Coming to an End

I had no idea what to expect going into this class. I did not understand what exactly “content literacy” meant. A class based on learning how to include reading in writing in all subjects was something that I would never thought to be a required course. Looking back now this class ended up being very beneficial. I learned many new things that I will definitely be using in my classroom. I was required to blog and use twitter, two things I had never done before. With my main focus being math I found this class to be very helpful. Every subject needs to include reading and writing because those are two skills that are necessary in life. The Tovani text is something I am definitely going to hold on to because she has a lot of experience in content literacy and many different strategies that were successful in her classroom and other classrooms. Looking back at all of my blogs I am very proud at how much I improved. I used to write them as assignments, but now I am used to just writing down my thoughts as I type. The Teacher Preacher holds a collection of writings that are filled with many different opinions and helpful content literacy strategies. I am definitely going to keep it bookmarked on my computer because maybe once in a while I will have something to write down or I might want to look back at them if I need a good strategy suggestion. I wont only look back at my blog, but I will also look back at my classmate’s blogs. This class definitely helped me grow as an educator. I now have a different view on teaching. I would have never thought as a math teacher to make a point to add in reading and writing, but after this class I will always make sure to have a content literacy section in all of my lesson plans. Overall I am sad to see this class come to an end, and I can’t wait to gain more and more knowledge in this area. 

Small Group Talk

For this blog I read chapters 7 and 8 in the Tovani text. I really enjoyed some of the suggestions and ideas to help your students understand readings. Small group is a strategy that I believe works very well in the classroom. I have seen it work as a student teacher. Small group gives the students a chance to discuss with each other what they thought about the text. They can hear other student’s perspectives and make connections. It allows students to form a deeper understanding of the text. When I was a student’s teacher we put the classroom in groups of 4 to 5 students. Each group read a different book. Everyday we gave each group time to discuss what they read the night before. It went very well and was very helpful for the students. Some of them were confused about parts of their books and other students would help explain to them what they thought about it. There were some days when some students had not read and were behind. We would let those students sit aside and catch up on their own. I noticed the students who hadn’t done their reading the night before usually had trouble reading. I would sit with them and let them read out loud to me as I looked along with them. This helped them out a lot because I could help them on words they were stuck on or if they had any questions I could lead them to the answer. This way they can have some sort of discussion about what they are reading since they are missing out on the small group discussion. If it becomes a patter with a students then there needs to be consequences because the small group discussion is very important and helpful.

Sometimes students are not going to like the group they are in or not get along with other students. I liked the suggestions that Tovani had. I think when making the groups it is important to keep in mind your students personalities and choose the groups wisely. It might help to let the students give you some input on who they would want in their group and that way you can have each student with one friend in their group. Students have all different personalities and some are going to contribute more then others. I think there should not be group grades, but instead pay attention to who is contributing and who is slacking off and then give grades accordingly. Every classroom is different but from what I have seen from my own experience in the classroom, the small group strategy is very helpful for students. 

Interesting Thoughts

For this blog post I went and read my classmates blog posts. I picked out a couple of quotes from a couple of blogs that I found interesting and important to talk about.

“In one of my classes now our teacher has us read electronic copies of her own personal text, which she has marked up herself. I actually find this to be extremely helpful to me, because the text in that class is very challenging for me and it sometimes can just be overwhelming.” http://teachtothink.tumblr.com

I loved this idea of giving students texts that you marked up yourself! I think that would be very helpful for students especially if they are struggling when reading. I know form personal experience that marking up a text isn’t easy. Like I had talked about in my last blog, I always found myself highlighting a whole page and not what is actually important. This idea of giving the students texts that are already marked up is very smart and a good way to teach students how to properly mark a text. They can read the thoughts that go through your head as you read a text and see what information that you point out as important. I thought this was a great idea and it is definitely something that I am going to use in my classroom.

