I taught reading. I had a mini-lesson everyday followed by conferencing with my students. I started with questioning. We talked about different ways to keep track of our thoughts. I had my students explain ways they used. Then I had students brainstorm other ways to keep track of their questions. Many students said they write them on sticky-notes. Many students also said they don't go back to their question after they write it down. Many students said they don't really do anything with their questions. We suggested some ways and I asked students to try one method we brainstormed. I felt like my lesson could have gone a little better, so I added more to my second day.
I went back and talked about questioning again. This time I decided to read a picture book to my class and have them write down their questions. We made a T-chart with questions, answers, and evidence. I asked my students to support their answers using evidence from the book. My students took well to this idea, as we had a large group discussion about questions and answers from the picture book. I had students continue to try to use this type of organizer during their reading. My class continued to use the question and answer organizer for our classroom re-aloud book. We are still using it as we read.
The majority of my lessons were based around using evidence to support their thoughts. We talked about how their thoughts change as they read and how this helps them to tell the story. We used another organizer for this lesson, which took up the majority of my lessons, to help my students chart their thoughts.
My students have used a lot of organizers during the course of the year to help them throughout their books. The one thing I noticed when conferences with my students was that many of them decided to try out our new organizers while reading their personal books. I think many of my students have found a liking for the question and answer organizer.
One of my favorite lessons was called Kitchen Gadgets. I brought in a handful of different kitchen utensils such as a bottle opener, cheese grader, nut cracker, and many others. I had my students work with their table groups and observe the objects. They were able to guess what the object was and use evidence to support it. For example, the bottle opener, many of them said they had one in their home, or it had grooves to help grip a bottle. My students said they had a great time with the activity and they really used their evidence to support their answers. We had a great group discussion about the different objects.
I talked to my mentor teacher and I will continue to teach reading from now on. I am very excited that my lesson's went well. I am also excited that my mentor teacher enjoyed my lessons.
I love that you did conferencing everyday with your students. We are having a hard time finding time to conference with our students on a regular basis due to the fact that we have to follow a genre unit, which is very specific. What are some of the things you work on with your students during conferencing? I’m working on focusing on strength for each student along with something they should concentrate on working on and improving in their writing. Do you conference just writing or do you do reading conferencing too? I’d be really interested in hearing how you conference for reading. I think strength and something to improve upon could possibly work well for that too. I love that you give your students sticky notes to write questions that they have during reading. For my genre unit all of the reading we do is read alouds by my students or myself. I think it would be great to have them use sticky notes while I’m reading to allow them to better discuss the chapter after we read it aloud. We also have been concentrating on using the 6 strategies of a good reader such as making connections, synthesizing, visualizing. The students are doing a great job with these strategies but they often have to go back and look through the story to remember where these strategies were useful to them and I think it would be great for them to have the sticky notes to write down when they use a strategy so they remember to share with the class when we finish the read aloud. I know you said that sometimes your students are struggling with what to do with their thoughts and questions about the reading. Maybe you could tell them before reading that they will have to share with a partner and ask their partner to help them with one of their questions. Students usually love working with partners and at the same time this will make them realize that they need something to share with their partner so they will be more likely to engage themselves in the reading and be sure they do pay attention to their thoughts and questions. I also like your T-chart idea. I think that’s a great way to have a class discussion that also gives your students a strategy to use when reading on their own. How exciting that your students are using their organizers that you taught them when reading their personal books! That’s always a great feeling!
ReplyDeleteYour Kitchen Gadgets activity sounds wonderful!! That is such a creative way to get students to really focus on using their evidence to help them understand something and support their findings with evidence. It also helps them to work on their observation skills, which connects science as well. I will definitely keep this idea in my head for when I am working on evidence with my students. I think activities like these are very important in teaching because the students enjoy them and learn a lot of them at the same time. Hands-on activities don’t have to be just in science, which is what many people think. I’m glad this went well for you!