and capture their thinking in writing while reading.
7. Guidance on assessing students
8. Tips for balancing content and reading instruction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 9

Well the last chapter in the book is titled did I miss anything? Did I miss everything? It's a fun final thoughts and encourages you to be your best and you will not always have the answers.

“Dear ms. Tovani:

Can I redo yesterdays work? I need to get an A. I am sorry that I drew all over and had illegible handwriting. Please?”

Tovani writes yes next to his request. I had to think about this and I like the idea of students redoing their work even for a better grade. In collage I have had so many high stake tests and sometimes I would get a bad grade but know how to do the work. The idea of this class was to read and re read not just read it write and that’s it. We encourage you to read it and read it again. Circle stuff and keep in mind the title and relate it to your real life.

No matter the content Tovini writes “I don’t see how we can be teachers of this content without spending at least some of our time with students helping them learn how to read about it” (Tovani, p.121).

“One-Shot assessments such as chapter tests don’t help me teach. They measure finite knowledge, but don’t give any information about the way students think” (Tovani, p104).

How do we make our student become better thinkers? The theme of this chapter is about assessing strategy’s goal setting. Here is a list from I would like to share with you that I felt may be very helpful my class and maybe yours.

1. Activation of background knowledge: Can students access existing information to make connections between new and know information? Is there evidence that makes connections help students to relate to subject matter in a way that enhances interest and deepens understanding?
2. Student questioning of text: can students ask useful and authentic questions about the text in a way that enhances understanding and encourages deeper understanding?
3. Drawing conclusions and making inferences: can students combine their background knowledge with textual evidence to draw logical conclusions?
4. Monitoring comprehension and using fix-up strategies’: can student recognize signals and indicate they are confused.
5. Determining importance in text: Can students identify different purposes for reading? Do students recognize unique feature of texts, author styles, and similarities in topical information to distinguish important ideas.

Tovani talks about how she uses or begins every class with goal setting. Starting with brainstorming and writing goals. Each student will be responsible to choose one. They frequently revisit these goals through the year. I really like the idea of goals and revisiting these goals. I also think it would be good to ask the students to tell me when they have made their goals or not. We can discuss it and even change the goal if we find it to be unreachable. With goals Tovani recommends using calendars and why not have weekly goals. She even has one calendar that I think is cool were each day they get points from 1-20 for that day.

Here are some tips for making a calendar and making them work:

1. Have a tray in the room were calendars go every day.
2. Respond daily.
3. Make the calendars worth doing.
4. Decide how to manage lost calendars.
5. Consider who will use the calendars.
6. Experiment and vary the use of calendars.

I don’t really know how I can use them in a math class but they can be as simple as turning in homework or doing homework assignments and turning them in on time.

What works?

1. Decide what you want to assess. Give a variety of ways for student stop demonstrate understanding.
2. Design assessments that are checkpoints for understanding.
3. Teach students how to use the assessment tool. Don’t let format interfere with demonstration of knowledge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 7 (USA VS. Japan Tomorrow :), a rematch from 4 years ago).

I think allowing our students to work amongst groups in conversation can allow you to find and search for students who need help. Two of my favorite classes in collage where both classes we had a ton of group discussion about how to solve a particular problem. We were simply given the problem and more or less we knew what we needed to do. Get to work on solving it. If you think about our history we don’t know exactly what happened, we only know accounts of it and historians are really in a sense telling a story. That is all history really is, it’s a story usually written by the winning side. Not everything though, what about science. Is science exact? Mathematicians use other ideas and thoughts to build upon their own.  In fact in science everything is really just a theory that has been agreed upon amongst the scientific community they have agreed it to be true. Does this mean we should stop researching it or studying something?

I read an article called “Why do Americans stink at math?” (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html?_r=0). One of the real differences in an American classroom and one from Japan was how students were instructed. In America we gave a lecture on problems and assigned a bunch of problems for the students to do. In Japan the students were given a problem and tried to solve the problems first, in a sense struggle. I found struggling myself helped me not only want to learn but be really creative in my thinking. In my experience sometimes we were way off and sometimes we were surprised how close were where to solving it.

The author of my book Tovani writes about working in small groups and why. She compiles this list.

1.       Discussion..

2.       Stimulates higher levels of thinking develops social skills, develops listening skills, encourages articulation of thinking, honors all learners, holds kids accountable helps students remember, allows students to make connections, allows other to see different perspectives and promotes deeper understanding.

But how do you control every group? I can see how simply saying ok class get into groups and chaos. How do you know if every table was on task? Even in collage we would be off topics at times. It’s important to give the class some rules first.

Chapter seven was truly on working in goups and how it helps grow understanding.

What works:

1.       Show kids how to discuss. Use real-world examples.

2.       Give students specific feedback.

3.       Use powerful pieces: No one wants to discuss something dull.

4.       Anticipate stumbling blocks. Think about adult groups. What do you do when one person talks all the time. How can a group be brought back on track? How can new thinking be generated.

USA VS. GERMANY TODAY :)

I hope you’re watching the USA game against Germany. This is going to be a great game. I tevoed it so please don’t tell me what happens.

