Read alouds have always been one of my favorites. I like how read alouds put every student on the same playing field. Since below level readers may stumble over words and struggle to get to the end of the paragraph, they generally do not worry about comprehending the text because their goal is to finish reading the text. However, when they are able to listen to the text being read to them, they do not have to worry about getting the words right. They are able to clear their mind and use their listening comprehension. Another key aspect of read alouds is allowing the students to communicate with each other about what was read. I like this because it allows students to feed off of each other. What one student got from the text may not be the same as another due to different background knowledge and experiences.
After reading the article, it made me realize how hard it is for elementary students to focus on the main ideas of a book because they pay more attention to the pictures. However, don't teachers bring this upon themselves? When introducing a book, do they not do a "picture walk" and ask the students to predict what is going on by looking at the pictures? Teachers condition the students to pay attention to the illustrations of a book to help them with the story so why would read alouds be any different? If teachers want the students to focus more on the text, then teachers need to teach the students how to hone in on important details. As a teacher, it is our job to teach the students how to think more in debt into the text. As the article started talking about questions to aid in comprehension, I thought about past experiences. Most teachers that I had in elementary school asked the one word answer questions and then praised us for getting it right. Then, they were content with thinking that we were comprehending what the story was actually about. I like how the article emphasized asking questions that stimulated critical thinking and then using student answers to come up with more questions to guide their thoughts. I also like that the article also stated that it is important to allow the students time to think about what was just read.
After reading chapter 4, I became more familiar with how to use read alouds in a secondary classroom. At the beginning, the chapter mentioned how important it was for the students to have a copy of the text or at least be able to see it. I also feel that is important, but I do not feel that if you are doing a read aloud that it is imperative for the students to follow along with text. As we saw in class last Tuesday, some people were able to comprehend the text being read aloud better because they had it in front of them, whereas others, were distracted. The chapter also mentioned allowing the students to talk about the text either whole group or small group. Again, I think that this is important because you get to see others' perspectives.
The chapter talked about a strategy called "zinger questions." The students come up with questions for other groups to answer. If the other groups cannot answer the question, then the group asking the question gets a point. I thought that this was pretty cool because it motivates the students and appears to be a strategy that forces students to learn without them knowing they are learning. Another strategy mentioned in the chapter that I liked was the peer tutoring. The reason that I like this is pretty simple: if you have to teach it, then you learn it 100%. Finally, I liked how the chapter stated that as a teacher, you cannot go into a lesson or in this case a book not prepared. In order to give your students the full benefit of a read aloud. Students know when a teacher is just winging a lesson and has not put in his full potential. This shows students that it is acceptable for them to do it, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment