In a message dated 5/14/2008 8:53:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, CNJ PALMER writes:
Thanks Ellin and everyone! Some great ideas... I will try them all and get back to you with how they work. I have continued to think a lot about these deep structure and surface structure systems and trying to reflect upon what I do well and what I need to upgrade with my students. I had heard of these deep and surface structure systems briefly from discussions on the Mosaic listserv and also from a handout from one of Ellin's presentations a colleague brought back for me last summer....but it wasn't until I read To Understand that I started getting a better picture of what all this means. As I reflected on my teaching, I realized that the lexical system was one weakness for me. The idea of getting a kid to "take a mental picture" was very helpful. I also love the idea of allowing my little second grader to teach this to his class... a great way to get start experimenting with the idea of a reflection session and a great way, as Ellin says, to move him from victim to being in control of his own learning. I think that might also be a key to unlock his issues with motivation. The other weakness for me is the pragmatic system. It was a goal for me this past year to really increase the number of times kids talk to each other about their reading and also about their understanding. But now I am thinking I really didn't understand, until now, the reason why this was important...and maybe I still don't get it. I feel like if I am going to use this language to talk about these systems with kids, I need to understand them deeply myself and I am not sure I am getting the pragmatic one yet. Can you all help me out? My old, falling apart Merriam Webster dictionary from college defines pragmatic as "1. Of relating to practical affairs and 2. Concerned with the practical consequences of actions or beliefs." So... that leads to the idea that the pragmatic system involves using what you have read...the application part. Is this about deeper understanding developing because you apply what you read or is it gaining enough understanding TO apply it... or both? I was thinking both but isn't this then just the concept of 'dwelling in ideas'...a dimension of understanding? When I asked my fourth graders today how working with a partner to decide on what was important in their Rocks and Minerals book helped them to understand their reading, was that teaching the pragmatic system? I understand why talking with someone about your reading is the pragmatic system, but I am confused as to why rereading and deciding what is important is part of the pragmatic system (see the appendix). I had hoped that by writing this post, I might start clearing this up for myself, but I think I am confusing myself even more. LOL... I just realized, by writing this, I am using the pragmatic system, aren't I? But it isn't helping me just yet...I need all of you! :-) Jennifer In a message dated 5/13/2008 8:54:12 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Greetings everyone - I'm delighted that you're really into the meat of the book and hope that it sparks some great new conversations. The kinds of issues you describe are becoming more obvious given that we have over-emphasized phonics under Reading First and NCLB. I'm in a district in southwestern NY this week and we have lots of similar issues and it gets worse at middle school, believe me!! I know this will sound a bit crazy, but I would suggest that you confer with this little guy and explain that there are 3, not one but 3, surface structure systems. Yes, I would use that language and tell him why. The 3 systems are called surface structures because they describe the parts of language we can see and hear. Tell him what is involved in each and invite him to teach the others - tell him you may have forgotten to fully inform everyone about all three (oooops!!!) and that you think it's high time you tell the kids that there are really 3 ways, not one, that we identify words and read fluently. Tell him that he gets to be the teacher and once he feels that he has a good grasp of what all 3 systems do that he gets to teach the other kids!! I think you have to take him out of the role of the passive, almost victim-like learner and put him in charge! I talk to kids about the lexical system as a kind of "big camera in your mind that takes pictures of the words you sound out so that you never have to sound out a word more than once." The issue with kids like this isn't that they're sounding out (and I know you weren't implying that), it's that they're sounding out more than once which makes them disfluent. So many teachers, and apparently, tutors, believe that the grapho-phonic system is the key to reading fluency when, in fact, the lexical system is really key to reading fluency. Certainly we want kids to have the skills to decode a word, but we don't want them to have to do it more than once. We want an "imprint" of that word in visual memory so that when they encounter it again, they recognize it, visually, instantly. All I'm suggesting here is that we just tell them that. Let's be explicit with them about the 3 systems they need to use in order to read fluently and identify unknown words. Then we can be explicit about the three systems they need to understand. We know what it takes to read well. . . I vote we tell them!! That's what I've done in similar circumstances - I think I know what's about to happen to him (and the rest of your kids) but I'd sure like to hear you describe it here!!! **************Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? 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