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
I find that when I have a hard time understanding the text, I have to go back and reread it until I get a good grasp of the text. What can be hard for me, is I will read about three or four paragraphs and all of a sudden I will ask myself, "what the heck did I just read?" Then I have to figure out how far I need to back up. I agree that if we use reading, writing, and talking when it comes to topics, it will help us gain a better understanding of what's going on. I guess you can look at it as read the text, take notes during lecture, and lets have a class discussion about it.
ReplyDeleteHi Steven,
ReplyDeleteI like the "tone" you choose to write your "first blog ever"! It's really like that we are not only reading a book critique (aka the assignment :P) but also a life story from a friend. :)
I found the part of "rereading" interesting. Recall my reading experience I think only under three circumstances I reread: first, when I don't get it, like those difficult articles we read during the past few weeks; second, when I love it, like Harry Potter which I read so many times; and third, when I have an exam on it. So I must admit that I am also have difficulty to truly trust the definition the author states. Maybe I am a good reader only when I read Harry Potter lol.
I think chapter three also points the out the fact that you have to not only be aware of your students, but you also have to meta-reflect on how you appear from the student point of view, all while teaching in the moment. It's good to hear you talk about students struggling, as there is much learning to be gained at that time. Let 'em struggle a bit - believe in them.
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