Ladies and gentlemen, I want to officially welcome you to the on-line discussion of To Understand: New Horizons in Reading Comprehension. Just as so many of us have come to understand the importance of giving our students time to talk about their reading and wrestle with the ideas presented, we now have the opportunity to give ourselves that same powerful learning experience. We have members all around the country and a few international members. There are folks in a variety of positions...classroom teachers to administrators to reading specialists to staff developers. We have folks who teach primary age students and those who teach at the college level with every level in between. We are also very lucky to have the author Ellin Keene, on the listserv with us. With such a diverse group, we have the potential for some great discussion. For everyone to get the most out of this experience, I am going to present a few guidelines for discussion. We need to set up a trusting environment where folks feel they can respectfully disagree, ask questions, or present an opposing point of view. -Seek first to understand and then to be understood. When you disagree with someone, ask questions first before expressing your opinion -Be courteous by listening (in our case reading) everyone's comments carefully before responding. -Be sensitive to people's feelings as you make your contributions to the discussion. -Assume responsibility for your own professional growth. The more people who move from lurking to posting, the better our discussion. There are a few other very knowledgeable ladies who are helping me with moderating responsibilities. They will introduce themselves as they post. We are going to spend two weeks on a chapter, at least to start. If we find that discussion slows down too much after a week, we may adjust that timing a bit and speed it up or work on two chapters at a time. For the next two weeks, let's begin with the Prelude and Chapter One. I'd like to present a challenge to the group. As we read, or reread this initial chapter, let's turn off that 'teacher voice' in our heads at first. Read the text as a reader. Consider what the ideas presented mean to you as a reader first. Think about your own intellectual life and your own struggles to understand the concepts Ellin is presenting to us. What is it looking like in our minds as we work to understand? We certainly do want,also, to think about how this impacts our teaching and it is certainly okay to share those practical thoughts on the listserv. After all, we do want to create classrooms where children understand! But instead of jumping to that point right away, let's see what happens if we take a metacognitive approach as we begin the discussion. I look forward to hearing from you! Jennifer Maryland Moderator of the Mosaic listserv, and one of the moderators of To Understand
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