Friday, October 19, 2012
5 Reading Resources
Critique of Five Reading Resources
Mary-Lynn Miller
Wilmington University
Practicum III
1. Reciprocal Questioning (ReQuest)
Vacca, J.L., Vacca, R.T., Gove, M.K., Burkey, L.C., Lenhard, L.A., & McKeon, C.A. (2012). Reading and Learning to Read (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
ReQuest is a strategy that is used in many classrooms to help increase students’ reading comprehension abilities. This technique is free and easy to implement and there are many guidelines available for it online or in textbooks. The focus of ReQuest is to have students ask their own questions while they read so that they can critically assess what they are reading. Teachers first need to model this process before students can do it on their own. Modeling should include reading aloud and showing how you would develop your own questions about the text, or sharing your questions about a passage that students have read (Vacca et al., 2012). After modeling this a few times, teachers should begin to have students express their own questions about their reading. Students and teachers can go back and forth asking questions that range from critical thinking questions, to literal, inferential, or predictive questions. Once students have become comfortable with the process they will be able to work in reading groups where they take turns varying who asks the questions (Vacca et al., 2012).
A major strength of this practice is that it can be implemented at a variety of grade levels, content areas or with students of a variety of skill levels. Furthermore, this technique helps students learn how to ask critical questions while reading, which will not only aid in their comprehension, but will also prepare them for meaningful discourse about the text. I plan on using this technique with my Practicum student to help her keep track of her reading and to help her to look at the text more critically. However, this method does have some weaknesses in that it may be hard for students who are very behind in their reading skills to participate in this strategy. This strategy rests on students having some basic concept of what is happening in the text. If some students are really struggling, then it may be difficult for them to appropriately participate. In this case, it may be beneficial for those students to have more guidance and more practice, perhaps with the aid of a TAM teacher.
2. Story Mapping Activities
Reading Rockets. (2012). Classroom Strategies: Story Maps. Retrieved from: http:// www.readingrockets.org/strategies/story_maps/
Story mapping activities require the use of graphic organizers that can be printed for free off of many internet sites or that can be created by the teacher. Story maps are used to help students organize their knowledge about various parts of a story. These graphic organizers can range from very simplistic to very detailed depending on the type of material you are covering. Identifying and describing key parts of the text, such as characters, setting, problems and solutions, allows students to absorb all of the key details of the text, thereby aiding in their comprehension (Reading Rockets, 2012).
The strength of using story maps is that they can be used for any content area, grade or skill level. Simple story maps help younger or struggling students focus on just two or three main areas of text whereas more advanced story maps help students focus on character traits or plot details (Reading Rockets, 2012). Furthermore, the benefit of story maps is that they can be completed individually, in pairs, in small groups, or as a whole class. This flexibility allows teachers to easily add story maps into any lesson. Story maps are something that I believe will greatly help my Practicum student. I believe that having a place to organize facts about the text will help her to remember these important details and thereby increase her reading comprehension skills.
The weakness of story maps is that they will need to be differentiated to help the majority of students in the class. Some students may need to work with an aide before being able to work independently. Guidance can be given in the form of modeling or in having differentiated worksheets. Struggling students’ worksheets may have more prompts on them that give them examples of questions to answer, instead of just a blank place to write descriptions. This type of differentiation will take added time for the teacher, but will ultimately help all students.
3. Brain Pop, Jr., found at brainpopjr.com
BrainPOP. (2012). Brain POP jr. Retrieved from: http://www.brainpopjr.com/
This website has numerous activities for students in Kindergarten to third grade. On this website you can have students watch short, educational movies and then take quizzes, play games, or research more about what they have just watched. For reading and writing there are many movies and activities, including lessons on parts of speech, making predictions, writing skills, nonfiction texts, and more. Each movie moves at a slow to medium pace and includes characters and music that students will enjoy.
