Great news to be part of something famous. Another story to share about all those comprehension strategies coming together.
I work primarily with struggling readers and have been rotating groups within our 4th grade classes all year. Right now I have just two students who have become fairly fluent as far as assessment goes, but aren't good at deep "understanding"? I was using Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting to practice making inferences before we went into some more difficult text. I was starting to ask a?scaffolding question?about the bird trying to get out of the airport, when one of my students?stopped me with this explanation of the page we had just read: "Oh, I know? - The bird is trying to get out of the airport just like the boy wants to. When the boy sees the bird fly out, it is exactly what the boy hopes he can do someday - leave the airport for a better life. The boy thinks he can be happy someday, like the bird is now. It is a symbol for the boy." I was speechless! I was finally able to turn to the other boy and say something like, "Did you get all that?" When you are close to the end of the year and worrying that you have not done enough, you appreciate signs like this one. Cathy K-5 DE -----Original Message----- From: Judy Mazur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Special Chat List for "To Understand: New Horizons in ReadingComprehension" <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:02 pm Subject: Re: [Understand] the "buzz" surrounding our listserv! Jennifer, I can almost see you buying those copies of ToUnderstand--and I'm smiling. And, of course, I love the "famous" part. I strive. That pretty much sums me up. I'm always surprised that my colleagues think of me as an intellectual, because I just think of myself as someone who wants to know AND wants to get better. I'd like to share a story from my classroom. You'll immediately see that it's not a direct stategy lesson. I hope you see how connected to past strategy instruction it is. My whole group strategy instruction is in Shared Reading, which I do every day. I only have Reader's Workshop once a week (because I do Guided Reading in that spot the rest of the week). For the last 3 weeks, in RW, we have discussed conflict in literature. With read alouds and discussion my kids learned about (1 per week): character vs. character, character vs. nature, and character vs. self. You'd be amazed how well my third graders grasped this concept. So, this week, I taught character vs. self then sent the kiddos off to do their independent reading. When I brought them back for Sharing, I shared the book I am reading (People of the Book) and explained the character vs. self struggle. Now comes the power of strategy instruction (thanks for hanging in this far): Eight-year-old Upasana shared: "This is my book. It's not fiction, it's a biography, but it has character vs. self. It's called (something--the life of Michelle Kwan) and Michelle wants two things. She wants to ice skate and she wants to swim. BUT she's afraid of water. Here...let me read this to you." At this point Upasana found the stickie she'd used to mark the page and read to us about Michelle Kwan's fear of water (the kids loved it because she said she even imagined sharks in a swimming pool). Then Upasana explained why that was really character vs. self (overcoming her own imagined fear). This is not a typical share in my class, but it is a tribute to Ellin Keene. I hope you like it as much as I do. I think it's very very powerful and it wouldn't have happened without trusting kids to think, TO UNDERSTAND. Judy _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
