Instructional Practices for Working Complex Text
Personal System
After reading Chapter 6, Buehl discussed personal systems. As a teacher this caught my attention. “The conversations among teachers frequently veers into, “Someone needs to teach theses students study skills.”(Buehl pg 221) I often hear this saying in the hallways. When I hear this it makes me cringe! I always want to speak up and say you are the person that should be showing/guiding these students “how to study.” Many people/teachers like to blame the parents, but do not take a step back and think that there might not be anyone at home to help these students. Many parents today work full time jobs or are from single parent homes. It is also difficult to teach a student how to study as there are many different study methods. What may work best for one student does not work for another. I know many of my students like to listen to music while studying and others like complete silence, some make flashcards and other just read over notes from class. Trying to teach students one way to study would not make any sense. He also mentioned personal systems that teachers refer to such as telling a student they are disorganized, “we are referring to personal systems for doing the general work of a student.”(Buehl pg 221) However, when a teacher talks about taking note, looking at charts, annotating and etc. these are appropriate for learning/understanding the material and being able to better remember the material that is/was presented. Teachers need to really watch what/how they say and present things to their students. Sometimes you are the only role model a student may have.
Annotating and Text Coding
I am a 4th grade teacher and my 4th grade team and I started to annotate with all of our students. It is a huge adjustment for our students, but once they “get into the swing of it” it becomes very useful. As a team we really started this last year. I myself really only focused on this skill during the reading period and when using the basal reader. I wanted to get myself and my students comfortable with our “new” system while reading. Since then, I have started using this coding system with novels. I have the students have their own packet of sticky notes. I started off slowly and only had the students write down the words they do not understand or what they had questions about while reading at home. This skill is important as it is used in all grade levels at our school. The students will be introduced to the basics in my room and as they move on in school the annotations will become more specific. This skill has been one way in which the other reading teachers at my school and I have been able to collaborate. I am building a foundation that they will continue to add on to through the years! I have not yet used the text coding codes from figure 6.2 on page 233. (Buehl) I will try this towards 2nd semester when the students have become more comfortable with this process. I will also have an anchor chart up so the students will be able to look up at the chart for guidance on the different codes that are being used. Recently, the skill I was working on was character traits with the students. While reading the novel, I would model where I found text evidence of the character trait from the reading. This also models for them how to find text evidence to support their answers. As time goes on, and I introduce cause and effect I would like to try and use the text coding model on page 246. (Buehl) I really like how the students can “prove” their answers while reading. This also allows for me to walk around quickly and see who had difficulty during the lesson.
Hello Suzanne,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post. I think you are absolutely right. We cannot blame parents because there may not be someone at home supporting the student. I feel like we need to take a step back and realize that students may not have it easy outside of the classroom. Teaching a student how to study is difficult because certain methods work with different children. I know that I like to study with music on, but others do not. It is all a personal preference. The idea of taking notes, looking at charts, annotating, etc. is a great way to help students comprehend and retain the material. Hopefully, the students will take those tools with them and use them when they study the material going forward. I am really happy you have your 4th graders annotating, it is so important to do. I feel like the majority of us did not get much experience with annotating until 7th or 8th grade depending on the school. The foundation you are creating sounds amazing. The students will be able to take that knowledge with them moving forward. The text coding codes in Buehl's text were very helpful. I hope to implement these when reading math texts, definitions, etc. Finding text evidence to support their answers is really helpful. I equate that to using appropriate theorems when proving a mathematical statement. I really enjoyed reading your post and hearing about your experience in the classroom!
I am glad you enjoyed reading my blog. I as well did not get much annotating experience until middle school. Having the students find text evidence is so important while "proving" theirs answers. Hopefully, next semester I will be able to help them even more with the strategies we have been learning in class.
DeleteI really like your post because so much of it is true. I know students who do not have the same help at home as other students do. Some students have a tutor and others don't. Some students don't even have access to a computer or the internet at home and not having these support tools puts them at a disadvantage. It is the same with assuming that all students learn the same way and take notes the same way. As teachers, it is our responsibility to show students they have someone in their corner and we need to show them tools and strategies and help them figure out what works best for them. I also think what you are doing to help your students get started with annotating is great because the earlier we learn a useful skill the better off we are. By introducing that now and building on it every year your students will be happy when they get to high school and college and their annotating and note-taking skills are propelling them to succeed. I think using the text coding idea Buehl introduces would be a great idea because it provides another step in building the foundation and enforces metacognitive thinking.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it is such a disadvantage for students who do not have access to a computer. With technology being ever changing, how are these students suppose to "keep up" with everything when they are not provided access? I agree that learning this skill now will better them in the future. Hopefully as time goes on, my students will become stronger with annotating different texts.
ReplyDeleteHello Suzanne,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you and believe it's crucial to teach our students learning strategies and study skills. I am aware that every child learns differently and that what might work for one child might not work for the rest. However, I believe it is still essential for us as educators to at least introduced our students to various techniques and strategies they can use. This allows students to choose the skills and techniques that work best for them.
I find it very interesting that you are teaching your 4th graders how to annotate at such a young age. I am glad that you are helping your students develop this skill at such a young age since this is an important skills that they will use for the remainder of their education. I really like the text coding model on page 246 and am thinking of using it in my future history classroom to teach my students cause and effect in history.
Hi Suzanne,
ReplyDeleteI think that it is awesome that you are introducing annotating at a young age. Annotating is such an important skill that most of us do not get introduced to until junior high or even high school. By teaching them this skill it will be easier later on and they can even see its importance if they have older siblings and see them annotating as well. I wanted to point out the importance of background. I am glad you brought up the fact that sometimes the teachers are the only role models students have. For that reason it is essential to teach the students study skills. Personally, my parents never really did much of schooling in Mexico yet once they got here they got their GED. That being said, they had so many responsibilities that they never really learned proper study skills so when my teacher would ask us how our parents used to study it was always rather hard to answer. It seems easy to assume that students all have the available assets at home to succeed but that may not be true. The inequity within our society leaves some students behind because of a lack of study skills and tools for success. I wanted to ask you how you introduced such skills to your students?
Suzanne,
ReplyDeleteI do agree with what you mentioned throughout your post.Every student has a different way of learning or studying. Take me for example, whenever I am doing homework, studying, and even reading. I often have a headphone in one ear listening to music. This works for me but give this to someone else and they might tell you that they get distracted by the music. So I do agree that its difficult to teach students different approaches. But I do think their has to be some teaching done on how to studying. Are their any specific ideas of studying that you teach your students?
I also think it's wonderful that students are learning how to annotate at such a young age. I think it becomes beneficial as they are prepared for high school and the bunch of annotating that is often done. I didn't learn annotating until 6th grade and I do think that impacted my thinking of annotating. Now in college their isn't anything I don't annotate so by having student build a strong foundation at a young age will definitely help in their future.