The chapter on read alouds and shared readings had a lot of great information. I really enjoyed seeing how other teachers use different techniques to accommodate their students in their various levels of reading. I love how the authors described shared reading as an “instructional bridge between the teacher-directed read aloud and student-directed independent reading” and brought it back to Vgotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Theory. However, I felt that the next part of the chapter was a little inconsistent when they said that the “text should be at the independent or instructional level of the student”. Since Vgotsky said that children should be given new information that is just above the level that they understand and should be given support to learn the new information, why are they being given text that is on their current level? Shouldn’t the text be at the level just beyond what they are on currently?
In the example this chapter gives on Lee Mongrue and the book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I really like that he uses literature circles to help differentiate instruction for each of his students. It was really helpful to see the author take the reader step by step through the process of a shared reading and a DR-TA so that it was clear what it will look like in the classroom. I think it is important as well to go over the steps of the DR-TA while telling the students the kinds of thinking strategies they need to be using during the process. It makes it clear to the students what they are supposed to be doing and breaks down the activity into specific steps. Speaking from my own personal experience, it is easy to get overwhelmed with a task if it is too broad. It helps to have the teacher direct us to think about our thinking so that an activity can be broken down into smaller, more manageable tasks.
You're ahead of the game. I'll pass out a copy of the article for this week Tues, so if you would, just synthesize (notice the DOK 3 verb :)) the Fisher and Frey ch with the article. Due Thurs. Thanks Rachel, Dr B
ReplyDeleteHey Rachel,
ReplyDeleteFinally I found someone who had already posted for the week! I too liked the part about the child’s zone, and thought about the zone of proximal development. I think that the challenging material should for the most part, be read by the teacher to the students. What the students read independently should be on their level; again that is for the most part. I saw some inconsistencies in the article we read, about pictures in the book distracting children from the reading. Before, I had always been told that pictures aid in comprehension. I guess the research shows that there is an exception to every rule.
I am with you about having a task that is too broad. I’m not sure if it’s a “girl thing,” but I have trouble making decisions sometimes. I like having choice, but give me an idea or somewhere to start to narrow it down! It seems like the non-traditional writing assignment is going to be broken down into manageable parts, from what I have heard about it.