October 19, 2009

The last several times I have read with students, I couldn’t help but think about Socratic methods. I was at a utilizing technology seminar during your seminar at the social studies conference, however I do enjoy finding articles on this subject. It does seem that if there is one belief educators – young and old, phonics- and whole-word-advocating – all can support, it is that students gain true comprehension when they reach a point of aptitude when they can teach another.

I would love to build skills at implementing small-group reading and writing lessons, with students working effectively together and expanding their comprehension with thoughtful conversation. It is very enriching to witness students not only helping each other in reaching understandings, but deepening the understandings along the way.

I also have been paying closer attention when students are using strategies in addition to phonics. The Mason article last week mentioned a teacher who asked the students to predict the time-era of the read-aloud book based on the illustration. I thought that was a nice way to predispose their minds to recognize the types of words that might correlate to the story, based on the subject and time period. I might also try asking the students what words they would expect to hear. It seems like usage of multiple strategies – contextual and subject-association – along with phonics supports the Socratic concept of understanding, not simply recognizing.

Reading

In Reading to Kindergarten Children, Mason, Peterman and Kerr discussed how beginning readers gain comprehension skills and some early understanding of language concepts from daily teacher read-alouds. The article described three different types of read-alouds -- storybooks, texts and picture books -- and the techniques teachers used for them. With all types, teachers were intentional about telling the children what to be thinking about and listening for during the reading and about employing follow-up activities to help children make connections between story elements and their experiences.

Mason and his colleagues noticed that teachers varied their introduction and during-reading strategies. While they spent time discussing settings and characters and asking prediction questions in story- and picture-book readings, teachers appropriately focused on demonstrations and prior-knowledge evaluation during textbook readings.

I was particularly interested in one teacher's strategy to foster observation skills by having the students comment on what the cover illustration told them about the setting -- climate, time period (long-ago or present-day), etc. -- of the story. It does seem like that would help nurture early learners' surroundings awareness as well as deductive-reasoning skills. My dyad teacher will often cue her students by saying, "Fifth-grade detectives, where will you find..., or how will you know..." I think that is another great example of encouraging students to be keen and observant.