Recently, my grade 2 students and I have been discussing our read alouds in terms of the meaning for the author (why the author may have written that book) and the meaning for us (what's the connection? how does the book speak to us?). This is a simple idea, really. We've always talked about what you think the author is trying to say but by shifting the question to why you think the author wrote the book allows the children to see themselves as purposeful, meaningful writers. This idea, by the way, comes from Denise Leograndis' book from scholastic on Launching the Writing Workshop. In our discussions, I've noticed that it takes a few comments from the kids before we hit on deeper meanings, the not obvious meanings, of a story that need discussion time to get drawn out. Over and over, it's near the end of our discussion that this deeper, more insightful, meaning is drawn out. Elisa
Elisa Waingort Grade 2 Spanish Bilingual Dalhousie Elementary Calgary, Canada The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart. —Helen Keller Visit my blog, A Teacher's Ruminations, and post a message. http://waingortgrade2spanishbilingual.blogspot.com/ I really liked this part of Maureen's comment (the full comment is below): "All they see is that when their ten-year-olds read aloud, they read painstakingly slowly and they stumble over "easy" words. Through a variety of measures, I have shown that these children are often comprehending texts above grade level at deeper levels than many of the "good readers," to no avail." This is a comment that keeps popping up on our conversations. I am glad that it does. I'll make a personal observation here: Perhaps it is the nature of our society. I don't know. But my experience has been that the comprehension that is most valued always seems to be the expected, the most easily shared, the least divergent, the one that gets the most heads to nod in agreement in the shortest amount of time. To me, there is a tension to comprehension: To be valued, it must be quickly formulated and easily shared, but to be truely valuable, it must be stewed on the back burner and allowed to veer off the beaten path. The second is the more valuable because we only grow through struggle, and by going where we haven't been before. My sense is that people who struggle with reading are more likely to be divergent comprehenders -- which makes their insights less easily shared, less socially successful, but potentially much more valuable. And I think we've done a disservice to fluency, by deeming it "critical", and by forgetting that it is about the music and not the metronome. - Dave Dave Middlebrook The Textmapping Project A resource for teachers improving reading comprehension skills instruction. www.textmapping.org | Please share this site with your colleagues! USA: (609) 771-1781 dmiddlebr...@textmapping.org Learning Diffabilities blog: http://diffabilities.wordpress.com
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