Weeks 8 & 9
Questioning is one of the hardest things to teach. Students do not really have trouble asking simple questions that deal with minor details in the text. What is difficult for them is asking the highter level questions. Questions that deal with the WHY?, COULD?, SHOULD?, WOULD?, IF?. This level of questioning or inference if extremely difficult because to ask these sorts of questions the students have to be able to 1) read the material and 2) comprehend it. If they can do both these things then getting to the higher level of thinking can be accomplished. I am not saying that students who are lower readers can not perform higher level thinking but they struggle with it becuase they are still fighting just to read and understand.
I have found that one of the best ways to help students with higher level thinking is to make comparisons between what they are studying and something about themselves. If they can put the familiar into their studies, they can make those leaps that are required with these types of thinking skills. In addition to making comparisons, I also use graphic organizers as a strategy to break apart the material and look at a large subject in small pieces. This is extremely helpful to students who feel overwhelmed by a difficult subject or passage. I feel that the most important element of higher level thinking is taking the material in small chunks. That way the students can focus on one or two elements rather than one hundred.
Vocabulary is somethig that teachers have to work around all the time. I know that my fifth grade team is constantly thinking up new ways to help students in their knowledge of finding vocabulary and understand it. Using context clues is the most important part of decifering vocabulary but getting the students to look at the right clues is difficult. I was reading another strategy book called Words, Words, Words and it said that most vocabulary,even with the use of context clues is difficult. They said that if you already know the meaning of the word, it is easy to see the clue that explains the definition. I never really thought about it before, but it was right. So since then, I have tried to look at understand vocabulary in context from the point of view of an immergent reader. That is really difficult for me. I have been giving the students strategies to help, such as, prefix and suffixes, finding root words, and just read more. Because the truth of it is that reading iis the best way for students to improve their writing, comprehension, and vocabulary.
I felt good because I already use most of the strategies in the book Classroom Intruction that Works..... Through Exll I have recieved a lot of great ways to teach reading, writing, and comprehension to my students.