So I realized I am so behind on my posts. It's not that I haven't been reading, but I guess I have been mulling over all the different information I have been getting about literacy and learning in the class. It is all new to me and I am finding myself reading and thinking about how I am reading all at the same time. Then I think about how to apply these new concepts and theories on literacy into my teaching bag of tricks. It is so much easier and more convenient for me to mentally fall back on the methods I was taught myself (oh, so many years ago). I will have to consciously veer from that framework and be vigilant.
I don't know. It is definitely hard work to figure out all the strategies I use to read different genres. And now we get transactional theory in teaching reading and a whole new way to look at literacy! I love it. Talk about brain overload!! I am processing as fast as I can.
So I'll return to the book and the framework for apprenticeship teaching model next post.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Reading Apprentice Framework Part One
"Reading is not just a basic skill." It can not be learned in one fell swoop during elementary school and then assumed to be completed. It is not just decoding words in a text and then being able to comprehend meaning automatically. Mental processing occurs while reading and takes in a readers point of reference to the text and their background concerning the information they are reading.
Reading complex text, or text containing complex ideas, will often entail many stops and starts, backtracking, and trying to infer meaning of unfamiliar words through context. A mental framework, or gist, of the text will emerge as you use strategies to monitor your understanding the author's intent. "Reading is problem solving." The reader makes sense of the text not just from decoding the words of the text but by applying their own memories, and thoughts being evoked by the words.
So "fluent reading is not the same as decoding." Fluency requires a good vocabulary and quickness in decoding but that is only the base. Fluency varies across genres and students need to have many chances to experience a wide range of texts with support and encouragement.
Not all readers, proficient or otherwise, will have fluency in all types of reading. But they do share some characteristics and habits with each other.
Reading complex text, or text containing complex ideas, will often entail many stops and starts, backtracking, and trying to infer meaning of unfamiliar words through context. A mental framework, or gist, of the text will emerge as you use strategies to monitor your understanding the author's intent. "Reading is problem solving." The reader makes sense of the text not just from decoding the words of the text but by applying their own memories, and thoughts being evoked by the words.
So "fluent reading is not the same as decoding." Fluency requires a good vocabulary and quickness in decoding but that is only the base. Fluency varies across genres and students need to have many chances to experience a wide range of texts with support and encouragement.
Not all readers, proficient or otherwise, will have fluency in all types of reading. But they do share some characteristics and habits with each other.
Motivated
Engaged
Socially active with reading tasks
Monitoring their process
Reading is a socially mediated process. This social-cognitive process is learned by participating in mediated activities with Masters who support learners in the areas in which they are not fully competent while still challenging their growth. This method of learning is considered cognitive apprenticeship. The proficient person engages the learner's interest in the activity and provides insight into the hidden or overlooked strategies needed to complete the task. Hidden or cognitive elements of the task need to be made visible for the learner and demystified.
Schoenbach etal. believe that habits and characteristics of skillful reading can be taught but not by transmission (instruction, practice, independent use) but through interactions throughout many different levels of classroom life. The reading apprenticeship model requires an environment of apprenticeship.
Engaged
Socially active with reading tasks
Monitoring their process
Reading is a socially mediated process. This social-cognitive process is learned by participating in mediated activities with Masters who support learners in the areas in which they are not fully competent while still challenging their growth. This method of learning is considered cognitive apprenticeship. The proficient person engages the learner's interest in the activity and provides insight into the hidden or overlooked strategies needed to complete the task. Hidden or cognitive elements of the task need to be made visible for the learner and demystified.
Schoenbach etal. believe that habits and characteristics of skillful reading can be taught but not by transmission (instruction, practice, independent use) but through interactions throughout many different levels of classroom life. The reading apprenticeship model requires an environment of apprenticeship.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Reading for Understanding: A Guide to Improving Reading in Mid and HIgh School Classrooms
Schoenback, Greenleaf, Cziko, & Hurwitz, 1999
"When you read," she says, " there should be a little voice in your head like a storyteller is saying it. If it's not there, then you're just lookin' at the words." LaKeisha, 9th grader after one year in required Academic Literacy course. Pg.xv
This book is written by four educators who are involved in a professional development project called Strategic Literacy Initiative, http://www.wested.org/cs/we/view/pj/179, developed in San Francisco. It was written to train and assist teachers in improving students' reading abilities through reading apprenticeship. This method is appropriate not just for English classes but for content area classrooms as well. It was written ten years after Gee's article, but the Initiative continues today, and presents a model of apprenticeship teaching that I found to reference back to Gee's theory of Discourse.
Part One: Confronting the Problem of Middle and High School Reading
Studies referenced by Schoenback, Greenleaf, Cziko, & Hurwitz indicate that there is a "quiet crisis" in reading ability of adolescent students. These students are capable of reading at a basic level and are able to decode words but are lacking in skills necessary to gain comprehension of the text that they are reading. When this happens the students reach a "literacy ceiling" which limits what the teacher will be able to accomplish in the classroom with the student. It also limits what achievements the student will attain in the classroom and in life.
