Heidi

Heidi Fraker

** Wednesday, June 15, 2011 ** ** Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning: pages 22-51 ** The article “Guiding Comprehension through Text Frame” reinforced for me the importance of setting a purpose for reading. Students need to understand why they are reading a specific text. I agree that as students mature and become better readers they need to begin to ask themselves questions as they read to help build comprehension. Different types of text can require multiple use of text framing. I thought that this article gave good examples of what frames would work best with what genres. I feel that it is extremely important to provide this kind of support to primary grade students. As a fourth grade teacher I will continue to model questions to think about as a reader, and how to determine what questions to ask yourself as you are reading. Questioning students as they read is something that all teachers do, but it is getting the students to start questioning themselves as they read that can be the real challenge. I plan to model this type of questioning aloud to my students with different genre texts that we cover in class, and then help scaffold them to be able to do it themselves when they are reading independently.

**Smart Answers To Tough Questions: Section 2** I am really enjoying reading this book! I find some of the answers very interesting! I found that I can relate to many of the "Something for you to think and talk about" sections. Especially in section 2 where the they are talking about the Round-Robin reading. I remember in high school I too used to count the paragraphs, so that I could practice what I had to read out loud to the class when it was my turn. I used to get very nervous when reading to a classroom of peers. I am excited to read more from this book. I believe that this book is very useful and can be helpful in the future when responding to parents questions and concerns.

6/18/11 Heidi, I have always had mixed reviews about Round-Robin reading. I always loved reading like this in elementary school. I was a very fluent reader but my comprehension was very low. So, naturally I enjoyed reading outloud. However, now that I look back I see how I myself counted the paragraphs to see when it would be my turn to read and where I needed to begin so I wouldn't sound silly reading outloud. I also never comprehended anything that was read. I can see how it is a very ineffective approach. This year I tried Round-Robin reading with my higher group because they begged for us to try it. (they read this way a lot in the past) Anyways, as my students were reading (only a group of two) this way, I just watched to see what they did as the other child was reading. I witnessed the other child flipping ahead to see where they would be reading and naturally that same child was not paying any attention to the reading. Throughout the story I would ask comprehension questions and both students had little or no understanding of the text. I guess it took this observation for me to see that this approach is not very effective. Now can I say that it never works?- No, but in my cases it proved to be ineffective. Julie

Heidi – Excellent conversation about Round Robin. You made some interesting observations in your post. Dr. P.

** Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning: pages 50-100 **
 * Sunday, June 19, 2011 **

 I really liked the section about Author Says/I say in __ Classroom Strategies __. Nothing makes text or information more meaningful than when you can relate it to your own life experiences. When I read if I can find a connection between my life experiences and what the author is saying I can better understand the text or story. If students find that connection they can remember a piece of information for a longer period of time and the information becomes important to them. I also agree that making these types of connections and documenting personal thoughts about a text can help students draw conclusions and make judgments before, during, and after reading. In my classroom I have had students use sticky notes to record questions that may arise as they read. This simple strategy can be exciting to students! Since it is not something that students normally do every time they read, they are excited to share what they are thinking, and if the sticky notes are different colors, well it might sound silly but they get excited about that too! Using sticky notes to jot down questions or different ideas is an effective strategy to get students involved in the text.

Heidi, I also liked the Author Says/I Say section. I have also found that the more connections my students can make with the text, the more engaged they are, especially because they can tell thir own stories and their own experiences. We all know that children enjoy telling about themselves (or even adults for that matter)! The sticky note idea is great, too. I have used that in my classroom for questioning and for other comprehension strategies, such as connections, predictions, and inferences. Some of them even brought in their own "cool" sticky notes and, like you said, they loved that little detail. :) Christi
 * Tuesday, June 21st **

6/21/11

Heidi,

Much of your response ties right into the research presented in our Foundations book. Just like our chapter (7) states, in order for there to be meaning in a text we must engage our experiences to help us form that meaning.

