The take-home message....

The final chapter of my book discusses at length, “What works and what doesn’t”, according to the National Council of Teachers of English.  They use a scale from 1 to 4 to rate several different genres of teaching tools, techniques and content for an effective literacy program.  This scale describes 1 as being not important, 2 as having minor importance, 3 as being important, and 4 as being essential.  There is an abundance of information for each rating in several different categories, so I would only like to focus on what I think is important and also what I plan to use as a teacher in the “essential” category. 

The Essential Media and Tools Used to Teach:

•          Authentic connected texts which are complete and unabridged
•          Nonfiction texts
•          Predictable texts
•          School-to-home connections
•          Suggestions for extended readings

The Essential Reading Materials:

•          Authentic multicultural perspectives (text and illustrations)
•          Accurate and current information
•          Wide range of purposes
•          Content likely to engage and interest readers
•          Content that is of interest to both genders

The Essential grouping techniques:

•          Small groups selected for ability and interest
•          Students working individually

The Essentials for Instruction:

•          Role play
•          Projects
•          Student generated topics and questions
•          Scaffolded instruction toward independence
•          Discussion

The Essentials for the Student’s Role:

•          Choice of reading selections
•          Choice of reading extension activities

In the assessment section of, “What works and what doesn’t”, the author ranks unit tests and multiple choice tests as a 1 and a 2, but she gives student-directed assessment and classroom-based ongoing assessments a 3 and a 4.  I agree and disagree with her for the following reason: As a science teacher I feel like I need to be able to assess my student’s knowledge of the material using quizzes and exams.  I propose using a combination of all of these assessment techniques. I feel like every student should have the opportunity to dispute any answer that is marked incorrect.  If they can provide me with logical justification for why they gave a certain answer, even though it was not necessarily the answer I was looking for, I will give them credit.  I had a professor in my undergraduate program use a similar technique and it worked out very well.  He called it an I.I. or Individual Intellectualism.  The other students and I felt respected and were able to show that we didn’t get the question wrong because we were ill prepared, we just interpreted the information in a different way. 

I have learned a lot from this reading and will be taking a great deal of it into the classroom with me.  I will do my best to make sure my students will read with a particular purpose in mind and I will help them though the before, during and after reading process so they can extract meaning from the text.  I will assess the background knowledge the students have in a particular subject before moving on to the next thing and provide a frame for them to build on in order to help their knowledge grow, brick by brick. 

I would like to thank everyone who followed my blog and thank Penny for making me do this blog.  It has been very educational and I feel like I am taking a lot from this assignment and from the class in general.  I haven’t ever taken a class like this, being a science major.  I have to say there is a definite learning curve but overall it has been a good experience and I appreciate the knowledge that I am taking away.

Namaste

References

Benjamin, Amy.  But I’m Not A Reading Teacher: Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas.  Larchmont, NY.  Eye on Education, 2007