For this week’s reading, I chose to
look at Chapter 10, “Determining Importance in Text: The Nonfiction Connection”
and Chapter 14, “Reading to Understand Textbooks.” I chose these topics because I think they are
some of the most difficult areas to teach and for students to learn. Let’s face it; most of us do not enjoy
nonfiction or textbooks either.
Chapter
10’s big ideas discussed how often times students are asked to pick out or
highlight important ideas in nonfiction texts but that they are never
explicitly instruction how to do this.
The results may include almost every word of a section being
highlighted. Teachers need to model and
scaffold students into being able to read for information within nonfiction
text. I like how the chapter discusses
the importance of pointing out key elements within the text such as looking at
graphic organizers, bold or italicized text, pictures and their captions, and
titles and headlines. All of these
features stand out to us as adult readers, but young students may overlook
these details. Learning to pick out
details in nonfictional texts is extremely authentic because this type of
reading is guaranteed in each of their futures.
Secondary Education involves this skills as well as future jobs.
These ideas
were also addressed in Chapter 14 but in dealing with school textbooks. I thought the point that the authors made
about not leaving students alone with their textbook was great. It makes a lot of sense to allow students to
navigate through these thick and sometimes dull textbooks with pairs or small
groups. Even with explicit instruction
and scaffolding, textbooks are still intimidating, but students should get more
and more comfortable as they practice with support from peers as well as
teacher. This is just as authentic as
addressing nonfiction texts because it is going to happen in their future
education and possibly their future careers.
Both of
these topics will be extremely important across other subject areas in the
classroom as well. Math, Science, Social
Studies, Integrated Arts, Health, and all other subject areas require
nonfiction texts and sometimes textbooks for students to gather information. These strategies written in the two mentioned
chapters are extremely helpful when approaching these other subject areas.
Suggested
Topic for Book Club Blog:
For the two chapters you selected to read for this week, what is the ‘big idea’
or ‘take away message’ from each, and how do they help you think about offering
authentic learning opportunities in literacy across the curriculum in your
classroom?
Sarah, I also read chapters 10 and 14. I, like you, thought that they were very helpful with strategies to teach students how to get the most out of informational text and textbooks. If students are able to read with purpose then they will be able to gather and retain the actual important information within the text. When I have my own classroom, I will want to incorporate a lesson that teaches many of the concepts mentioned in these chapters, such as acknowledging headings. Some lessons that can be branched off of this can be how to properly read a table of contents, a glossary and appendices. These skills will help students in multiple subjects and will help them read with purpose.
ReplyDeleteMy post was deleted the first time I wrote it because I wasn’t “connected” to MSU wireless , so I don’t know if I included everything I wanted to.
Funnily enough i also read chapters 10 and 14. I thought chapter ten was amazing. it was full of ways to pay attention to the important parts of nonfiction texts. i liked all of the teacher examples used to help children focus on the important aspects of nonfiction texts. Chapter 14 was a great resource to help student and teachers get the most information out of text books. it had some very straight forward tips to organizing the best way to read a textbook. In the beginning of the year we had a textbook lesson for math. It was a whole lesson focused on finding information in the math textbook. this lesson could be adapted to any subject textbook.
ReplyDeleteoops, I got my weeks messed up and thought I was posting this week! one week off! My bad! But im just going to post what I had posted about what chapters I read as my comment, and good thing one of the chapters lined up to what you read!
ReplyDeleteFor this weeks post, I chose to read Chapter 10 Determining Importance and Chapter 12 Content Literacy: Reading for Understanding in Social Studies and Science. I found Chapter 10 to be very helpful. For years in school, students have always been asked to pick out most important information when they read, from highlighting essential ideas, to isolating supporting details, and to read for specific information. I am sure you have all heard that before and have even done it in your classes. An important detail I took note of was "we remember facts and details better when we link them to larger concepts. We separate what's important from whats interesting. Only after we sort and sift details from the important information can we arrive at a main idea." I guess I had never heard it put into words like that, and it completely makes sense. If I can relay this to my students in words that they would understand like this, then it might have a more of a connection to my students. The Chapter then went on to help teach strategies of "how" to sift and sort details.
One way that was a great strategy was to link reading and writing. Determining whats important when writing information can help further your thinking when you are reading. Throughout the chapter they emphasized reading to answer questions and reading for important information. Authentic reading experiences remind us that there are many reasons to read, often for the big ideas and for the details.
The last couple pages are what really resonated with me and what I want to incorporate into my classroom. Teaching with the End in mind: Assessing what we've taught. Determining Importance. We want to be looking for evidence that:
1. Students gain important information from text and visual features
2. students sift and sort the important information from the details and merge their thinking with it.
3. students learn to make a distinction between what they think is most important and what the author most wants them to take away from the reading
4. Students use text evidence to form opinions and understand big ideas and issues.
Chapter 12: this chapter shared some suggestions for ways to tackle the over-crowded curriculum and make it fun, interesting and active. Which is what we all look for!!! This includes cross-curriculum, developing practices and lessons that integrate content and comprehension in science, social studies, health, and geography. The authors noted that the more you allow kids to explore and delve into a topic, the more excited and enthusiastic they become, seeking more information as well as answering their authentic questions.
My questions is when thinking about content. It seems harder than it seems to create an environment for thoughtful content literacy instruction, when thinking about the different subjects.