I love sticky notes myself. I really like that strategy, and could see using that during SSR time. Students could post questions, or even post what they are really like about a book. We could then engage in a casual book talk. I know I sometimes have students who long for that close time with a teacher because they do not receive a lot of attention at home. -Melissa

Heidi – You hit the important point when you say students must make connections between text and their lives. I agree that this strategy would really scaffold that. Dr. P.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011 Section 5: Fluency and Comprehension

This section really hit home with me when I think about the class of students I had this past school year. I had many good readers in the class. However there was a certain group of boys who I think of when I read the phrase "reading is not a race." I may not have said those exact words to them, but there were many times throughout the school year that I had to give them reminders to slow down as they were reading. One boy in particular talks very fast, so it made sense to me why he also read pretty fast. He was a student who cared about school and earned good grades. However, I remember being disappointed with his score on some of the reading comprehension tests. Part of the test involved reading a passage and responding to questions that had to do with our focus skill with the particular anthology story that we were reading at the time. He did very poorly on this part of the test. After looking over his work multiple times, I noticed that he could not have possibly carefully read the text and comprehended what he read. I knew he was capable of reading and understanding the text, but he was not taking his time. He would often read with speed in our small reading groups. It was then that I knew I needed to talk with him about some strategies we could work on to help him slow down his reading and make a connection with the text. Like I said, this student was very bright and wanted to be successful in school. After our talk and after having him go back and reread the passages and correct his mistakes, he was able to see that he was very capable of the work he was given. He was able to turn about his grade in reading and he did very well on this part of the test with future assessments.

I believe that some students think that if they are a quick reader then they are a better reader. This however we know is not true. There are many factors that play into transacting with a text. Chapter 7 in Foundations really helped me to see all aspects of how a person can visualize and make a text meaningful.

<span style="color: #811381; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">June 23, 2011 <span style="color: #811381; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">I had the same problem in my classroom. Many of my students would try to be the fastest reader, however they often lost comprehension because they were so focused on being the first one done. I think that some of the tasks we have students do promotes this type of rushed reading. For example, my students know that they are being timed when reading for the DRA or the AIMSweb probes. After reading for these tasks, they always say, "How many words did I get?" They don't often think about the fact that comprehension questions will soon be posed. They are focused on the "now." It is frustrating that I stress to students to slow down, but then the test I"m giving them prompts them to speed up. <span style="color: #811381; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">- Kelly

//Heidi,// //I also had a very bright student who did well in most areas. His biggest problem was with reading too fast (actually he tried to do everything fast). This greatly impacted his comprehension. I used to get so frustrated with him because I knew how smart he was. When I asked him to read a text silently he would race through it and then admit that he couldn't remember what he read. Next year I want to spend more time discussing what it means to be fluent. Most students don't understand that it means so much more than just speed!// **Monday, June 27, 2011** **Foundations Chapter 15 & 17** Gradience Like Amanda and Christi discussed today with their presentation, depending on the group of people someone is talking to their language and the words they say may be different. I see that in all aspects of communication in my life with past interviews, presentations, talking to my fourth grade class, talking with parents, and then just with talking to friends. I know that my language and the way that I communicate changes depending on the environment. It is not something that I ever really sat down and thought about, but it is just something that happens. So, I found these chapters from Foundations pretty interesting.

Working in a very rural school district, some of the kids in our school talk a little "country" and it is just funny to listen to how the kids talk to one another and how they interact with the adults in the building. One boy in my class was very opinionated, very vocal about his opinions, and he spoke a lot about his dad and some of the things dad says at home. Some of those things I heard just blew my mind! Like is this nine year old boy really saying that! Then of course after meeting dad it made a lot of sense to why this student talks the way he does. So the sociolinguistic continuum helps me to see the variations in communication and how our environment influences and impacts the way that we speak.

6/28/11 I thought that their presentation was really interesting too. I think you're spot on when talk about the difference of rural language. It makes me think about PA geographically and the way that people say the same words with a different accent like the word //"Creek,"// some areas of PA they say it like //"Crick"// instead. Your post also made me think about how there is more than one way of saying a word, //"Coke"// or //"Pop"// for //soda//. - Molly

I like how this section of the text compares athletes needing “time outs” in their games to readers also needing a “time out” to reflect on what was read and to check for understanding. Big Spring is a Learning Focused District so I also use the ‘Think/Pair/Share strategy with my students. I however, did not know that this strategy in particular was an extended version of the “3-minute pause strategy.” I like the analogy that Buehl used comparing the “3-minute” pause to working at a computer and saving your work. It makes a lot of sense. I agree that kids tend to rush through their school work to simply just get it done and then they often times do not understand what the text is completely about. If we use little strategies like these to break a piece of texts into small parts, and allow the students time to check their understanding, they will hopefully start to use those strategies when they are reading independently. I really enjoyed reading this section of Buehl’s book because now I have new ideas to take with me in my classroom.
 * 7/4/11 **
 * Classroom Stgrategies for Interactive Learning **