Sunday, April 16, 2006

Learning From Comprehension Research-
Critical Understandings to Guide our Practices
Chapter 2 by Nell K. Duke and Julia Moorhead Reynolds

In your syllabus packet on yellow please read chapter two and reflect on the following key questions:

1. Of the seven cricital understandings, which do you see reflected in things you are already doing/have done in your classroom? Which need more attention?

2. What do you do/have done in your classroom with vocabulary instruction? What could you do to enhance word consciousness in your classroom?

2 Comments:

Blogger Sam Fuchs said...

As I read through the areas where I felt I was the strongest were:
#2 The Importance of Related Skills and Dispositions
I think I try to tailor the work to the student so that they can feel successful if they are a low reader or if they are a good reader can find enjoyment in what they read. Making kids feel good about reading is one area I think that can be overlooked.
#3The Importance of Volume Reading
I am always telling the students that good readers read all the time. They are expected to be reading all of the time as a result.
#4 The Potential in Discussion of Text
We have good discussions in class. We try to focus on the how as opposed to the what. Despite this I still feel my questioning could improve even further.

I think with the following I could improve:
#5 The Effectiveness of Explicit Instruction in Coomprehensive Strategies
I think that I model these and we talk about them as we read but I don't have enough lessons where the focus is the strategy.
#7 The Importance of Authenticity
I think a lot of what I read does not always relate to the outside world. We do use trade books quite often but the other samples listed I do not use enough or at all.

As far as vocabulary instruction I focus on the words that the students need to fully understand the readings. Sometimes I give some background knowledge before the reading. Other times we look for the word in the text or deal with the word when we run into it. We try to use context to figure them out at these times. Sometimes we do use the dictionary however. In science and social studies there is a lot of new vocabulary in the reading so we do activities that the students have to use the words. Also they are repeated often to get them in the students mental vocabulary.

1:32 PM  
Blogger Mr. Bretzmann said...

Of the 7 critical understandings, I see the following reflected in what I do in my classroom:
#1 (when I tell students what to look for and focus on in their reading), #3 (so that they don't just "search and destroy" to find the answer, I almost always give the reading assignment first and the writing assignment after they have read), #7 (I try to include as much authentic reading as possible). The following need more attention: #1 (we don't predict enough), #2 (in class, in the department, in the school: there is not much in terms of being exposed to the words mulitiple times in multiple meaningful contexts through an integrated curriculum), #4, #5, #6. Apparently, we just sit around and talk about the weather in my class!
I have a couple of strategies that I have used with vocabulary instruction, but nothing that I do consistently to teach vocabulary. Mostly, I try to incorporate the vocabulary into what we're reading and talking about while using it in the proper context once it is introduced. We don't usually have time to take each word and spend enough time with it. It turns out to be more about putting it into the context of everything else that is going on historically. I used to do a word of the week and my students responded favorably to it although it was rarely related to history. One week it was a new word like scintillating and the next week it was the origin of a word like decimated. They liked the etymology a lot. And they liked a lot of the new words because I took notes during Dawson's Creek and used their words. I didn't need to put it into my own sentence because I just quoted the characters.

4:39 PM  

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