Showing posts with label Tanny McGregor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tanny McGregor. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Questioning Chart
This one is thanks to Tanny McGregor's, Comprehension Connections. It's very straightforward and very helpful to my students!
Monday, January 16, 2012
Questioning
Asking questions as we read..my kids were shocked to discover we are questioning all the time. Questioning can be seen as scary. How often has an inquisitive 5-year-old been told to "Stop!" or "Be quiet" when they are on a "How come?" rant. Kids don't easily forget all the times they were shut down when they were knee deep in those never-ending questions!
As so it goes. Kids go to school and answer lots of questions, but when and what do they ask? I think that's where this strategy comes in to play! We begin by showing our kids that they are generating questions all the time whenever they are reading. Every time a child struggles to put down a good book they are questioning, "What will happen next?" It's hard to put down a great book when you don't know the answer and you have to find out the answer!
Questions in reading? Begin by teaching your students that they should be asking questions, all the time. Let's help build their curiosity as readers and thinkers! Second, sometimes the best questions have no answers. These are questions that encourage us to think deeply about life and the world around us. These are questions to ponder. Third, although I don't require my students to record their thinking about this strategy all the time, I do talk with them often. I like to find out what they think, what they wonder, what they disagree with, and what they want to do next.
Tanny McGregor introduces this strategy with a great sensory experience, holding and asking questions about a rock. It's a great idea! When I read her idea for the first time, I thought of a social studies strategy I'd learned from a education professor parent a few years ago. Are you doing Artifact Analysis in your social studies classes? If not, stop reading this and go here instead: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/artifact.html. Artifact Analysis has transformed my teaching in social studies! We use this idea to study specimens, objects, etc., all related to a particular time in history. There are many options for document analysis and artifact analysis on the National Archives website.
Studying the rock and asking questions is a lot like the artifact analysis, it's document analysis or artifact analysis for reading! She also suggests bringing in an unusual food, such as quinoa, for students to question and eventually try. I would recommend bringing in sardines! All of these concrete experiences get kids thinking about questions!
Questions: get kids to wonder, question, express uncertainty or confusion, ask what if... Work with kids on artifact analysis, the work they do will translate into other academic disciplines!
As so it goes. Kids go to school and answer lots of questions, but when and what do they ask? I think that's where this strategy comes in to play! We begin by showing our kids that they are generating questions all the time whenever they are reading. Every time a child struggles to put down a good book they are questioning, "What will happen next?" It's hard to put down a great book when you don't know the answer and you have to find out the answer!
Questions in reading? Begin by teaching your students that they should be asking questions, all the time. Let's help build their curiosity as readers and thinkers! Second, sometimes the best questions have no answers. These are questions that encourage us to think deeply about life and the world around us. These are questions to ponder. Third, although I don't require my students to record their thinking about this strategy all the time, I do talk with them often. I like to find out what they think, what they wonder, what they disagree with, and what they want to do next.
Tanny McGregor introduces this strategy with a great sensory experience, holding and asking questions about a rock. It's a great idea! When I read her idea for the first time, I thought of a social studies strategy I'd learned from a education professor parent a few years ago. Are you doing Artifact Analysis in your social studies classes? If not, stop reading this and go here instead: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/artifact.html. Artifact Analysis has transformed my teaching in social studies! We use this idea to study specimens, objects, etc., all related to a particular time in history. There are many options for document analysis and artifact analysis on the National Archives website.
Studying the rock and asking questions is a lot like the artifact analysis, it's document analysis or artifact analysis for reading! She also suggests bringing in an unusual food, such as quinoa, for students to question and eventually try. I would recommend bringing in sardines! All of these concrete experiences get kids thinking about questions!
Questions: get kids to wonder, question, express uncertainty or confusion, ask what if... Work with kids on artifact analysis, the work they do will translate into other academic disciplines!
Monday, January 2, 2012
Schema
Schema is a confusing word and most people in education-students and teachers alike-think it's a weird word! Why could't we just say, "thinking" since that's what it is anyway?
So how do we teach our kids to think as readers? I think the first thing we need to do is teach our students that they are thinkers as they are reading. Even if they're reading directions for their Xbox Kinect, directions on how to build their Lego Harry Potter castle, the back of the cereal box, they are thinking!
I typically begin my reading lesson on Schema by taking my kids to the back filing cabinet. They are always so confused and invariably think I'm taking them over to give out worksheets (which I find interesting since I don't use worksheets that often). We begin by talking about how the filing cabinet is like our brain, it holds files just like our brain holds files-the more activities we experience, the more museums we visit, the dance lessons/soccer games...they all add files to our brain. For example, every time I learn a new dance step I add a "document" to my brain's dance "file." Students are totally fascinated by this information and spend the next few weeks telling me every times they are adding a file, or adding a page to the file! "Mrs. Perrien, when you told us that today about multiples we added a new file to our brain's cabinet!" **I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I heard it back when I was student teaching. To this day I teach the mini-lesson every year!
The next day we continue talking about schema by creating Tanny McGregor's reading salad. This is brilliant! Click here to find the directions for the reading salad and readymade "text" and "thinking" tags for building the salad. (I think you have to scroll down a little bit for the reading salad.) The book I used this year was Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto. This book keeps the students' attention and it has lots of places to stop and think aloud about the story. As explained in the book I use a bowl and student volunteers put in "text" and "thinking" tags as I read and think aloud from the story. The most important message we walk away with at the end of the two days is that schema is thinking and we are thinking all the time!
