Tuesday, December 6, 2011

What I'm thinking now

Things need to be taught explicitly!  How many times do I come back to this? I need to teach the reading strategies and then have them use them in their letter. I'm going to write a sheet they tape into their journal with the week's reading strategy and then have them write to that in their letter. I will start this week with questioning.

-The other thing I feel really challenged by is I really have two questions. One is how can I use peer interactions to help resistant readers to read in a sustained manner. The other is, how can I help resistant readers comprehend their text and demonstrate their understanding.

I feel frustrated bc what I'm being "graded on" as a teacher is their reading comprehension.  What I care about is their reading engagement and enjoying their book, which I believe will lead us closer to reading comprehension.  But if you aren't reading, you can't really comprehend. I feel like it's a catch-22. I need them to read in order to comprehend, so do I do my study around engagement? Or do I focus on the comprehension piece, bc it feel easier to assess and I have more ideas on that. I also feel like it goes the other way. You are more likely to get engaged in your book if you understand what you're reading.  Without the skills to be a good reader, you really aren't going to read.  It feels like a circle.

I think I'm going to focus on explicitly teaching and assessing reading strategies and look for improvement in sustaining reading and enjoyment around reading.  Perhaps I will do a survey around reading engagement once a month and see if it is improving?  Maybe do it in the computer lab on survey monkey so that it can tabulate for me?


Next up:
1. Teach reading strategies explicitly --find the time!
2. shift R.R. letter to have students write on the strategy
3. survey students for reading engagement once a month to see if it shifts and if they can relate it to reading strategy

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