Transcript Document

2-14-13
Homework from last week:
Do any homework needed to allow you to finish your first book club.
Work on your formal paper (due Feb 28).
Keep reading. Read books you might use connected to your class, but
read some “recreational” titles, too.
Tonight: Books for recreational reading
Value of independent reading
Book talks
Book club discussion #1B
Book club reports
Why spend valuable class time on independent
reading, especially in a non-ELA class?
ADEPT Standards
APS 8 – Maintaining an environment that promotes learning
•Creates a safe physical environment that is conducive to learning
•Creates and maintains a positive classroom environment
•Creates and maintains a classroom culture of learning that includes
modeling positive interactions, including cooperation/teamwork/ respect
Literally hundreds of correlational studies find that the best
readers read the most and that poor readers read the least.
These correlational studies suggest that the more that children
read, the better their fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Report of the National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 12
It’s true that correlation does not equal causality, but these
and other studies, as well as common sense, suggest that the
act of reading helps students improve their…
…vocabulary,
…knowledge of grammatical and syntactical structures,
…general knowledge,
…endurance, and even
…writing (to include spelling, grammar, and style).
A larger knowledge base leads to better reading.
Consider this passage:
The hunter said, “There’s a grouse across that field,
maybe 100 yards away.” His friend said, “Well, shoot.”
Does “shoot” mean “take aim and fire,” or is it merely the
equivalent of “darn”?
Knowledge of hunting (or lack thereof) affects one’s ability
to interpret this text.
A larger knowledge base leads to better reading.
Daniel Willingham describes an experiment in which two
groups of readers – “good” readers and “poor” readers, as
determined by scores on a standardized reading test – read
a story about baseball and took a test about the story.
“Good” Readers
Familiar
with
baseball
47%
69%
“Poor” Readers
Unfamiliar
with
baseball
Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) can help create a culture in
which reading is expected , valued, enjoyed, and discussed.
Apparently, LHS had incorporated DEAR time (Drop Everything And
Read) once before, but a lack of faculty buy-in had crashed the program.
Knowing this, the newly formed literacy team put together a proposal that
addressed the faculty’s hesitance and “sold” the initiative. Luckily, the general
irritation about the [alternative] that was in place also made SSR an easy sell,
and when we took it to a vote, no one voted against it.
Now, our building is silent from 9:13 to 9:33 a.m. four days a week.
Almost every person in the building (including students, teachers, office staff,
and administrators) reads during this time. . . . There are kids in my SSR group
that openly admit that they would never read on their own time (and claim that
they have read few or no books since elementary school) who have read several
novels and enjoyed them. Last year, we saw a slight rise in reading scores, and
the library is enjoying much more frequent use.
Seth Mitchell, describing implementation of SSR at Lisbon High School
Conclusion: “Spending” classroom time on independent
reading both tells students that teachers value reading and
helps students become better readers – and better readers are
likely to be more successful students, regardless of the
content area.
To make independent reading (SSR, DEAR, or whatever) succeed:
• Provide interesting books (in the classroom, readily available).
• Provide regularly scheduled, uninterrupted time to read.
• Read with your students.
• Allow students to talk about what they’re reading.
BREAK
Following the break,
we’ll have book talks,
then have book club time.
Book Clubs
Continue your discussion from last week.
Each group should have a scribe. The scribe’s job is to record
the process: what you do, and in what order. The point is to
collect different models for how clubs might function. Scribes
will “report out” when we gather again as a whole class,
telling us something about your discussion.
For ONE of your three book club discussions, you’ll make
some sort of presentation, maybe with handouts or an artifact
of some sort. For the other two discussions, you’ll simply tell
us what you talked about, and maybe how you might use the
book(s) in class.
Discussion time = 30 minutes (or more, if you’re on a roll)
Book Club Reports
Content: Tell us what you talked about.
Process: Tell us how the discussion worked. (Did you assign
roles other than scribe? Did you assign topics as homework?
Did you speak in a particular order? Did the group have a
facilitator?)
Application to the Classroom: How (and/or “how well”)
would your process transfer to the classroom? If it would
need tweaking, what changes would you make? How might
you imagine using this activity in your own particular
classroom setting? in a different setting?
For next week:
Read as needed to be ready for
Book Club Discussion #2.
Work on formal paper as needed;
it’s due Feb 28.