Today we discussed reading rate, student and teacher directed read alouds (by students), reading aloud to students, reading comprehension strategies, and writing strategies (courtesy of Allison Deno) including four square writing to teach both narrative and expository writing as well as accountable talk.
In addition, we practiced reading strategies during five fantastic presentations.
Choose one topic you learned about today and describe how you will apply what you learned to FUTURE groups of students.
I've used timed repeated readings (TRR) (http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/timed_repeated_readings/) with a student who had a learning disability and who I tutored, but I never thought to use a TRR with English Language learners. The text we read today about reading rate and fluency vs. comprehension makes me think that TRRs might be useful 2 or so times per week.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading a text aloud and showing my thought process, I think I will take Sara's advice and tweak it so that students have opportunities to speak while I read. They can also work on making inferences and predictions during this exercise.
I would use the four square writing. However because my students are in kindergarten, I would need to use more pictures for the Ideas sections. The center topic would be written and the students have to draw of orally express their ideas. I would also use teacher directed read aloud but I would give my students more opportunities for interactions and to share their thoughts and insights about the stories that are being read aloud.
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to thank everyone for their great suggestion and constructive criticism about my lesson. Now I know how to make it better.
I love using the four square writing template for my students. It is a great tool that can be used for all levels and types of learners. I still find the popcorn and reading aloud to be stressful (for me) and assume it to be so for many students, but also recognize that it is a useful tool for language learners. I can see it working in a smaller classroom, rather than my class of 32 teens, or maybe a small group round robin? Anyone have any successes with that?
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed Sara and Jen's lesson of chunking and scaffolding the reading. I think that is a great way to access challenging text! Thanks for the ideas on ways to improve my lesson, I love getting good constructive feedback.
You all are the best!
I had not seen this four-square writing template before. I like how simple it is, how it can be adapted for use at any grade, with any language-learning level, and how students can recreate the 4 squares themselves, say if they were doing a standardized state-wide writing assessment. So, it seems like a really good technique to teach.
ReplyDeleteI also want to note how impressed I was with the "Basic Accountable Talk Frameworks". I like the simple sentence structures and the visual that goes with each one. I would use this to help students express themselves better. It was awesome to hear how much it improved ELLs oral language proficiency!!
(Sounds like a great school, Mariano!)
I've never taught writing in any of my classes before since I taught mostly conversational English classes. I am really interested in using the four square approach to teaching writing. I like how simple and adaptable it is to use with all level and for a variety of writing styles. For more beginning level students you can add prompts and sentence frames for them to work with. For more intermediate level students you can provide as much prompting as needed to facilitate the writing. I could see using it to teach students to write a paragraph describing someone to an persuasive essay.
ReplyDeleteI really look forward to seeing the writing lessons tomorrow and being inspired with all sorts of ideas.
I wasn't familiar with the Four Square writing strategy before, and I thought it was a valuable and interesting way of helping students organize their thoughts before beginning to write. When Allison said that some schools adopt this (and other) strategy as a schoolwide strategy, benefitting kids because they don't have to focus on the "how" as much and can focus on the content, it made me think about how I would like to know if the school I will be working in this year has adopted any such schoolwide strategies. At this point, I don't know! Luckily, I'll be able to find out or ask soon enough.
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoyed seeing and participate in the reading lessons today. Each was so vastly different and seeing these strategies in action really made them come alive in a way that is not quite possible simply from reading the text. I'm looking forward to applying them to my own teaching, both in my French classroom in the immediate future and eventually in my ELL classroom. Seeing the ways that others approach a lesson is helpful for making my own teaching more varied. Thanks, everyone!
I too loved the four square approach due to its simplicity, yet effectiveness. I think, like Zelda, that it would be great to have school wide practice of this, so it can be carried over to all subjects and grade levels.
ReplyDeleteI also LOVED Kelly's graphic organizer. It felt a little like a game, yet I really had to go through the article to get all the boxes filled in. I was an EXPERT by the time I was done. kudos Kelly!
Sometimes the very simplest and basic things are most powerful. Considering my future tutoring students, I think I will do more reading aloud to them when consistent with their learning goal. I really enjoyed Sara’s reading of “I Hate English”. It was so enjoyable to have someone read out loud. I was surprised at the pleasure of it. But, the reading was not passive. We had been given a clear explicit intent to listen closely: we were going to have to construct a timeline of the story. This kept my attention. It was a DL-TA ( Directed Listening-Thinking Activity), as generally ( and terrifically) modeled by Kelly, Jen, Mariano and Martha. ( not to leave out Anna, but her approach was a bit different….I may have Aztec nightmares tonight hers was so authentic!). I want to use this technique: give the student a reason to listen with attention and then read short authentic meaningful pieces to them. I think I would want to give them a copy of the text to follow along. This would model pronunciation, intonation, and it would allow them to read along with me and then write the explicit listening task assigned (timeline, character list, main idea, plot summary, etc.). Such an exercise covers all 4 language skills at once!
ReplyDeleteThanks to all for your presentations today. It is wonderful to see the principles in action and you all did an authentic and great job….
Hi guys,
ReplyDeleteWow - this week flew by! I will forward the blog link to Allison so that she can read your feedback from her powerful presentation. I don't know about you, but I'll be implementing accountable talk at the start of the 2011-2012 school year! (Well - I have a sneaking suspicion Mariano will too.)
Thank you for the thoughtful reading presentations today! I look forward to tomorrow!
I really appreciated the accountable talk method. In my own class I would give this the title "RESPECTING EVERYONE" or something like that. I think these steps of conversation are the building blocks of respectful dialogue and I think these should be outlined at every age group. I hope to teach high school students and even if these goals have been nourished in elementary school, by the time these students are in my class, I believe these structured comments may have been forgotten or shoved to the wayside by more popular and "culturally accepted" ways of criticism and discussion. I think these sentence structures must be constantly present in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteAs many of us have noted, I was not familiar with Four Square Writing and found the basic tenants of this idea to be applicable to many areas. I really liked the idea of Accountable Talk in particular. Whether I would be teaching an ELL class or an art class, I would encourage students to practice using the sentence frameworks we looked at during the presentation. I think that facilitating higher level discussions can be such a powerful skill for students to learn. If students can begin framing sentences in this manner, they can become more effect using language for specific purposes. In the context of English Language Learners, I believe this would be such an important attribute to have when constructing ideas in a new language. I have been lately trying to find ways to make the most of class time, and after hearing about Four Square Writing and its related ideas, I hope to encourage students to create meaningful and critical dialogue so that I am doing less extraneous Teacher Talking Time. I think this strategy could help me be a more effective teacher and help my students become more effective using their language skills.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sara for a great class. I hope the rest of my course load is as helpful, informative, energetic and low pressure as this one was!
ReplyDeleteSure appreciate your ability to keep it both professional and fun.