Palmer, Jennifer
Sun, 25 Jan 2009 07:36:25 -0800
Mary I am glad you liked the staircase analogy. My coteacher and I were really pleased with how it worked. Here is a more complete description of how the lesson played out: The kids had read a bio of Dr. Seuss the day before with a buddy and we asked them to read with a question in mind...What does the author want us to learn? We gathered them all at the bottom of the steps in the back of the grade two commons and we asked them to read the first couple pages and tell what they thought the author wanted us to learn. Then we actually wrote it out on a sentence strip and taped it to the steps while the kids watched. We continued the process...and as one teacher guided the reading/thinking during reading, the other helped the kids develop a new sentence on a sentence strip and taping it down. I kept running down to the bottom and as I stepped up on each step reading our sentences. After about six steps I asked the kids what they were noticing. One student said that the story was "going up too." When I asked him to tell more...he said that as we were going on in Dr. Seuss's life, we were getting higher up the steps. THEN, the most serendipitous event occurred. Another teacher was coming down the steps. I asked her to as she came down to read what the kids wrote and tell what she was thinking. (TOTALLY UNPLANNED!) She did two steps and said..."Wait... this doesn't make sense!" You could practically hear the lightbulbs going off with the kids. They shouted to her "Start from the bottom!" They totally were getting the idea that the ideas needed to go in order from the beginning. Here are some exit slips for the question "How are biographies like stairs?" (Excuse the stretch spelling but it gives you the true effect!) "Each step you lern more..." "Because it dusnt make sents wene you go down" "You have to start at the bottom." "Because steps are growing and so is the persin in the book Jennifer Palmer Reading Specialist, National Board Certified Teacher, FLES January is Maryland Reading Month! "Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable!" -Augustine Birrell ________________________________ From: understand-boun...@literacyworkshop.org on behalf of mary mullin Sent: Sun 1/25/2009 8:49 AM To: Special Chat List for To Understand: New Horizons in ReadingComprehension Subject: Re: [Understand] text structures Thanks for sharing this way to explain biographies to children. My 2nd grade level has been struggling how to make biographies understandable. The image of a staircase is brillant and I know you referred to Peter's idea of the dresser. What makes this mail ring so special is that sharing a simple visual clue such as a dresser or staircase will make help teachers make different text structures accessible to primary students. mary On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 4:38 PM, <cnjpal...@aol.com> wrote: > I know Ellin believes it is important for students to understand how texts > are organized. A colleague and I are planning to use the analogy of a set > of > stairs to help second graders understand the chronological text structure > of > some simple biographies our students will be reading. We thought stairs > show > that the order of ideas matters when making sense of this kind of text... > and > how the ideas build...you see how the events in someone's life influence > later > events and while you can "jump the steps" to look at just a certain time > period in someone's life, you need to read from beginning to end to get > the full > picture of the significance of someone's life. Does that make sense? > > What do you all do to teach text structures with your students? > Jennifer > **************Inauguration '09: Get complete coverage from the nation's > capital. ( > http://news.aol.com/main/politics/inauguration?ncid=emlcntusnews00000003) > _______________________________________________ > Understand mailing list > Understand@literacyworkshop.org > > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org > _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list Understand@literacyworkshop.org http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
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