This website has many strengths, including ease of use and high appeal to students. Not only is this a great way to incorporate technology use into the classroom, but it will also appeal to students since it does not feel like regular learning. I plan on introducing my Practicum student to this website so that she can explore some learning on her own in a fun, interactive way. Other strengths of this program include the fact that BrainPop has a variety of other programs including one for older students and one for English language learners.
One major weakness of this website is that most content requires a purchase. There are some movies and activities on the website that are free, and all of the information for teachers is free, but the majority of student content is not. To purchase Brain Pop Jr, for just one classroom costs $145 for one year, while a school-wide subscription costs $1200 for one year. Although this is expensive, it offers a lot of possibilities for use for many classrooms.
4. Free Rice
World Food Programme. (2012). Free Rice 2.0. Retrieved from: http://freerice.com/#/ english-vocabulary/1557
Free Rice, which was created by the World Food Programme, is an online game that quizzes participants on vocabulary, grammar, and other subjects. Each correct answer delivers 10 grains of rice to needy families. This game is completely free and contains a variety of levels to incorporate participants of all skill levels, both young and old. Some have called this game “an opportunity to promote students' engagement with words while contributing to the social good” (Reading Rockets, 2012, para. 54). Students can play this game at home or in school to help improve their vocabulary or grammar skills. Furthermore, this game can be used as a regular part of class time, where students play as a whole group and discuss each answer (Reading Rockets, 2012). Students can keep track of their rice donations individually, or the whole class, grade, or school can get involved.
The strengths of this website include its ability to stimulate interest in learning and helping others. The appeal of doing something good for others gives players determination and motivation to play the game. Not only would this game serve as positive review for students, but could also support lessons from other content areas, such as social studies. I think that this game could be a wonderful addition to class time and I think that keeping track of the earnings of the class, grade, or school could be a wonderful way to promote learning and giving. Furthermore, since this game has a variety of levels, it has the capacity to support many different students.
The weakness of this game is that sometimes the questions can be difficult or include uncommon words. Even though this website asks questions of various difficulty levels, even the most basic level may be too difficult for very young students, English language learners, or others who are struggling. Extra guidance would be necessary to help these students, especially to ensure that this game does not add to their frustration with reading and language.
5. Text Connections
Vacca, J.L., Vacca, R.T., Gove, M.K., Burkey, L.C., Lenhard, L.A., & McKeon, C.A. (2012). Reading and Learning to Read (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Using the text connection strategy is a free way to further promote reading comprehension in the classroom. With this strategy, you teach students about three different types of connections that they can make to what they are reading. These three connections are text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world (Vacca et al., 2012). Text-to-self connections are those students make when something in what they have read reminds them of a personal experience they have had. Text-to-text connections are made when something in what they are currently reading relates to something else they have read, such as similar problems or characters. Finally, text-to-world connections are those that students make when they relate something in the story that they are reading, such as a problem or conflict, to something else in the outside world, such as moral issues. These final types of connections are more difficult and are usually reserved for older students (Vacca et al., 2012). Using these types of connections helps students further comprehend what they are reading since they are connecting it to other things that they know or have experienced (Vacca et al., 2012). This fosters a deeper level of understanding for the students and makes the learning much more meaningful and real.
The strengths of this method are that it helps students create meaningful connections to what they are reading. These types of connections foster their comprehension and make their reading more relevant and meaningful. I plan to use this strategy with my Practicum student so that she can begin to make valuable connections to what she is reading. I expect that by making these connections she will be better able to remember important parts of that story and will hopefully enjoy reading even more.
The weaknesses of this strategy are that it must be modeled well, and often, to ensure that students are using it correctly and effectively. For this reason it may be beneficial to have posters in the classroom that remind students of what the connections are. Furthermore, giving students a journal or some other way to write down their connections would probably help to ensure that this is a technique that students use often. Having strategies in place to make sure that students make connections with every book will ensure that they are getting the most out of this strategy.