As the quote by LaKeisha above shows us, when the students are taught the skills necessary to comprehend text through a master/apprentice relationship with the teacher they are able to use metacognition to continue to advance their reading skills when reading individually. Students are concerned about their abilities as well. Some give up hope, and others develop strategies to prevent their lack of reading skills from being exposed. These may include acting out to distract the class, attempting invisibility or just pretending they don't care about it. It seems to be an example of Gee's "mushfake Discourse" or Pretending.
The research shows that it is not too late to improve reading ability at the middle school or high school levels. It just needs to be done through apprenticeship, not by sending remedial readers back to learning how to decode words. They need to learn skills in comprehension strategies, not just sounding out the words. These strategies are something all teachers used when they went through college, but they may not have thought about their thinking (metacognition) and sharing these strategies with their students. These untapped resources from teachers a huge resource for assisting students. Teachers need to work together to help each other discover the ways they find meaning in a text, so they can share it with their apprentice readers.
Students have resources as well, if they are recognized. Adolescence is a time when they are trying on new identities and is a great time for encouraging them to try on new reader identities, and giving them the power to control an option for what their lives could be like in the future. Inviting the students to share in a collaborative inquiry into the reading process is one way to avoid placing students into a situation which might possibly be humiliating. When the class rewards skill in finding confusing texts and incomprehensible areas, the students can assist in finding where the groups' skills are lacking.
The master/apprentice teaching style was adopted in a required class for all 9th graders at a San Francisco High School in 1996. Reading comprehension rose approx. 2 grade levels within the school year, and were consistent across ethnic groups and multiple teachers. The follow-up studies showed that gains continued to be accelerated a year later, and students related they were using the strategies in other classes and outside school. Using the reader apprenticeship program in subject area classes was also successful.
So why is it that over 10 years later we don't see more apprenticeship reading programs in our local schools? Some teachers have given up expecting independent reading or even any reading from their students and have found strategies to teach the content matter without books. This becomes a self-perpetuating practice as the students never learn the skills to self-initiate learning from curriculum. Without this skill, they may not be able to read "gatekeeper texts" such as SAT exams, college & job applications, directions for applying for student loans or mortgages. As Gee explains, gatekeeper texts block social gains to those who don't show mastery of a Discourse.
Next- the Reading Apprenticeship Framework
"When you read," she says, " there should be a little voice in your head like a storyteller is saying it. If it's not there, then you're just lookin' at the words." LaKeisha, 9th grader after one year in required Academic Literacy course. Pg.xv
This book is written by four educators who are involved in a professional development project called Strategic Literacy Initiative, http://www.wested.org/cs/we/view/pj/179, developed in San Francisco. It was written to train and assist teachers in improving students' reading abilities through reading apprenticeship. This method is appropriate not just for English classes but for content area classrooms as well. It was written ten years after Gee's article, but the Initiative continues today, and presents a model of apprenticeship teaching that I found to reference back to Gee's theory of Discourse.
Part One: Confronting the Problem of Middle and High School Reading
Studies referenced by Schoenback, Greenleaf, Cziko, & Hurwitz indicate that there is a "quiet crisis" in reading ability of adolescent students. These students are capable of reading at a basic level and are able to decode words but are lacking in skills necessary to gain comprehension of the text that they are reading. When this happens the students reach a "literacy ceiling" which limits what the teacher will be able to accomplish in the classroom with the student. It also limits what achievements the student will attain in the classroom and in life.
As the quote by LaKeisha above shows us, when the students are taught the skills necessary to comprehend text through a master/apprentice relationship with the teacher they are able to use metacognition to continue to advance their reading skills when reading individually. Students are concerned about their abilities as well. Some give up hope, and others develop strategies to prevent their lack of reading skills from being exposed. These may include acting out to distract the class, attempting invisibility or just pretending they don't care about it. It seems to be an example of Gee's "mushfake Discourse" or Pretending.
The research shows that it is not too late to improve reading ability at the middle school or high school levels. It just needs to be done through apprenticeship, not by sending remedial readers back to learning how to decode words. They need to learn skills in comprehension strategies, not just sounding out the words. These strategies are something all teachers used when they went through college, but they may not have thought about their thinking (metacognition) and sharing these strategies with their students. These untapped resources from teachers a huge resource for assisting students. Teachers need to work together to help each other discover the ways they find meaning in a text, so they can share it with their apprentice readers.
Students have resources as well, if they are recognized. Adolescence is a time when they are trying on new identities and is a great time for encouraging them to try on new reader identities, and giving them the power to control an option for what their lives could be like in the future. Inviting the students to share in a collaborative inquiry into the reading process is one way to avoid placing students into a situation which might possibly be humiliating. When the class rewards skill in finding confusing texts and incomprehensible areas, the students can assist in finding where the groups' skills are lacking.
