Transportable and Transparent Strategies For Content Literacy Instruction

In chapter two of Creating Literacy-Rich Schools for Adolescents, Ivery and Fisher make an excellent point, stating, "A good rule of thumb is that if you want students to learn a particular concept, look for reading materials that students can read almost effortlessly or with little support" pg 50. This is something I saw a lot when working in high schools, especially in history and science. Often a well intentioned teacher will assign a supplemental reading either for an in-class project or homework to spark interest in a topic being studied in class. The problem occured, often at the very beginning of the unit when students do not know the background information required to understand the text, and shut down, either not completing the assignment or hating the subject for the rest of the unit. When I assigned primary sources for my high school history class I began by using middle school level sources then working our way up depending on the reading level of the class. The importance of these supplementary texts are to give students exposure to different types of writings, or applications of a certain subject, the students can still learn from these and improve their reading skills without having to run the dictionary every two lines.

Sugata Mitra: The Child-Driven Education TED Talk Review

In 1999 Sugata Mitra placed a computer in the wall of a building in a slum of New Deli. The children of this slum were given free use of this computer and Internet without any training or tutorial. When Mitra returned two months later the children had taught each other how to use the computer, as well as the Internet and were playing computer games they had found online and downloaded themselves.

For years after he continued this "Hole in the Wall" experiment across the global, where he simply gave students access to a computer, a task to complete, and left them alone to figure it out. His results were amazing; Italian students who did not speak English, given directions in English to find information about Pythagrium Theory and students from South India teaching themselves Biotechnology in English, scoring better on the Biotechnology examination then students at a private school with an accredited Biotechnology teacher.

So as students entering the teaching profession should we be scared? Will we all be replaced by computers? Doubtful. During his talk Mitra states, "A teacher who can be replaced by a computer should be, however, he is in no way arguing against teachers, he instead is pointing to what he thinks makes his program so effective.

When Mitra began fine tuning his experiment he had the children work in small groups, sharing one computer. He did this purposefully, forcing the children to discuss and interpret the information with their peers, putting it in terms they understood. This helped the information stick. When working with UK students, he gave the class a set of questions which the students had to use the computer to answer, the class average was 76%. When he returned two months later he tested the students on the same information, minus the computer and the class average was, again, 76%. Through this unstructured communication the students were able to not just find, but learn the information in terms they understood.

Mitra also implemented into his program the "grandmother method" in which students are constantly praised for their progress. The students are positively reinforced through praise as they work which helps them to continue to work and learn which ever way they please.

Both of these tactics, having students interpret information into their own words and positive reinforcement are two things any effective teacher should do, but does this process work for everyone?  Mitra said at the beginning of his talk, "children will learn to do, what they want to do", but is it that simple? Can every child learn to do anything as long as they want to learn it? The special educator part of me would like to argue no. This process shows amazing results for general education students, but how did students with learning disabilities do? Mitra gave us the average score of the UK students, but what was the lowest score? How many of these students fell below the 76%?

As a closing though Mitra summed up his thesis to "Education is a self-organizing system, where learning is an emergent phenomenon." It's a very valid definition. The information input can vary greatly person to person, yet we each emerge from our education system knowing very similar things. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could turn one's learning process into a science equation? If we could discover a way to find out how each person's self organizing system worked? The possibilities could be limitless.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

The Nine Reading Reasons

Kelly Gallagher opens his "The Nine Reading Reasons" by critiquing a reading program his daughter participated in which she was rewarded for reading by getting a free slice of pizza from a local pizza parlor. Gallagher states "What bothered me the most was the message the program was sending my daughter. It was telling her that the act of reading itself, the pleasure of a great book, was not enough inducement to become a reader. Rather, it suggested that reading is a chore that we need to offer rewards or bribes, to get you to do it."(pg. 18) He goes on to quote author, Alfie Kohn, who believes reward demotivate the students.

