Reflection #4: The Value of Read-Aloud

We all have hopefully been read aloud to at some point in our lives whether that has been by our parents, a teacher, or even a friend. However, perhaps one common thread with all of our children's read-aloud experiences and perhaps our own is the time in our lives they have occurred. Children at a younger age are commonly read aloud to, and we don't typically see it at the upper grade levels. In this article, the author shares that reading aloud has a very high value when it is done far beyond the fundamental years in early education. 

The power that reading aloud has on students is impeccable, especially after the primary years. When read aloud to, students are able not only to focus on what the story is telling them, but they are building the critical foundations for, "reading components: reading motivation, work knowledge, syntax, story grammar, genre knowledge, author's intentions, readers' choices, and understanding" (47). They are also not getting hung up on the words they don't know, and they are learning how to become independent readers. They are getting to see the "magic" in books and reading when they are not constantly struggling through the text. With a little help, they will be able to learn how to analyze and dissect these text, and they will be able to interact with the text. These skills are not only essential for young students; they are critical for our older students who are on their way to becoming independent readers after a high school diploma.

As a teacher, there are many notions that we need to keep in mind with using read-alouds. The environment for a read-aloud needs to be positive and respectful. It needs to be able to manage a read-aloud where students feel confident and have clear expectations. Student roles are also important, and the teacher needs to establish them clearly. Active listening is a key component from the students for read-alouds to be beneficial for all students, and this needs to be expressed from the beginning. They are risk-free, and they can be really fun and engaging when we find a great read-aloud. 

I know a lot of us in our content areas that aren't reading or English feel that it is hard to fit in a read-aloud with our demanding pacing guide of our curriculum. However,the author reassures us that "five to ten minutes spent in this way each day has a significant influence on students' literacy and learning lives" (45). Perhaps, we can think about this and find some time during the day to see this importance of reading aloud to our students at the upper level.

Reflection #3: "How to Use a Textbook"

With our reading this week in “Subjects Matter,” chapter six goes in depth about how teachers should use a textbook.  The big question for this chapter is, “How much is enough?” Teachers need to know how to utilize a textbook without overloading the students with reading but also not giving the students enough material to understand the concepts. It mentions the “Curse of the Coverage” which talks about how teachers feel the pressure to cover the entire textbook due to state standards or end of the year tests. Throughout the chapter, the authors give us six different activities and strategies to use when it comes to making the text in the textbook a little more understandable and comfortable with the students. The activities are the following: checking out the textbook, jigsawing, guide-o-rama study guides, vocabulary word sorts, textbook circles, and SQ3R. All of the activities have a very helpful diagram or example of the worksheets that would be used during the different activities.

When it comes to teaching students, this chapter tells the teachers/readers that students can be overwhelmed when assigned to read a chapter a night without any help. As teachers, we need to guide them when it comes to using the text, and we cannot expect them to sit down every night and read a chapter with complete understanding of what is being mentioned in the chapter. This chapter informs us that taking the time to do activities when assigning reading can be very beneficial for students’ learning and attitude towards the textbook or novel that is assigned for reading. Their willingness will be higher, and if they have support with completing or reading the text, they will not struggle as much as if they were reading on their own.

I definitely think that this chapter can apply to my content area. In this chapter, they dedicate an entire page to talking about mathematics textbooks and how different they are compared to a Social Studies, Science, or English textbook. There are highlighted theorems, example problems worked out step-by-step, and there are many instances where students get lost in the text. They do not know where to look or how to use the example problems to their benefit. Thus, I think this chapter and the activities listed in this chapter can help my domain and me when it comes to implementing our mathematical text.

Reflection #2: Ch. 3 &4 Tovani and Text Structure

For this reflection, I will talk about Tovani's "Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?" and the article for this week about text structures.

Tovani: Chapter 3: Parallel Experiences:

            This chapter consisted of strategies and experiences of looking at how students are struggling with reading different context, and how as teachers, we are expert readers in our content. Thus, we have the responsibility to teach our students in our content area how to read the material we present to them. From this chapter, Tovani tells the reader/teacher that if we all can do our part and teach different content reading strategies, then our children will be better off when presented with any text. They will be able to pick out how to answer the question, how to ask questions, and how to use graphs to interpret the passages. She puts a lot of emphasis on modeling, and this is probably one of the best strategies when teaching students how to approach problems/passages. At the end of the chapter, she shares with us what works. We need to identify what students are struggling with, select a challenging piece of text to model reading and how we struggle with it, and share with the students how we overcame this said struggle. I think this can be and is very powerful, and these three pieces play a vital role in the teaching process. This chapter pertains to every single teacher that reads it. This is a great universal chapter that all teachers can relate to at some point. In my domain, mathematics, I instinctively teach students how to decipher word problems and pick out what is important to solving the word problem. It is important that each teacher knows how their content area relates to teaching a portion of reading skills. If they do not realize this, then they are doing a disservice to their students. 

Tovani: Chapter 4: Connecting Students with Accessible Text

            In this section, rigor and accessible text are the two main topics that are addressed. Students are given a text book at the beginning of the year, and they are expected to read it every night. However, if they are not capable of reading this intense text, how are they going to ever be excited about learning the material for the course? This is the issue that Tovani talks to the reader about in the beginning of the section. She informs the audience that rigor is still upheld in a classroom even if the text is not on the reading level for that particular grade. Accessible text is a great solution to bringing in engaging text that is readable for all students that can relate to them or outside the classroom on a bigger scale. With the accessible text, it is sometimes a quick fix. However, there is still another alternative. Text sets are a tool that teachers can use that helps support the material that is in the textbook. They still have rigor that teachers look for in text, but text sets bring in many different types of text that relate to one subtopic in the course. With this, students can choose which text is most interesting to them to keep their engagement alive. Tovani encourages the reader to provide students with this choice of different reading materials/altered assignments. She also tells us to demonstrate how the content we teach relates to the outside world. It is important for students to make these connections and perform applications of reading to the real world. Another great point she makes is that as teachers, we should not expect the text to do our job. This seems obvious, but teachers tend to rely very heavily on texts. They forget that it is not the textbook’s job to teach our students. I think this is something I definitely need to keep in mind and use in my classroom next year. I would love to show students how they use mathematics in real world applications, how mathematicians are making great strides in the world, and how new theorems and proofs are being formulated. I think it would get them thinking, and it would encourage them to keep an open mind about learning and practicing mathematics. 