The master/apprentice teaching style was adopted in a required class for all 9th graders at a San Francisco High School in 1996. Reading comprehension rose approx. 2 grade levels within the school year, and were consistent across ethnic groups and multiple teachers. The follow-up studies showed that gains continued to be accelerated a year later, and students related they were using the strategies in other classes and outside school. Using the reader apprenticeship program in subject area classes was also successful.
So why is it that over 10 years later we don't see more apprenticeship reading programs in our local schools? Some teachers have given up expecting independent reading or even any reading from their students and have found strategies to teach the content matter without books. This becomes a self-perpetuating practice as the students never learn the skills to self-initiate learning from curriculum. Without this skill, they may not be able to read "gatekeeper texts" such as SAT exams, college & job applications, directions for applying for student loans or mortgages. As Gee explains, gatekeeper texts block social gains to those who don't show mastery of a Discourse.
Next- the Reading Apprenticeship Framework
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Welcome!
So, I can't believe I am starting my own blog! I've read or skimmed over so many in the past few years, but they all seemed to be written by witty people with exciting lives! I am hoping that mine will be at least somewhat interesting and will only hope for a witty remark to emerge now and then.
Anyway, I loved using the design elements provided to set up my page design! Had a few glitches, though, when I went to import my design to a new page, and it failed!! Hours and hours of work down the drain. (okay, maybe only an hour! LOL) Of course, I couldn't remember all the individual color blends I had selected, so you are now seeing FleetingImages 2.0, and I expect more versions to come about as I learn what I like and dislike about my current choices. Who knows, I may even change the name, and hope you all can find me again! I also had some trouble thinking of an appropriate name. This involved some concerns about using my real name in the blog. I still worry about security issues when presenting all my information out into the blogosphere (is that a word?).
We are always quick to to hear reports of identity theft, so it is definitely in the front of my mind. And isn't it interesting to use all the new words that have been introduced into our language since the Internet started. I didn't even known where the term Blog came from until I read the Wikipedia account required for class (weblog separated into we blog, and then blog, used as both noun and verb).
I am also amazed at all the various types of blogs out there. I had no idea so many people are interested in sharing their thoughts with the world! Or even that they are secure in the knowledge that anyone else wants to hear them. I am not quite so sure. It is rather scary to think that just anyone can read and comment on your thoughts. It takes a strong person to deal with any negative comments that can be and probably will be posted in response to one's random thoughts. It has become so easy to instantly post information about our lives so that everyone can see them. They seem much more permanent than when we blurt out some comment orally. I may regret something I have said, but it doesn't float in the air forever for everyone to see like words written in a blog. However, blogs and tweets are reality, and I need to know and experience them in order to help students learn to manage their posts in a positive way when I begin working in the classroom.
Blogging seems like it would renew interest in writing and reading in a way that involves technology and is current. We are experiencing a whole revolution in the way our society interacts with each other via the written word. As a teacher, we can't just ignore it; we need to give our students the information they need to decide when various styles of writing are appropriate and the skills to be literate across many genres.
It will be interesting to see how this blog evolves as it takes on a life of it own as posts and reactions synthesize and move me into new directions!
Talk with ya later!
Anyway, I loved using the design elements provided to set up my page design! Had a few glitches, though, when I went to import my design to a new page, and it failed!! Hours and hours of work down the drain. (okay, maybe only an hour! LOL) Of course, I couldn't remember all the individual color blends I had selected, so you are now seeing FleetingImages 2.0, and I expect more versions to come about as I learn what I like and dislike about my current choices. Who knows, I may even change the name, and hope you all can find me again! I also had some trouble thinking of an appropriate name. This involved some concerns about using my real name in the blog. I still worry about security issues when presenting all my information out into the blogosphere (is that a word?).
We are always quick to to hear reports of identity theft, so it is definitely in the front of my mind. And isn't it interesting to use all the new words that have been introduced into our language since the Internet started. I didn't even known where the term Blog came from until I read the Wikipedia account required for class (weblog separated into we blog, and then blog, used as both noun and verb).
I am also amazed at all the various types of blogs out there. I had no idea so many people are interested in sharing their thoughts with the world! Or even that they are secure in the knowledge that anyone else wants to hear them. I am not quite so sure. It is rather scary to think that just anyone can read and comment on your thoughts. It takes a strong person to deal with any negative comments that can be and probably will be posted in response to one's random thoughts. It has become so easy to instantly post information about our lives so that everyone can see them. They seem much more permanent than when we blurt out some comment orally. I may regret something I have said, but it doesn't float in the air forever for everyone to see like words written in a blog. However, blogs and tweets are reality, and I need to know and experience them in order to help students learn to manage their posts in a positive way when I begin working in the classroom.
Blogging seems like it would renew interest in writing and reading in a way that involves technology and is current. We are experiencing a whole revolution in the way our society interacts with each other via the written word. As a teacher, we can't just ignore it; we need to give our students the information they need to decide when various styles of writing are appropriate and the skills to be literate across many genres.
It will be interesting to see how this blog evolves as it takes on a life of it own as posts and reactions synthesize and move me into new directions!
Talk with ya later!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)