This week I chose to read chapters 11 and 14 in Strategies that Work.
Chapter 11 is about summarizing and synthesizing information. I chose to read this chapter because at the end of the month my students have a book report due and part of their book report requires them to briefly summarize the story they read. Summarizing text is still a challenge for many of my fifth graders. It is difficult for them to decide which details are important to retell and which details are not needed. In the section called “Writing a Short Summary,” (p.188-189) the teacher tells her students to consider three things when they are summarizing a text. 1) Pick out the most important ideas. 2) Keep it brief. 3) Say it in your own words in a way that makes sense. I think that the third idea is the most important. Many of my students want to just rewrite what is written in their books. But they will have a better understanding of what they read if they are able to say it using their own words. I think that to help my students understand summarizing, it would be good to summarize something together as a class. Then students who are struggling can see how other people summarize.
Chapter 14 is about reading to understand textbooks. I think that the most important thing in this chapter is that students need to be taught how to use a textbook. Textbooks are full of resources such as glossaries, indexes, maps, charts, and other helpful pieces of information. But unless we teach our students how to use these things they will not be able to take advantage of what their textbooks have to offer. At the start of the year my MT had our students do a scavenger hunt of their social studies textbook so that they could become familiar with the different parts of the book. I think this was a good idea because she was also able to explain how to use different parts of the book when they went over the answers as a class. In this chapter they also talked about teaching students how to take notes from textbooks (p. 238). I think this is really important because textbooks an have so much information that it can be hard for students to pick out the important details. (Just like it can be hard for them to pick out the important details when they are summarizing what they read.)
I also read Chapter 11 on Summarizing and Synthesizing. I agree that summarizing the text in your own words is most important, and a hard concept for a lot of students to grasp. I think it's the fact that the text is right there- why, how could I turn those words into my own when it's so nice written, right in front of me? At least I know that's how I felt in school when having to summarize. I always had a hard time with it just because I never knew other words to use to say the same thing in the text.
ReplyDeleteThe main point I got out of reading Chapter 11 was from the "Writing a Short Summary" lesson on page 188-9. Steph tells her students, "nothing is more important than the reader's thinking. She always emphasizes this by having her students record their thoughts first and then do the task at hand" (p189). Geez, look at me now, still not able to summarize ;-) I agree that the reader's thinking is most important while reading. It is how you interpret the text that bring meaning to it for you as a reader.
I read chapter 10 that talked about the strategy of figuring out what is important to take from reading text. The chapter mostly talks about how non-fictional readings should be viewed to focus on important points. I actually remember talking about this on a collegiate level when reading over research articles. In my class we discussed when reading bulky articles it's important to use skills to consolidate the most important information you want to get out of the article. In the chapter that kind of mind frame is also highlighted. On page 157 there's a list of things students should be thinking about when reading non-fictional texts. I think four points that are listed are really important to emphasize to students. Those four points are looking at important subtitles and headings, reading the first and last sentences, knowing what to ignore, and knowing it's okay to "write in your book". During an activity where students are trying to look for more information many students will use a large amount of time to look at every sentence to find an answer. Students should think about how they've learned to write paragraphs and realize that usually their first sentence is a summary of what is to come. Therefore, students should be able to focus on the first sentence of each paragraph to aid in knowing what other information will be talked about in the paragraph. I also think it's important for students to know when to cut out all the "fluff" information. This kind of reminds me of when students read story problems in math where extra details are added in to confuse students. Students should be able to know what kinds of details are important and unimportant to know. Lastly, I think it's important to encourage students to response to their reading by taking notes while reading. Doing this allows students to point out important facts or highlight parts that stood out to them. I'm sure it's not a good idea to encourage students to literally write in their book, but having a stack of post-it notes is really handy when trying to write out thoughts that can stick on the page.
ReplyDeleteChapter 10 and 11 are really closely related in connecting skills to focus on and ways to summarize. I think the list on page 188-189 that Aimee mentioned is something that is really good to keep in mind when they are summarizing a text. From the list of picking out the most important ideas, keeping it brief, and saying it in your own words in a way that makes sense I agree that most students have a hard time trying not to copy verbatim what's in the book. However, when thinking about some of the high ability level students in my class I think keeping it brief is something they struggle with. I always try to emphasize "clear and concise" writing because I think students believe that the more I write the better. Students should have an alternative view that a summary is suppose to be a good snapshot of what's going on instead of filling up as much as you can so it looks more detailed.
One of the chapters that I chose to read was chapter 12, Content Literacy: Reading for Understanding Social Studies and Science. I really liked this chapter because I think it’s important to teach, what can often be difficult subjects, in a fun, engaging way. The chapter suggests using ‘Active Literacy’ such as books, magazines, globes, aquariums, maps, charts, videos, etc. when teaching these subject areas. These mediums are good ways to make a lesson more interesting and capture students’ interests, helping them to ultimately understand the learning content more easily. Just recently, I was able to observe a science lesson where the teacher used different clips of the movie, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”. She used this movie as a way to help her show students the scientific method. The kids absolutely loved it, were excited to go back to science to continue the movie and overall, understood the concept more clearly.
ReplyDeleteAs I’ve been planning my math unit this semester, I’m learning that this strategy of ‘Active Literacy’ can definitely apply to math as well. For my lesson, I am incorporating picture books into my unit so that kids not only have fun and become more interested but to help them see a concept much more clearly than I could ever explain or illustrate. Active literacy has so many benefits and should be used for all subject matter whenever possible, in my opinion. Has anyone seen any unique forms of active literacy in the classroom? How has it impacted student learning?