Reading...not a fan

Throughout most of my schooling, reading was not a hobby of mine. I knew how to read yet I did not care to get any better. I can probably count on my fingers the times I read a book for school from cover to cover. I rarely ever read the text book. BUT, here I am wanting to be a teacher. Now I realize that reading is very important and it is involved in every content, including math (And I thought I was being sneaky in trying to avoid reading).

For this week and throughout the semester we will be shaping our definition of content literacy. For now, my definition is making sense of and engaging in reading, writing, listening, and speaking over all content areas. To develop a better understanding, we are reading a book called, "Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?" by Christ Tovani. I actually have to read it since I have to comment about it on this blog. As I read through the second chapter, I realized I was just like a girl Tovani described. I was always thinking, "why do we have to read this? or what is so important?" It wasn't until college when I realized that if I made things my own and important in my life, it would be easier to develop an understanding. What some of my teachers were missing was "making connections." 

Tovani describes in detail of the "So What" exercise she ran with her students. She would ask the student to make a connection to their life. Then she would ask them a follow up question: "SO WHAT?" Basically she is asking the student why their connection is important. I thought this was an interesting technique and I think it would work really well. From experience, the times when I made something relatable to my life helped me remember it later on. With this chart she and a colleague developed, we see that using a text, we then make connections, then ask a question so we can require our students to dig deeper. Then we ask, "how does this thinking help you better understand the text?" Which we then relate that back to the text. 

I feel that this process of thinking will help students take charge of their learning and make meaning with the texts they read. Though this is just one strategy for helping students to understand what they read there are many more which I hope to learn more tricks and strategies throughout my journey. 

After reading Tovani's text, I listened to a podcast where Joanne Deshawn was a guest speaker. Her area of focus was science. She described how texts can be used before, during, and at the end of the unit to enhance or summarize the unit. They can also be used to clear up many misconceptions. I like how she uses these types of strategies with even kids in first grade. She has them emailing or taking notes on specific things they are learning. When they are encouraged to write about what they learn, they foster a greater understanding of it.

I hope to be able to use some of these strategies learned this week in the future. Can't wait to experiment!