Reading Strategies and Communities

Reading Strategies and Communities

            These two chapters, to me at least, really hit the point home when it comes to reading and learning.  In chapter 5 the authors go into how to make the students into the readers and writers we want them to be.  The book has told us that we need to get them engaged and get material that is relevant in the real-world.  After we do that the question is how to get them to become those readers.  In chapter 7 the authors go into making the classroom a community so that we can actually teach and the students can actually learn.

            In chapter 5 Daniels and Zemelman propose many different strategies that should be used when teaching students reading and writing.  As I was reading them I realized I did many of these activities without even knowing what they were.  One that I found that I do a lot of was the “Sketching My Way Through the Text.” (p.120).  When I read whether it was a history, English, or even a math assignment I would draw what I was reading, to the best of my stick figure ability, what was happening.  It might have been a castle from a story to understand the setting, or a map of a battle in history class it just helped me visualize what was going on.  I see in my kid’s homework.  They both draw out their math word problems.  Since it is Halloween season many of the word math problems focus on candy and monsters and to see her drawing the monsters and the candy out to figure multiplication really shows me how it does work.  The other one I found the most interesting was brainstorming.  (p.104). I have used this in my professional career when coming up with ideas from others to try to solve an issue, or how to increase one metric or the next.  You will get information from the group and like the authors state it will “help students realize what they already know about a topic…” (p.104)  I think this just helps the individual and the group as a whole.  The students will realize that they know more than they think and the will also see other ideas that they might not have considered.  I can see myself using this in a World War I lesson on nationalism and letting the students brainstorm how is nationalism showing up again in today’s world, like in Ukraine for example.

            In the next chapter we something that must be in every classroom a sense of community and a place that is conductive to learning.  A teacher can have all the strategies in the world and all the great intentions but if there isn’t that feel of a safe place to learn or of a place where there isn’t support, nothing is going to happen.  The authors go into many different ways to make the classroom a community, “a place where students feel to take the risks involved in learning…” (p.168). In my opinion one of the most important is getting to know your students and then relating their interests and their real life to the subject that you are trying to teach.  I’ve seen it in CF high and I’ve seen it in Gilbert Stuart Middle School that when a teacher really knows their students, it goes a long way in helping that student become a learner.  For example, when a teacher knows that s student has a game and they actually take the few seconds to ask them how they played and how the game went you can see in the student reactions and body language that the teacher actually knows something about me outside a grade book, they actually care.  It only takes a few seconds and it really is the small stuff.  I saw a teacher ask a student how her little sister was feeling as he knew she was sick.  Just asking that one question let them connect on a level beyond the classroom, which in turn makes the classroom easier to foster a community.  The authors state to know just ten things about each student and their lives and then connect it to what you are teaching. That connection will go a long way to making your classroom a community.