Read Alouds

I feel that this article made some wonderful points, but had WAY too many examples.  I was really rather bored with it by the third page.  It was difficult for me to figure out exactly where they were going with their examples.  However, once I muddled through them, I found that they were basically saying that students rely too much on pictures and do not actually think about what is being read within the text.  If a story tells of a little curious monkey going to the circus for the day & the teacher asks "what do you notice about the monkey?" the children will more than likely say that he is small or brown or likes bananas.

Today in clinicals, my mentor teacher read a short story to the students.  There were not any pictures for them to predict from.  When I later asked a student what the story was about, she was able to quickly give me a correct summary from the read aloud.  I have never thought about pictures taking away meaning from a book before.  Teachers need to learn how to read their students so as to ask probing questions for them to relate their own schemas from as well as how to decipher important text from the not so important.  Students need to learn how to not rely on pictures as much as the actual text to help them break down the actual point of the story.

Writing to Learn & Chapter 8

I found this article to be very intriguing.  Most grade levels focus in on learning to write, not writing to learn.  However, Knipper and Duggan promoted writing to learn in their article.  Basically, if a student understands a subject well enough to compose a well-written essay about it, he/she will have a better understanding of the content. Students can even begin writing before they read the material.  They can make predictions, form hypotheses, and ask questions in written form which uses strategies in beginning to write to learn.  I agree that teacher feedback is extremely imperative when students are growing in their writing skills. Students need to have an idea of what they are expected to learn from their writing.  Chapter 8 in our textbook discusses the process of writing - prewriting, drafting, peer review, revising, editing, final draft, and publication.  Sure students need to know how to get from prewriting to publication, but using all seven of those steps every time a student writes something can get a little tedious.  I did like how chapter 8 broke down the three main types of knowledge in writing; declarative, procedural, and conditional.  Students need to know what type of learning they are looking for when they begin their writing.  Are they wanting to write out directions to build something or are they explaining how something works? Writing to learn allows students to demonstrate and prove to themselves that they know what they are writing about.

Moss Article

I agree with Moss in her article concerning content literacy.  It should be introduced to students much earlier than fourth grade.  Students are having difficulty trasitioning from minimal instructionary text to large, bulky, confusing textbook materials.  Many students, myself included, tend to "shut-down" when presented with heavy reading material that they may not completely understand.  It is always much more enjoyable to read a novel over a chemistry textbook.  Students should be exposed to and taught how to decipher through content literacy.  Also, most of the state tests are dripping with content readings.  How are students expected to be able to determine what is being asked of them when they do not have any background knowledge of breaking down heavy materials? Teachers should be integrating content literacy throughout the elementary grades.  This doesn't mean to give a first grade student an algebra textbook, but simply to add to the child's schema that not all reading is done simply for pleasure and to help the child grow in deciphering how to break down textbook information.