After these two lessons we begin documenting our thinking in our reading journals. Students make a T-Chart detailing "text" and "thinking" and keep track using their reading workshop novel. We share thoughts, thinking, ideas with reading partners, in small groups, in large groups...for several days. Additional mini-lessons include Text Connections, the Concentric Circles of Connections (Again, from McGregor. It's a way to teach text connections at a deeper and more meaningful level.) The reading journal response starters for schema include, "That reminds me of..." "I have a connection to..." "I have schema for..." (These are also from McGregor.) My students are usually most attracted to the T-chart when documenting their schema.
All in all, by the time we are finished discussing schema my students are considering it at a much deeper level!
So how do we teach our kids to think as readers? I think the first thing we need to do is teach our students that they are thinkers as they are reading. Even if they're reading directions for their Xbox Kinect, directions on how to build their Lego Harry Potter castle, the back of the cereal box, they are thinking!
I typically begin my reading lesson on Schema by taking my kids to the back filing cabinet. They are always so confused and invariably think I'm taking them over to give out worksheets (which I find interesting since I don't use worksheets that often). We begin by talking about how the filing cabinet is like our brain, it holds files just like our brain holds files-the more activities we experience, the more museums we visit, the dance lessons/soccer games...they all add files to our brain. For example, every time I learn a new dance step I add a "document" to my brain's dance "file." Students are totally fascinated by this information and spend the next few weeks telling me every times they are adding a file, or adding a page to the file! "Mrs. Perrien, when you told us that today about multiples we added a new file to our brain's cabinet!" **I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I heard it back when I was student teaching. To this day I teach the mini-lesson every year!
The next day we continue talking about schema by creating Tanny McGregor's reading salad. This is brilliant! Click here to find the directions for the reading salad and readymade "text" and "thinking" tags for building the salad. (I think you have to scroll down a little bit for the reading salad.) The book I used this year was Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto. This book keeps the students' attention and it has lots of places to stop and think aloud about the story. As explained in the book I use a bowl and student volunteers put in "text" and "thinking" tags as I read and think aloud from the story. The most important message we walk away with at the end of the two days is that schema is thinking and we are thinking all the time!
After these two lessons we begin documenting our thinking in our reading journals. Students make a T-Chart detailing "text" and "thinking" and keep track using their reading workshop novel. We share thoughts, thinking, ideas with reading partners, in small groups, in large groups...for several days. Additional mini-lessons include Text Connections, the Concentric Circles of Connections (Again, from McGregor. It's a way to teach text connections at a deeper and more meaningful level.) The reading journal response starters for schema include, "That reminds me of..." "I have a connection to..." "I have schema for..." (These are also from McGregor.) My students are usually most attracted to the T-chart when documenting their schema.
All in all, by the time we are finished discussing schema my students are considering it at a much deeper level!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Visualizing
It's been a few weeks, I'll admit. Teaching full-time, PLUS weekend teaching, the MEAP (Michigan standardized tests) at school, parent-teacher conferences, report cards, family illness, a family wedding, volunteering at my kids school...well, you get the picture.
Regardless, I hope to catch up on my reading lessons. So tonight I'll talk about visualizing.
Whatever skill level my readers (skill level tonight is defined as a Running Record score) I spend a few days covering the strategy of visualizing. I feel that this is the most critical and basic skill. Every other strategy is difficult without the ability to visual the reading. Visualizing is defined as painting pictures in the mind, running a movie in your as you read the book, activating the senses, and being able to "see" the story. (Sources: Strategies That Work, Mosaic of Thought)
I believe it's important to reteach this skill each year, to make the kids aware of it once again so they are practicing the skill deliberately. We began by practicing to music. We listened to a song twice, the first time listening with our eyes closed to visualize the song in our minds. Tanny McGregor recommends using the song, "Grandma's Feather Bed," by John Denver. We used this song in our classroom and shared our images using the class document camera. It's a great song for the activity! Everyone's interpretation was different and unique. Next, students practiced with their own song over the weekend. Everything from AC/DC to classical came back the next day!
From there we listened and visualized to our class read-aloud, 101 Ways to Bug Your Friends and Enemies. Once again, everyone shared their unique mental images. We finally moved to practicing the strategy with our own independent reading books. From there, the visualization strategy became a strategy we could independently choose as a reader's notebook response.
What if your students struggle to visualize? Use songs more often and also poetry. Do the strategy WITH your students and share your images, thus teaching your students how you see a story. Pull out key words from the song, poem, or story and tell how they would assist in creating the mental image. When your students are more proficient, move to practicing this strategy with non-fiction. It's important to make this move (when they're ready) since students are exposed to more and more non-fiction as they progress through the grades.
Finally, teach your students to visualize and create mental images. It's a critical skill!
Regardless, I hope to catch up on my reading lessons. So tonight I'll talk about visualizing.
Whatever skill level my readers (skill level tonight is defined as a Running Record score) I spend a few days covering the strategy of visualizing. I feel that this is the most critical and basic skill. Every other strategy is difficult without the ability to visual the reading. Visualizing is defined as painting pictures in the mind, running a movie in your as you read the book, activating the senses, and being able to "see" the story. (Sources: Strategies That Work, Mosaic of Thought)
I believe it's important to reteach this skill each year, to make the kids aware of it once again so they are practicing the skill deliberately. We began by practicing to music. We listened to a song twice, the first time listening with our eyes closed to visualize the song in our minds. Tanny McGregor recommends using the song, "Grandma's Feather Bed," by John Denver. We used this song in our classroom and shared our images using the class document camera. It's a great song for the activity! Everyone's interpretation was different and unique. Next, students practiced with their own song over the weekend. Everything from AC/DC to classical came back the next day!
From there we listened and visualized to our class read-aloud, 101 Ways to Bug Your Friends and Enemies. Once again, everyone shared their unique mental images. We finally moved to practicing the strategy with our own independent reading books. From there, the visualization strategy became a strategy we could independently choose as a reader's notebook response.
Finally, teach your students to visualize and create mental images. It's a critical skill!
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