I’m understanding more and more that reading is paramount to the success of any individual in a public school. I want to learn more strategies on how to help the students who struggle with reading. An educator should know why their student is struggling with reading. Maybe it’s a disability like dyslexia or maybe they aren’t interested in reading in general. Some students get distracted or misinterpret the text, which frustrates them and may cause them to hesitate the next time they have to read.
So what can teachers do? Well, one idea that I really like is to use visuals. Pictures help me a lot in biology, especially when talking about processes or mechanisms of action. Reading about something like meiosis is good information and useful, but seeing the picture of each cell and every step is crucial to understanding the process. This visual aid would be best used during or after reading. However, I think visuals could also be things like graphic organizers. On page 285, we hear about Lisa MacArtney’s freshman biology class. To introduce vocabulary, she uses a graphic organizer that is divided into three parts so students can list the vocabulary, connect to background knowledge, and list their questions. This is a great way for students to organize their thoughts and process information. It also gives them the space to geometrically visualize what is going on.
Another point that Daniels and Zemelman touched on is self-monitoring. I want my students to be able to do this, but I think this needs to be heavily modeled with gentle introduction. Also, hearing about how students wait for the teacher to say the right answer made me wonder why that is. What makes an answer “right?” Typically for questions that are knowledge and comprehension based, the right answer is the one that the book says it right. Students don’t get to see how the book decided that was the right answer. They don’t know that fact is in the book because (at least for science) the vast majority of scientists support that fact. They also don’t get to see how people arrived to supporting that fact. I think this is where the modeling needs to happen. If students can see the process that goes on to determine whether or not an answer should be defined as right, they will be able to do that on their own, in their own heads, and thus will become much more independent and inquisitive learners.
Nick I wrote about self-monitoring as well. When reading it I wondered about the modification, accommodation lecture we had in 433. Would you call self monitoring an accommodation?
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ReplyDeleteLike you, I am a very visual reader, especially in the sciences (I can't tell you how many times I drew out the Kreb's cycle in my intro to bio class). I am constantly drawing out scenarios because it just looks so much better on paper! I think this would be a good strategy for struggling readers with a balance. We cannot just disregard their struggling because that wouldn't be good either (I wasn't implying you would). But, with some sort of balance I definitely agree with visuals.
I like how you stressed the question of "what makes an answer right?" I like that. I'm sure you could totally implement a lesson on this idea based strictly in the sciences. Have them prove their own fact or try to disprove a fact in the book. Believe it or not, you can really find a lot of mistakes whether it be online or in the text.
Hey Nick, that was a nice observation on “what makes an answer right.” I didn’t pick that up when I read it, but it is central to the idea of asking questions. When they understand how these answers were arrived at, it gives context and deeper understanding. I remember my placement for FNED 346 was at Mount Pleasant, and that was a constant challenge. Many students just wanted to know the answer, but had difficulty when you asked them why.
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