Sunday, April 16, 2006

Teaching Tips

By: Jill Caton Johnson

Hello All--
Your next assignment is to read the teaching tips article, What Makes A "Good" Reader? Asking Students To Define "Good" Readers found in your packet.

Please do the following:

• Read the article and share any Ah Ha's
• Administer the questionnaire provided in your packet (modify to your grade level if needed)
• Reflect on what you learned and/or observed through this activity

Please click on comments the icon below to submit your thoughts.

2 Comments:

Blogger Sam Fuchs said...

I actually did the activity backwards. I gave my students the surveys and then planned to read the article before reading them. I was curious though so I looked ahead of time. I think it made the article more relevent. My students are third graders and the article talked about questioning fourth graders about reading. What I found was that my students put down a lot of what the students in the article had put at the beginning of the year. They listed reading with expression, reading often, loving reading, and the ability to use word attack skills as signs of good readers. At the same time they listed skipping words, reading too fast, not knowing answers and signs of poor readers. I thought they had some good answers but after reading the article I noticed that they did not list a lot of strategies when describing good and poor readers. I think this may be an area for me to work on is getting them to know the names of the strategies. I think we use them in class but they have a hard time explaining them. I was happy to see that none of the students said they were a poor reader.

5:34 AM  
Blogger Mr. Bretzmann said...

My high school students seemed to have two different ways of looking at the questions. On one hand they decided that the people who read a lot were the people who were good readers. They figure they read a lot because they are good readers, and they are good readers because they read a lot. On the other hand, those people who are good speakers are good readers. A lot of students had comments about hearing people read and that they were good readers because they didn't mumble. In total, it seems like they SEE people read books for enjoyment and assume that they are good readers because they see them reading. They HEAR people read in class and conclude that they are good readers because they enunciate and can be heard. My students didn't mention a lot of strategies that are listed in the article. They tended to think that poor readers aren't so good because they are distracted. Having noises nearby, watching t.v., or eating are things that make people bad readers.
I like the way the author of the article states, "...when you believe you have influence or control over an event, you can feel more confident in your abilities." I think that is important information for all students in all situations. If you believe you can impact something, you don't feel helpless, you feel confident that you can change it for the better.

6:28 AM  

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