Bev...ahhh the power of wait time! :-) I have been trying out Ellin's
technique of "Yes, I know you don't know but if you did know...." combined
with..."I saw a great answer flash behind your eyes...we'll give you the time
to think because we know great ideas come from some quiet thinking time..." It
is amazing. The first few times it happens, the kids are uncomfortable and so
is the teacher. But if you push through that, what happens is wonderful!
As for the primary aged thinkers...they ARE profound and think deeply often. I
wonder about the concept of "label-less" though/ Sometimes I think they need
some of the labels though to truly express what they are thinking about... We
have talked often about this before and I am a strong proponent of teaching the
vocabulary of strategies...yes...the hard words too like metacognition...
I don't ASSESS the language... I assess the strategy usage and the end results
(comprehension) but the kids do need the words to describe their thinking.
Just my two cents
Jennifer Palmer
Reading Specialist, National Board Certified Teacher
FLES- Lead the discovery, Live the learning, Love the adventure.
"Children grow into the intellectual life around them."
-Vygotsky
________________________________
From: Beverlee Paul
Sent: Thu 10/16/2008 9:05 AM
To: understand@literacyworkshop.org
Subject: Re: [Understand] Pushing Thinking
I also had a wonderful thinking workshop experience yesterday in a first grade
class. The vehicle was the Sundance/Newbridge/Options fiction comprehension
kit. We were working on monitoring understanding and using fix-up strategies.
I wish I had notes, but of course, you're always caught up in extending the
understanding and can't possible note-take during. Oh, for Jennifer's lesson
study group! At any rate, what I wanted to continue to wonder about was about
how "age-less" good thinking really is. Sometimes the 6 year olds can express
something at least as effectively, creatively, and excitedly as 12 year olds.
And how "lable-less" it is. Many times kids whom I'd call "school-disabled"
are wonderful thinkers and sometimes even wonderful articulators.
And I think there is probably none of us on this entire list serve (unless
Ellin is here) that really has a clue as to the depth and breadth of the
relationship of thinking and wait time! I believe we've only just begun!!
(This must be a morning of old songs for me.)
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