Week 12: Reflection # 1
Reflect on your response to Jeff Wilhelm's Improving Comprehension with Think Aloud Strategies: Modeling What Good Readers Do.
posted by Susan A. Garr at 7:43 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
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6 Comments:
Jacqueline Aessa
Title: Jeff Wilhelm's Improving Comprehension with Think Aloud Strategies: Modeling What Good Readers Do.
I actually liked the strategy of “Stop, Ask Fix: Student Checklist”. It is very helpful in math since math subject is like a building block. If you don’t understand the basic you can’t continue building. Therefore, I would recommend to my students that if they don’t understand a concept, try to break it down to smaller concept and try to understand each of them.
I will also recommend to them and will show them how to relate the concept that we are learning to our world and daily lives. There is nothing better than a practical example to understand a concept. It helps us associate the theory with the application in the world.
when one is really proficent in a given area, it is often hard to model, or better put copy it. It is hard because they are so good at it, they might,never had used a reading strategy in their life. They may never had to ask for help, or use a study guide, after all it is easy for them. Sometimes the best teachers are those who struggled themselves. They will know what strategy to employ, what questions to ask,what study guides to use. How to overcome a challenge. Students must know what strategy to use when they struggle. They should know if they are a visual learner, they should use stop ask and fix it. It is easier for the teacher to anticiate the students struggles if they themselves have struggled themselves. noah clarke .
THINK-ALOUDS
Modelling reading strategies is a fantastic way to assist poor readers enter the "grand conversation that is reading." As a good reader, I know that I do these strategies, but because they are second nature to me, modelling them becomes a challenge. Seeing Wilhelm's examples of think-alouds helps me "make visible" the strategies that I use naturally.
I particularly like his Watch the Teacher Sweat strategy. By showing the students that even good readers struggle with new, unfamiliar material, it lets them know that reading is always a process and strategies always have to be used in order to make meaning.
I do know that the "making visible" part will be a struggle for me until I get some more practice with it. I started doing some if it this semester while tutoring, and I know it helps. I just need more practice at vocalizing my own strategies in order to model them.
As I read this article a light bulb went up. For a long time I considered myself to be a good reader. This article made me recall (painfully) the times I had problems reading. I realized I found material I enjoyed reading a lot easier than reading a material I did not like. When I ran into this problem I realized how the article so clearly described the condition of my mind. I got frustrated and even angry at not being able to understand the material before me. I am fairly well read and have a wide area of interest thus the number of times I faced the problem described above was rare. This article also made me reflect how a child would feel if he or she consistently ran into this problem. I realized how this article and the all the reading strategies discussed so far in this class can be beneficial not only to struggling readers but also people like me who occasionally run in this problem of comprehension when we are forced to read material that we have either no interest or prior knowledge.
In the article he spoke about many techniques, my favorite was showing how a good reader can also sometimes struggle . I think this strategy has a dual advantage. First the obvious one, is it show how even a good reader can have problems. The second advantage I believe if far more important. If the teacher truly reflects on how it feels to struggle, then the teacher undergoes a personal growth as a person and a teacher. Empathy is a great quality for a teacher. This exercise forces teachers to confront what they may not want to.
Shentil
REFLECTION TO WILHELM EXCERPTS
The sections that we were provided out of Wilhelm's book seemed to be practical and applicable, but a little redundant with what we have already learned. It is good, though, to hear this stuff over and over, to hammer it home, and to see it written out in an exact example. I found it to be a quick read and had many things that I can use in an English course.
The "Before Teaching" and "Before Reading" sections at the beginning made me reflect, "Isn't this a good approach for any lesson, any content area?" Goals need to be stated and context given for any learning exercise.
I really liked the "6. Following Up" on page 92, the suggestion to create a personality profile for People magazine. We used a strategy that was similar to this and the "Drama scenario" listed here—Interviews with Role Playing.
When the chapter discussed Marvin, I jotted in my margins that it is important for teachers to encourage students to create and develop as they read. It is ok to stray from what the text directly states; certain "daydreaming" is ok. I witnessed such a bad situation in observing a classroom recently—the reading text had a story and then questions about an old lady who took care of the children in her neighborhood. One of the questions presented was clearly an inference question, and I think some students got that but were not strong enough in this area to stick up for themselves. The teacher said, "It's in the text! Look for it!" and insisted that the answer could be found in the text. The one multiple choice was something that was listed in the text, but it DID NOT answer the question at hand, but WAS RELATED. The correct answer WAS NOT in the text, but was inferred. When a student read from the text the part that included the wrong answer, she said this was correct. I could feel the confusion, but it was almost as if they did not feel like they could question her since they were the ones struggling with the text. I wilted!!
These think-alouds can be applied to math through "reading" numbers, and reciting the math located in a story problem.
I didn't like the word replacement strategy. If a student truly does not know a word's meaning, and replaces it with the same part of speech, and thus it makes sense, the meaning of the sentence can change drastically. This would be good if they thought they knew what it meant but simply needed to clarify.
I loved the explanation of putting the students in the experts spot and putting the teacher in the learners spot. This is reciprocal teaching, to me!
Great hands-on information in this reading. Quick, to the point, and I enjoyed it!
Wilhelm – On Track Again
This is another great read from Wilhelm. The amount of information in this short excerpt is mind-boggling. I believe there are approx. 14 techniques and or strategies that could be used from this article in relation to teaching reading.
For myself, the most important thoughts and ideas from this article were the ideas concerning students seeing the teacher modeling their own struggles with new text. Our goal is to create interested and life long readers of our students. To do this our students need to understand that we have all struggled to become a better reader in our lives. I can relate this to myself in becoming a better teacher. I don’t know how many times I have been overwhelmed in preparation of lesson plans and grading, thinking I was the only one in this situation and so not a very prepared or organized teacher. Only to ask some colleagues about their situations and find they are struggling in exactly the same areas.
I believe it is necessary to be constantly modeling strategies for students so they can see how they can be used by even an expert reader. I also liked the, Stop, Ask and Fix: Student Check List. I might reduce this list in the beginning so students will slowly master strategies and hopefully they will become second nature. I think the list, as a whole is somewhat overwhelming for a student, especially a struggling reader.
The last part I thought was really important his ideas about helping students understand that all text is not reader friendly and can be written for a particular audience. Because of that they need to understand that some prior knowledge could be necessary to comprehend these texts and that they should seek help whenever possible under these circumstances.
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