References
BrainPOP. (2012). Brain POP jr. Retrieved from: http://www.brainpopjr.com/
Dalton, B. & Grisham, D.L. (2011). eVOC Strategies: 10 Ways to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary. Retrieved from: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/52248/
Reading Rockets. (2012). Classroom Strategies: Story Maps. Retrieved from: http:// www.readingrockets.org/strategies/story_maps/
World Food Programme. (2012). Free Rice 2.0. Retrieved from: http://freerice.com/#/ english-vocabulary/1557
Vacca, J.L., Vacca, R.T., Gove, M.K., Burkey, L.C., Lenhard, L.A., & McKeon, C.A. (2012). Reading and Learning to Read (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Article Summary and Reflection
Instructional Method Article Summary of
“Integrated Reading and Language Arts Instruction”
By, Robert J. Stevens
Mary-Lynn Miller
Wilmington University
Practicum III
Recognizing the common decline in reading and writing skills and academic motivation among middle school students, Robert Stevens and other researchers attempted to implement a new method of instruction to help combat this problem. Stevens’ experiment worked to measure the success of a new program called the Student Team Reading and Writing (STRW) program among disadvantaged urban middle schools. This program combines reading and English instruction in a new way that focuses on the use of high-quality literature, cooperative learning groups, and explicit reading comprehension instruction, as well as the consistent use of writing and other meaningful tasks, such as discussion (Stevens, 2006). This program proved successful in the trial schools although it is unclear how successful the program would be if it were immediately implemented across the country.
It has been frequently observed that there is a “significant downturn in many indicators of students’ learning and motivation” (Stevens, 2006, p.1), especially in areas of reading and writing, during the middle school years. This decline proves troubling, since strong reading and writing skills are important not only for language arts, but in other content areas as well (Stevens, 2006). It has been noted that the structure of middle school instruction is “unresponsive to the development and needs of students” (Stevens, 2006, p.1) and therefore needs to be addressed and reformatted.
Stevens describes the introduction of the Student Team Reading and Writing (STRW) approach as one method of remodeling middle school design. The STRW program focuses on reorganizing reading and English classes to follow six main goals. These goals are to combine reading and English classes, to use high-quality literature, to use meaningful instructional assignments, to explicitly teach reading comprehension, to put a great deal of focus on writing, and finally, to frequently use cooperative learning (Stevens, 2006). Each of these methods has been shown to have a positive impact when used individually, so the researchers wanted to observe what sort of effect their combined use would have on students’ performance (Stevens, 2006).
Firstly, combining reading and English classes would result in one longer block of time used for literacy instruction taught by one teacher (Stevens, 2006). Since these subjects often have a lot of overlap, integrating them allows for flexibility, more growth opportunities, and more opportunities for engagement. Secondly, in this class teachers would use an anthology of high-quality literature. Normally these are books that students would only encounter during English class, yet here they are being used to teach reading comprehension while also serving as models of outstanding writing (Stevens, 2006). These books provide students with examples of excellent literature and should serve to help motivate the students to read and inspire them to write (Stevens, 2006).
Another important facet of STRW is the focus on “meaningful instructional tasks” (Stevens, 2006, p. 3). With this program students should be fully engaged in a variety of discussions and written activities that pertain to the text that they are reading and that help them extend their comprehension of those texts (Stevens, 2006). Using high quality literature, students can frequently stop to discuss the plot, characters, predictions, literary style, and the like, all of which aide in their comprehension and engagement, without them simply filling out an unrelated worksheet. Furthermore, students can ask their own questions and then work to answer them using the text and the classroom discussions to find answers.
Although these types of meaningful instructional strategies will surely aide in students’ comprehension, it is also important to the STRW program that teachers explicitly teach reading comprehension strategies to the students. This requires teachers to teach students about text structure as well as teaching strategies to help them comprehend difficult and unfamiliar parts of text. Stevens notes that “teachers should not only teach comprehension strategies, but should also apply them in content area reading” (2006, p. 3) since this will help students realize how to use those skills across a variety of content.
