Mark It Up

I've always loved opening up a textbook and having highlighting, side notes, and left over post its from the person who last had my book. They're giving me their insight along with the text itself, and then I can add my own side notes. But what is the point of "marking text"?

This week, while reading Tovani's text "Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?" I was able to explore why marking text is so helpful and important that we teach our students to do so in the right way. She tells us to have a conversation with ourselves about something we have read. For example, if there was a quote in the book that I liked, I would highlight it. I then could ask myself questions in the margin. Some questions could be...what does this quote mean? What are some key words? What was the writer feeling when he/she wrote this. That way when I go back to look at it later, I have more than just a quote highlighted. If there is no space for my questions, that's when sticky notes come in handy. They're colorful and add more space for us to develop our own thoughts. After we've asked questions, we can also write our opinion. Then, Tovani says that we should communicate what we've found with a partner. I think this is beneficial to find out where we are at. I could say my views and my partner would critique me or state their opinion. That way, we can develop a dialogue about the text we've just read.

I noticed something else from Tovani's book that I thought I would definitely use. I've used them before in my course. They are called Double- Entry Diary. But this time there was something called QUAD-ENTRY DIARY! It was great! Tovani shows a great example of one used for algebra. It would be a great tool to review for a chapter test or even a final. The students were able to clear up misconceptions and see what they really knew or what they needed to review. Here is a picture below.
I hope to use something like this to help my students with an overall understanding.

I loved this section because I found two really great things to use. I wanted to finish by quoting a poster said she saw. The poster read, "Individually we are smart. Collectively, we are brilliant. I think this quote shows how important exchanging and dialoguing with each other can be. We can each learn something from someone else. I hope to print out this quote and use it in my classroom because I think as humans we are social beings. Working together we will develop better social skills and push each other to find a deeper understating of the text.

~The Teach Fairy

I've Been Thinking...How Can I Give My Students a Better Understanding

So I've been thinking...how can I give my students a better understanding of the words that they're learning. I researched some websites for content literacy in a math classroom. I found this great slide show that really helped me find some great ideas. The slide show was called Growing the Connection Between Mathematics and Best-Practice Reading and Writing Strategies with Jennifer Kosiak, Sue Schumann, Ann Harry, and Bonnie Jancik.

We as teachers need to scaffold on our students knowledge by activating their prior knowledge. They talked about a few great exercises but my favorite was called word splash. So the students would be presented with these words as shown below.

Now, it's the students' job to find the connection between the words. How are they related? I think this is a great activity to use because making connections allows us to process information better. It allows students to be creative with their connections and truly think about the importance of each word and how it relates to the others.

The next activity I found in the powerpoint, was called the Teacher Generated Anticipation Guide. This basically helps your students when they are reading a text about math. I will write a couple statements that I think could be controversial or that I think are important. The students will check off if they agree or disagree with my statement, before they start reading. After reading, they have a chance to change their opinion. 

I think this is a nice quick activity. It could be used as a formative assessment to see where our students are at and then how they change their opinions after reading.

The next activity I found in the powerpoint would help with vocabulary. I'm sure many of us have played with a puzzle in our life. They are pretty fun and can sometimes be challenging. We can use word puzzles to help our students have fun while reviewing important information. Here is an example of it below, as seen in the powerpoint.

The last activity I found has to do with comprehension strategies. The first one shows a concept map of all the things that reminds a student of addition. This will help them show all the different ways it is used. The second picture is a cool map that shows a concept of definition map about subtraction. I think this one is really cool because it discusses the definition, similarities and connections we can make, it also shows the concept and gives examples or illustrations. Here are the two examples.

I think I will definitely use these in the classroom. I think they are great tools to help review for tests and show a breakdown of important concepts. 

So since I was thinking about how to help my students understand better, I figure that these strategies will help them to build on prior knowledge and expand for the future, along with having fun:).

~The Teach Fairy

"Why Am I Reading This?"

I think "why am I reading this?" is a question we often ask ourselves at school. We don't really know the importance of this topic and we end up reading a whole section of a book while thinking about "what mom's cooking for dinner." Or at least...this is what I thought about.

After reading Tovani's Chapter 5 of "Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?" I realized that it is our job as teachers to make the importance of reading known to our students. Tovani mentions a child that associates good reading with fast reading which is something I think a lot of kids struggle with. I know that when I was little, I didn't want to read out loud in class because I was a slow reader and in my mind, that made me a bad reader. But, this is not the case. If we as teachers, can assign purpose, students will reading as they search for something and pay more attention to what we, as teachers, want them to know rather than them trying to remember every little part in the text.

So now we have a big question: What do I teach? And what do I leave out? I feel like all teachers debate with this question. There is so many things that we could all cover but not enough time to do so. So I will ask you this question my fellow fairies, HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHAT TO INCLUDE?

Tovani mentions this great instructional focus sheet. And frankly, I'm obsessed. I like that it asks simple questions and I feel like I could definitely use this sheet to help plan my lessons. Here are the two examples that I would love to use. The first is a math teacher and the second is a science teacher. But the questions asked are simple and to the point. For myself, I would want to make a couple copies every time I make my students read an article or when I am planning for my math unit. That way, everything is right in front of me and I think about how my students will react to the topics presented.

Tovani says, "If we don't help students pill out essential information my giving them a purpose for their reading, they will often get lost in the extraneous details." I love this quote because I think it defines our job as teachers. We are trying to make their life a little easier because stressing them out with too much text is only hurting them. "A clear instructional purpose can greatly improve a treader's comprehension." She has proof that this works so I plan on trying my best to make my students' lives a little overwhelming from the reading and getting down to what is important. I'm not saying that I will not have my students reading because I do think reading is incredibly important. But what I am saying is that I will give them tools to help the reading become tolerable and comprehensive.

~Your Truly, 

The Teacher Fairy