Teaching Text Structure:

In this article, the authors open up with a great connection. How children learn to speak is the same process for how they will learn to read. However, children at a young age are reading the types of stories that are narrative prose. These are the fairy tales that follows the set up of having a beginning, middle, and end. When these children grow, they will be presented with harder material which is presented to them in expository prose. This is the type of reading where they are reading to learn. They are deciphering information to learn from it while reading. This is why students are having a hard time reading, and the authors make this very clear. This is why the text structure strategies are incredibly helpful for students if teachers take the time to cover these. Expository prose is presented in five main ways: main idea, list, order, compare/contrast, and classification. The students are required to put the reading into their own terms for studying purposes, but these strategies are helping them have a game plan when reading a passage. If they know which structure it is, then they can know what to pick out from the text. I think it is beneficial for students to see all of these strategies, but the teachers need to present them in a way for the students not to be confused. The authors offer great teaching steps for teachers, and I think these can really help in any level reading or content class.

Web Resource #1: Mathisfun.com

This website is a resource for teachers to use who are teaching math at many grades and many levels. It covers not only the mathematical part of education with providing notes and excellent examples for teachers and students, but it gives the reader the option to utilize the provided worksheets, a math dictionary, and mathematical games.

When opening the website, the reader has a plethora of options to click on and research more about a specific mathematical topic. Some examples are data, measurement, money, geometry, algebra, etc. There are cartoon drawings for each category, as well. Once the reader has made a decision on a topic, the information is instantly presented to them. The page provides a quick introduction to the topic, and then it breaks down into subtopics that can be researched. The reader also has the option to go above and below levels in certain topics. For example, when clicking on the algebra page, at the top, the reader can click on the left arrow which goes to Pre-Algebra, or the right arrow can be clicked to go to Algebra II material. All of the subtopics for each page are links which take you to that information. In the specific subtopic, there are many explanations, examples, and interactive questions that help guide students and teachers through the subtopic. At the very bottom of the page after all of the examples, explanations, and figures, there is a section called “Your Turn.” This is where the students can try a few questions on their own after reading through the top of the page. If they are still having questions and thoughts about the subtopic, there is a section after “Your Turn” called “here’s more.” This section gives the reader links to explore a little further and get more understanding of the subtopic.

A great detail about this web resource is that it provides the subcategories with appealing cartoons with quick links to broad categories in math, but it also has a search link for the reader to get to their topic or subtopic much quicker. On the opening screen in the picture, there is no category for calculus, trigonometry, or any subject above Algebra II. Thus, this search box will help those students/teachers who are looking for their specific questions on their subject or topic. A similar and great aspect about this website is that it truly covers all aspects of mathematics starting with counting numbers all the way to solving integrals. This site can truly be used for every level of student. One other perk to this resource is that when a reader is looking at the links and deciding which one to choose, it may be a concern that all of these windows will be open if the links are clicked. However, this site does not produce a new tab every time the reader clicks on one. It updates the current page the reader is on with the new subtopic that is selected. Lastly, the links are very accessible, and the text on the page is very easy to read for students. One con for this site is that with the higher level mathematics, there are not as many interactive activities in the notes for students and teachers to use. 

Overall, this is a very user-friendly site for both teachers and students, and it is presented in a very clear and fun manner for any age level. I would highly recommend this website for readers to use in mathematics courses.

Reflection #1: “Reading Supports for All” and “The Early Catastrophe”:

For this reflection, I will touch on the two article readings. The first article, “Reading Supports for All”, talks about how scaffolding reading is most beneficial for all students and teachers dealing with the challenges and diverse languages being brought into the classroom. Specifically, this scaffolding reading experience (SRE) is most beneficial for the English Language Learners. Throughout the article, it gives examples on the different stages of this experience and how to accommodate SREs into the everyday classroom. I think SREs can be beneficial for the classes that require reading. I see the benefits of the SREs in a history, English, or science class, but as for math, I am unsure since we do not typically read from a text. It is example based. I also, however, feel that the SREs are accredited with support by listing how teachers can realistically support SREs in their own classroom. I believe that this article went the extra step to show SREs are broken into three simple stages, pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading that really can be manageable with students’ and ELL students’ goals in class.

In “The Early Catastrophe,” I learned that the development of children’s vocabularies and word exposure experiences are broadened or dwindle by their socio-economic status (SES). A child’s vocabulary bank increases the higher their parents’ socio-economic status is in the world. In the reading, I feel as if the chart really made the driving point for this particular article. After all the man hours were put in with the 42 families, the hard work and evidence was shown how a child’s vocabulary directly reflects the parents’ vocabulary and how quickly or slowly these young children are learning and being exposed to new words. I think a different point made in the article that went with the overarching theme and title was that how in the bigger picture, students are having larger vocabularies with every higher level of SES. There is not just a couple words difference; it is in the millions! This is incredible, but in the long run, this makes sense. We are the product of our parents, and I think this is obvious that their vocabulary builds the foundation for the child’s vocabulary.