Upon reading chapter 1, I was reminded of all that I learned last semester. Dr. Boyce taught us almost all of the topics in chapter one, focusing mainly on comprehension. It is useless for students to read if they are not going to comprehend what they read, and chapter 1 is full of various strategies on how to improve comprehension in the classroom. The strategy that I enjoyed reading about most was probably reciprocal teaching. I feel that this method would be a fun and easy way to improve comprehension in the classroom and is a method that could easily be taught and implemented into every reading assignment in any subject. Reciprocal teaching allows students to become independent learners by teaching them to ask questions, clarify concepts, summarize what they read, and make predictions or inferences as they read. Reciprocal teaching is one of many strategies that will improve students' reading comprehension in all subject areas whether reading narrative or expository texts.
Chapter 8 was about writing to learn. Writing to learn is not the same thing as learning to write. Focusing on learning to write uses process writing as an instructional approach. Learning to write uses three different kinds of knowledge (declarative, procedural, and conditional) which ask the questions "what?", "how?", and "when or why?". Just as there are many strategies to comprehend reading, there are also many strategies to being a good writer. The topic in this chapter that interested me most was the "Using Writing Prompts" section. I can remember using writing prompts in high school as reflections to assignments or lectures that had been done in the past. There are many different types of activities that can be used to make writing prompts fun and exciting but also very effective. Overall, chapter 8 covered some great topics on how to improve writing in the classroom and there are several strategies that I will use in my classroom.
Hey Ashley! These readings reminded me of Dr. Boyce's class last year as well. I feel like these chapters were mainly a review of what we have learned mixed in with a few new ideas. I enjoyed seeing the different writing ideas explained in chapter 8. I too plan to use some of these in my future classroom. Reciprocal teaching is also one of my favorite strategies. I liked the example of the titanic writing assignment that was described in the book. For me, these examples really helped me see how these strategies can become more natural rather than a procedure. I hope to begin getting more comfortable with these strategies this year
ReplyDeleteAshley I completely agree with you about reminding you of Dr. Boyce's class last semester because when chapter 1 started talking about reciprocal teaching I was reminded and had a "flashback" if you will, of her classroom and what we learned. In chapter 8, I really like the writing prompts as well because it guides the students in writing as well as the teacher. There were some great ideas in the chapter of having quick writes and what not like when they enter the classroom, leave for the day, etc. I really liked reading your post because I agree with you girl!
ReplyDeleteHi Ashley! I totally thought the same thing about Dr. Boyce's class when I started reading through the reciprocal teaching section in chapter 1. It is definitely an awesome strategy that gets students working together and building comprehension. I even thought back to Dr. Hanna's class last semester when we did the Jigsaw assignment and worked as a group to teach each other sections of the book. I think that's really neat how our teachers introduce these strategies to us and how memorable they are to us all. Also, I can remember doing writing prompts in high school as well and how helpful they were for me now that I look back on it. Overall, great post! Very interesting and relatable! Hope you have a great day and see you tomorrow!:)
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