Topic: Consider the ideas discussed in today’s readings on content and curriculum, and effective approaches to comprehension instruction. Discuss your own knowledge of and experience in these areas. Give specific examples of areas where you feel confident in your planning and teaching, and areas you feel you need to learn more about. Given what you know so far about your classroom context, what opportunities might be available to you for learning this year?
The Content and Curriculum chapter of this was rather confusing for me and I think it was because of my lack of experience in the area. As they were explaining how to plan out the weeks and put all the different aspects together, they sort of lost me. I felt like there were all sorts of little aspects to the planning of this and the specifics were a little overwhelming. I am more of a visual person so seeing how this actually works would be much more beneficial to my understanding than reading about it. I need to learn more about each individual aspect of the Book Club Plus way of doing things and I think as we read more and discuss more in class and see and do more in our classrooms, it will really come together for me.
While Chapter 2 was confusing because I had limited background knowledge, I found the Comprehension chapter to be really informative and helpful because I have seen and experienced these types of book talks and read alouds in the classroom. I feel rather confident in the teaching of comprehension strategies through think and read alouds and community shares. I like these mini lessons because I feel knowledgeable in the area. I like the possible classroom charts and ideas that the book gives along the way. It helps me, as a visual learner, to picture how it would play out in the classroom. The part of the three principles listed in the chapter that I would need to learn more about or look closer at is how I would want to scaffold the comprehension strategies for the specific students in my classroom to make sure that they are able to do the strategies on their own and that they eventually just become habit and automatic to them.
I see many opportunities for learning to do these things this year in my classroom. My teacher so far seems to be open to my ideas and open to allowing me to plan and experience different things. For example, this week she is having me do the reading mini lessons and the one for Monday is on comprehension and asking ourselves questions as we read. I am interested to plan it out (haven’t gotten that far yet) and to see how the students will react to it and to me actually giving them a lesson on something. I also want to get them into some book clubs at some point this year and try out the fishbowls so everyone can learn from one another.
Sarah--
ReplyDeleteKelli, I agree that the curriculum description is a little confusing. I think that this is because I do not have much experience with planning curriculum. I just have the experience of picking learning goals and making a lesson plan from that. I feel as though this is the feeling that I had while at the professional development the week prior to the beginning of school. Until our meeting about the literacy curriculum for the year, I never realized how much of the curriculum is planned out for the teacher. The teacher can still be creative with some of the outlined plan; however, there are a lot less choices than I thought a teacher would have in literacy. In Chapter 2, they talked about how Janine chose Book Club Plus for the two hour literacy block in her room (p. 24). I just do not feel as though my current classroom would have the room for a 2 hour block of Book Club Plus.
After reading Chapter 3 of Book Club Plus, I do see how some aspects of our daily schedule could be adjusted to add Book Club Plus into the curriculum. I have seen the three principles of comprehension instruction already being applied to our current curriculum. During reading workshop we talk about different ways that we can understand our books. My teacher does a read-a-loud and she models the comprehension skill to them (principle 1 of Book Club Plus). For example, she read Miss Nelson to the class and told the class that she related to Miss Nelson because when she nicely told the class to do something, they didn't do it, but when she got her Viola voice on they all reacted. I saw many of the students then trying to see if they could relate to the students or see if their mom or a past teacher was similar to Miss Nelson. The students were then given the opportunity to try this independently and record what they found out (principle 3 in Book Club Plus). I definitely think that it helped when my teacher modeled this for the students, they talked about it in partner share, then in a whole group discussion, and then they wrote about it in their journals once their read their independent book. There were still some students who needed a little extra support, but many were able to find some text-to-self relations.
I also think that the fish bowl method is something that I would like to try because I have never seen it done before. I think that Book Club Plus would work with the current curriculum and daily schedule with some work because there are many similar ideas. I would need some more investigation in seeing how this would work with the current schedule that my third grade class has.
Kelli,
ReplyDeleteI also am a visual learner so reading chapter 3 about all of the literacy curriculum was rather confusing because I would rather see it laid out. However, I have already learned so much from looking over lessons with my CT and seeing how their literacy curriculum is set up. They have many books that they go off of such as the Cafe book and a whole book on phonics lessons. My CT also has curriculum maps that help guide her which book to use and which lessons need to be taught that month in order to touch on all the necessary GLCEs.
I felt very familiar with what was mentioned in the comprehension chapter of Book Club Plus. It does help reading over this information again especially when I have been helping my CT with DRAs this week. A huge part of the DRA deals with comprehension. It involves making predictions, describing characters, and giving a summary with details in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. I did learn an interesting piece of information from my CT. It is important that students can relate to the text they are reading whether it is text to text, text to self, or text to the world. However, I learned that using all three of these comprehensions methods is not as good for the students because it takes away from the current story they are reading. My CT told me that she read this in an article about comprehension but I do not remember what the article was called.
With all of the experience I have had this week with comprehension I feel that my confidence level in teaching the whole class with a mini lesson on comprehension has increased and I have talked with my CT about teaching one of them soon. I agreed with what was said in chapter one of the Strategies that Work about it being so tough to be a teacher these days with all the pressure of testing, meeting the standards, and keeping our students engaged in lessons (page 13). Comprehension is one of the most important concepts to grasp when it comes to reading so to be confident in this area is important to me.
Aubrey- I have also learned alot about comprehension from doing the DRA testing and I have also been teaching some reading workshop mini lessons on comprehension. It is easier looking at the curriculum books my MT uses because it lays out each day and explains what you should teach. Making those connections you talk about is something that my students really need practice with!
ReplyDeleteSarah- I really dont think we would have time for a 2 hour block of book club curriculum! Our days are so crazy as it is. I am also wondering if our particular group of students could handle the talk that is involved in the book clubs and especially the fish bowl exercises. I feel like it would take a ton of practice and I really think that we would need more community building before this could happen as well...