Additionally, STRW focuses on the importance of writing as part of language arts instruction. Teaching writing to students means giving them strategies for planning and composing their writing. These strategies in turn will help students become more motivated to write and results in writing that is longer and of better quality (Stevens, 2006). Students need to focus on using language to express their ideas and are able to do so through a high quantity of writing activities. STRW also focuses on having students share their writing with one another. Sharing writing helps focus on the power that exists for students to serve as role models for one another. Students who try new things in writing will inspire their classmates to try these new things as well, which will ultimately help strengthen all students’ confidence and writing abilities (Stevens, 2006).
Finally, STRW focuses on the use and importance of cooperative learning. Research suggests that “students who do not develop positive peer relations...are much more likely to drop out of school” (Stevens, 2006, p. 4). Cooperative learning helps students develop these important peer relationships and thereby helps them to have a stronger attachment to school. Furthermore, cooperative learning helps students become engaged with the material in unique ways. This type of learning focuses on group goals, where every member of the group must participate and succeed (Stevens, 2006). These activities develop a “positive interdependence” (Stevens, 2006, p. 4) within the group which helps all members to support, motivate, and accept one another.
This integrated approach was tested in five middle schools consisting of grades six through eight in large, disadvantaged urban schools on the East Coast. The summer prior to implementation, all participating teachers went through training on the program and the processes. Once the school year began, teachers were observed and received a lot of coaching and feedback regarding their use of the instructional model. As the teachers became more proficient with the program, the coaching decreased (Stevens, 2006).
Overall, the study showed that the students in the trial schools achieved higher test scores than students from comparable nearby schools that did not participate in the STWR program. When tested at the end of the year using standardized testing, the students in the STWR program scored higher in reading vocabulary, reading comprehension, and language expression (Stevens, 2006). Researchers conclude that this indicates that “such curricular and instructional changes can lead to significantly higher achievement” (Stevens, 2006, p. 8). However, Stevens adds that more research needs to be done on the program to see how it will work in various other schools and with various amounts of support and coaching for teachers.
In my opinion the changes made by the STWR program seem as though they would be effective methods to include in the language arts curriculum. Although I never thought about having reading and English as combined classes, the researchers’ reasoning makes sense. One combined block that focuses on literacy instruction seems as though it would be more effective than two isolated blocks that may waste time overlapping instruction. Instead, filling a larger amount of time with meaningful learning seems like it would do more to thoroughly engage the students.
Using high-quality literature seems like a great way to get students motivated to read and to get them familiar with high quality writing. I have read other research that suggests that it is beneficial for all readers, even those struggling below grade level, to read high-quality, complex texts, which adds to the appeal of the usage of this type of literature selection. Furthermore, I agree that having these rich examples of writing will serve as positive motivation and inspiration for students and may help them to discover a hidden passion for writing and/or literature.
Furthermore, I agree that cooperative learning will greatly help students to succeed academically and socially. Working as a team will provide a necessary sense of community in the classroom and will help students become more confident in their abilities. Additionally, the researchers’ comments regarding the high risk of dropping out of school among students without positive peer relationships is critical. Without positive interactions at school, students may find it easier to simply give up. However, we cannot accept that as an option for our students. By working to have them foster healthy, strengthening relationships with their peers, they will be more motivated to learn and have more confidence in their abilities.
Despite all of the positive gains made by the STRW program, it is important to note that this trial was successful due in part to the great amount of collaboration between teachers and researchers. In a more widespread version of this program it may be impossible for teachers to get the amount of training, coaching, and observation time that the teachers in this study received. For those reasons, it will be important for more research to be done on this program to isolate what key features are most critical to its success. Once the program is more streamlined then it may be able to be adopted by a large majority of schools. Until then, the program does shed light on important methods for use in the classroom which many of us may be able to incorporate until more is researched on the program as a whole.
References
Stevens, R.J. (2006). Integrated Reading and Language Arts Instruction. Research in Middle Level Education Online, 30 (3), 1-12.
My Prezi
Hope you enjoy my prezi!!
Tonight in Practicum 3 we learned about Lexile levels, BRI testing, and more!
We also looked at this helpful website: https://www.teachingchannel.org/
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