“Whole-group thinking is a good strategy to use when the whole class is doing the same activity like reading the same book.” http://newteacherbeginnings.wordpress.com

I have always loved whole-group thinking and class discussion. I found this very helpful because it helps to hear what other students took away from a text. Discussing with the class will clear up any questions or misunderstanding that you had on the text. It is very important to hear other peoples opinions and be able to form your own opinion. Whole-group thinking also allows you to ask the class questions that you had written down while reading. Some students may understand a text better or think about it differently. It is always interesting to hear other peoples thought processes.

“As a teacher it will be an open classroom. Open to all thoughts. While yes we can disagree (& we should, or else I would think something is wrong) there will be no disrespecting. We all know how it feels to be disrespected and who likes that. Not me for sure.” http://teachingoncanvas.tumblr.com

I found this quote to be very important! All classrooms need to be open classrooms that allow people to express their opinions. Sometimes not everyone is going to agree, but that is what makes a good discussion. Hearing both points of views is very important and helpful when trying to understand a text. Everyone’s opinions need to be treated with respect. If students are disrespectful in the classroom then that will cause other students to not speak up because they will be scared of getting shut down by other students. Respect is a classroom rule that needs to be made clear in the beginning of the school year.

“When we read a text, the goal is to take something away, form opinions, and ask further questions not answered in the text.” http://peachyteachy123.tumblr.com

Reading a text is very difficult, but students need to understand what goals you are trying to accomplish before reading a text. I think that as a teacher it is important to explain these goals to your students before reading a text. Show them examples that will help them understand what it is that they are looking for in a text. Every student needs to have questions, summaries, and opinions after reading a text. This will help them to better understand the text and lead good discussions in class. 

How to Properly Highlight

Although I found Tovani’s chapter 6 very interesting, it was way too long of a chapter for a topic on marking up texts. How your students read a text is very important and should definitely be taught. I always found myself reading and the information would go through one ear and then right out of the other. Or I would find myself reading one sentence over and over again because I could not take in the information since my mind was off somewhere else. My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Bird,  was my favorite teacher in elementary school. She helped me out a lot with my reading comprehension and taught me ways to make reading a little bit easier. I used to highlight texts like it was my job. I would end up with a whole page highlighted because I found it all very important. Luckily I had an amazing teacher who helped me out.

 Mrs. Bird showed me a new way to read texts and pick out what is important.  Instead of highlighting, I would underline important words or words I did not understand. I drew arrows point at important information and then would write a summary about it. The summaries really helped me understand what exactly was going on in the paragraph I had just read. It helped me to interpret it into my own words that made sense to me. I wouldn’t just mark up stuff that was important, but I would also mark stuff that was confusing to me. I looked up words and created vocab lists from stuff I read and when I was confused I wrote down questions that I could ask my teacher about in class to clarify it. I think it is very important for students to learn how to correctly mark up a text that is helpful to them. If students are just highlighting to highlight then they get nothing from the text. Marking a text correctly is also very helpful for when you look back at it to study. This way they can see their thoughts in an organized manner. 

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is very important and another way to incorporate content literacy. It helps students improve their reading and create a wide range of words in their internal dictionary. I hated in middle school when we would have a different set of words each week in our Wordly Wise workbook. I never wanted to study for those quizzes each week and never had any motivation. Learning just a random set of words for the heck of it seemed pointless to me. In class we discussed different ways to incorporate a vocabulary instruction into the classroom. We came up with ways that would make it connect to what the students are learning. Vocabulary instruction needs to be a daily thing. It should not be a subject on its own. Instead it needs to be incorporated into every lesson. Students should be defining words that they need to know to understand the concepts of the subject they are studying. I think it would be a great idea to have students add on to their vocab list everyday with words they learn from lessons they had that day. We learned the Frayer Model in class which is a great tool for students to use. You place your word/concept in the middle then have four sections coming off from it. These are labeled definition, characteristics, examples, and misconceptions. I think it would be great to use in review sessions. Here is one I created for the math term “absolute value.”

This is something that is definitely very helpful in math classes because the students will have examples of how it works. They can look back at these whenever they have trouble with a problem.