Interestingly, I recently read an article by William Heward titled "Ten Faulty Notions About Teaching and Learning That Hinder the Effectiveness of Special Education. In this article Heward argues for the use of extrinsic motivation in the classroom stating, "It is naive and irresponsible, however, for educators to expect students who do not already have the skills needed for experiencing success to work hard without positive consequences."(pg. 193) Students need to be able to contact some form of reinforcement to show they are taking the correct steps in their educational process, that they are on the right track in becoming fluent with whatever skill they are trying to master. Some students contact this naturally through quick success, others struggle and take much longer to reach that same level. It should not matter whether students are intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to learn how to read as long as they learn how to read. One does not have to enjoy literature to be literate.

Graves Chapter 2

I was pleasantly surprised when reading this chapter by the author's promotion of explicit instruction and The Gradual Realise of Responsibility Model. In the past I have found text especially for general educators (not special ed.) often emphasize discovery learning, however, Graves seems to promote a combination of both, which is very important. On page. 27 when discussing exemplary educators Graves writes "These exemplary teachers demonstrate a rich combination of direct, explicit skill instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension and the like)and more holistic activities like reading quality literature." These skills the author mentions are the foundation to reading, students need these in order to be a successful reader and they can effectively learn these skills through direct instruction. That being said reading instruction should not just be filled with direct instruction exercises, students should be allowed to explore literature as well. By making time for both approaches the students are able to experience a literature rich education while still learning the skills necessary for reading mastery in an efficient manner.

Literacy Autobiography

Growing up my relationship with reading served to be a bit of a rollercoaster ride. Before starting school I used to love reading. My parents used to read to me every night before I went to bed and would always give me books as gift for my birthday and Christmas. I especially loved the stories of Babar the Elephant and Curious George. My home life was set up in a manner very conducive to literature however, my school life was not.

When I began first grade I was placed in a class with forty-five other first grade students with a teacher, from what I can remember, that had little control over the class. Because I was quite and well behaved I did not command my teacher’s attention. She focused her effort on the “trouble makers” that would disrupt class and the low preforming students that were on the edge of passing the state test. I did not learn to read that year, nor do much of anything else for that matter, except get really good at doodling stars. I started1st grade academically on track and began 2^nd grade a full year behind.

When I began 2^nd grade I loathed reading and writing. I would throw tantrums every time my parents tried to get me to do either. My mom used to refer to the Mondays I brought home my new spelling words as my “Monday Night Meltdown” which would begin promptly at 7:00 pm every Monday after dinner when my dad would make me get out my spelling words. Luckily, (for them and for me) it began to get easier. My 2^nd grade teacher began pulling the group of us who were all in the same 1^st grade class the year before and teaching us phonics skills. We learned how to decode words, breaking the words down and sounding them out. She taught us the different rules of spelling, the different sounds words made. Once I began to understand these rules everything came together. It was as if one day something magically clicked in my head and I could read.

Once I learned how to read I could not stop. At home I read constantly. As an only child of busy parents I was often left to play by myself, but reading could entertain me for hours. I loved reading the Broadway Ballplayers Series, a series about girls who lived in a city and loved to play sports. On my ninth birthday my parents and I struck a deal; I could use my allowance money for whatever I wanted as long as I could afford it, however if I wanted to use my allowance to buy a book, my parents would pay for half of every book I bought. Being the money savvy nine year old that I was I began to spend all my money on books and began to build up quite the collection.

This habit has continued on into my adult life. I love going to the used bookstore and picking out arm-fulls of books to read. My fiancé and I turned our spare bedroom into an office, which is filled with books. When our friends come over they often leave with one or two barrowed books. Before I went back to school I was reading a book a week, anything from Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea to the Hunger Games Series. Unfortunately since I started graduate school I have little time to read for pleasure, instead I spend most of my “free time” coding research articles and organizing information for a literature review I am currently working on. I know that when I am done with school my reading for pleasure will pick back up again. I am confident that reading is a hobby that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

When I graduate I hope to work with transition age students with Emotional and Behavior Disorders. My professional reading goals for my students will be to close the gap of reading achievement between my students and their peers. Realistically I would be happy with my students being able to read well enough to maintain a job and function independently when they become adults.