Chapter six, Holding Thinking to Remember and Reuse.  The author starts off by talking about showing a picture of a navy seal climbing a ripe ladder to a helicopter. Coming out of the water are the immense jaws of a great white shark. She asks the students “What do you think?” until somebody answers. Finally, students start to talk about it like, that’s so fake, and I used to live in California and that’s not what the bridge looks like and so on. Her point to the class is that they read the picture. The idea is unique because the idea of thinking while you read is more complex than I thought. In a sense you think it’s just simple but tan again sometimes I’m thinking of other things but what I have just read.

I really like the idea that this author makes, when we are trying to learn something in the real world we are the ones asking questions. As opposed to the teacher asking the questions and the student answering the question.

Getting Students Started with Marking Text:

1.      Mark one quote in the text, and have a conversation about the quote.

2.       Write a question that doesn’t have a simple answer.

3.       Ask your partners opinion about your ideas.

4.       Are you copying information from the text or sharing your thinking? Share thinking!

5.       Make a statement or recommendation, based on what you’ve read. Don’t be wishy-washy.

I also have a hard time remembering what I read when the text is difficult and re-reading is a must. The idea of marking text seems easy but as a younger student it can become difficult. The authore has her students follow the following guidelines when marking text.

1.       Write the thinking next to the words on the page that cause you to have the thought.

2.       If there isn’t room on the text to write, draw a line showing the teacher where the thinking is written.

3.       Don’t copy the text; respond to it.

4.       Merely underlining text is not enough. Thinking about the text must accompany the underlying.

5.       There is no one way to respond to text. Here are some possible options: ask a conclusion, make a statement.

What I really like about the author is that the author talks over and over about how it may seem easy to us but it’s important to remember that this is new to students.

What works? “Give students something to look for and write as they read” (Tovani, p. 86). It’s important to model different ways for students to mark reading. Not every student will understand or mark the same words. Leave room for discussion, this will give the students a chance to better understand text. 

Giving purpose to our readers.

The more blogs I read the more interested I get into this world of blogging. I will never write a book or have a paper published but Miles made a comment that made sense to me. Sometimes blogging can be about putting your work out there having followers and all of this without being published. The idea is brilliant and just then do I maybe understand this assignment a little more. I hope you learn something out of the text I'm reading as much as I have already learned from some of yours. 

Do I really have to teach reading is teaching teachers how to teach ourselves. So many times I have said I can't teach reading and I may have started to believe it, but this approach has taught me that I can teach reading. The book challenges the teacher to challenge themselves with challenging pieces of text and to struggle. Sound familiar?

But why am I reading this, Chaper 5. “Sometimes our problem as adult readers is that we see too many reasons or purposes for our students to read a text” (Tavoni, p 51). This is about defining purpose before teaching.

What is your instructional purpose? (Tavoni, p. 59).

1.     Decide what students should know after reading the piece

2.     Anticipate what might cause students difficulty. Are students lacking background knowledge? Will difficult vocabulary interfere with meaning?

3.     Model how you would negotiate difficulty.

4.     What do you want them to be able to do with the information once they have finished reading?

5.     Model how the should hold their thinking and provide tools.

This list that Tavoni writes in the book is really something as a teacher we must do. Not all students will be reading at the same level so having different material for different levels will be important. Anticipate, anticipate, and anticipate, I could not say this enough. I have found myself that the hardest thing have had trouble with is having all of the answers for the students. I know this may come with time and many years of teaching but if we are selecting the right text and aligning my lessons with the readings this will help me anticipate and provide the tools necessary for my students success.

Most students are not going to reread a text and Tavoni suggests that we are up front with what we want our students to do before they read. I think this is great as her example of making her students read a novel and than ask them to write a character sketch after she felt was unfair. Why would we make our students do something we ourselves were not necessarily going to do.  

“Sometimes our students can’t see the importance of something that we ask them to read, they may just read the piece to pass the test” (Tavoni, p. 61). We must give our readers a purpose.

Today has been a good day. It's Friday, I have a job, I have so much to do for school. I hope I get to relax at least a bit this weekend and if your reading this I hope you have to.





So far my book writes "good readers reread and return to text to build and extend their knowledge of specific concepts, or enhance their enjoyment of texts they have enjoyed previously" (Tovani, p. 21).





I find it hard to truly trust this as I don't believe you have to reread and return in such a repetitive lesson. On difficult chapters of understanding it's important to return to text and read again and look up words but to do this as much as this book claims is a little much. At one point do we stop and ask ourselves what are we doing wrong.





Teaching Point: Good readers use reading, writing, and talk to deepen their understanding of content. (Tovani, P 20).





Do you agree?





How can you not I mean it seem as if it's almost common sense.





What about understanding beforehand, I mean as a teacher we must have a clear lesson for our children to work from. Some lecture is important beforehand as well.





I’m starting to understand that reading a math book, a novel; an English book, a comic book, and any other type of book all use different modes of learning. I will be teaching math and it will be important for me to make sure my lectures use the same verbiages as my text book.





Chapter 3 talks about the importance of mental modeling which I will blog a lot more on my next blog. Simply, it talks about teachers slowing down their own thinking and notice what we are doing. This is something I really have a hard time of doing. I recently did a lesson plan on strengthening our students understanding of area (this was my class not a high school). On my feedback the students would tell me that I should slow down because I kept giving them the answers. I want and need my student to struggle.

 

Well if you made it this far thank you and if you had to go back and reread it than you’re a good reader or I’m just a horrible writer J