It sounds to me like you need to carefully consider the purpose of the homework you're assigning. Is it to teach content-area knowledge, or to practice content-area reading comprehension skills? Certainly it can be both, but if students are not comprehending the text, then they're not learning information from it. If you continue what you're doing, with points for effort rather than correctness, then the homework is providing practice in content-area literacy skills. However, for many students, it's not improving their content knowledge or understanding. If you want the homework primarily to teach/reinforce core knowledge and concepts, then you need to change things up. One possibility is providing an alternative text that your less-skilled readers can comfortably read and comprehend. Then those students will have a better chance to learn the information and understand the ideas. Or you could provide some supplementary materials to go along with the text. What is it about the text that the students are having trouble with? Is it the vocabulary? Or could it be that the students don't have the background knowledge to make sense of the concepts? If you can begin to pinpoint where their confusion is starting, you can go back to basics and start scaffolding the skills and/or knowledge that they need.
Thanks for the response. In my mind I saw the text as a way to give students core content knowledge, and use class time do constructivist activities to either 1) reinforce/dive deeper into the areas that cover my unit goals or 2) introduce/cover content that is not in the text that I want to include in the unit. Either way, just having them read the text cold and evaluating them on comprehension is getting them frustrated. However, spending time on textbook literacy will take away class time for the other activities I think are important. Your post made me think. The biggest issue they are struggling with is the vocab. Previously I was assigning the chapter to read and have them do answer some questions. Moving forward, I think just before I assign a section of the text to read, I will provide a list of vocab words and have them research them. That would help with their comprehension and hopefully help me achieve my goal -- reading the text for foundational content so I can use class time for other things. I also have a folder of literacy strategies available to me and there is a lot of stuff on pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading strategies. I plan to start using these (in class and as homework) to help them learn to become "students, not homework doers", as one of my veteran colleagues said today when I asked her about this.
Vocab can be a lot of fun if you let them play with the words a bit. Try some off the wall stuff like having them use the adjectives in Yo Momma jokes. My reading students also seem to like the LINCS activity that my co-teacher uses. Regarding the homework question, giving them credit for effort won't help them. If they can't understand the text (and don't be too quick to believe that. I've realized over the last 3 years that a student's favorite weapon is the "I don't understand" defense) they you need to find a text at their reading level. The goal is to teach them the concepts (mood, tone, characterization, conflict etc), and it seems that the students are getting lost in the comprehension. They have no hope of understanding the concepts if they don't understand the story. Are you required to stick completely to the texts in the curriculum, or can you substitute based on ability? We've been using a slew of great young adult novels in our reading program. They are all at a middle school reading level, but they rank at a high school interest level. Some of the titles are: "Big Mouth, Ugly Girl" "Trino's Choice" "Buddha Boy" "Shakespeare Bats Cleanup" "Maus" "Invisible" I have access to novel guides for all of them if you are interested/able to substitute the lit.
This is a challenge I deal with regularly, because I teach literacy AND social studies. Working specifically with vocabulary is a great start. A student will never really understand a text if she or she doesn't know 10% or more of the words in the text. So building vocabulary, especially the content-area specific vocabulary that the textbook probably uses a lot, will certainly help. Still, I want to emphasize again the idea of finding some supplementary reading materials at a lower comprehension level. That way students can learn the facts and concepts, while building their literacy skills at the same time. The problem is that, no matter how much you teach them about comprehension strategies, if they don't understand the text, then they don't understand it, and they won't learn from it. I'll give you an example. I have my students' history textbook in front of me. I'll open it to a random page... it says "The Shang dynasty was the first civilization in China." I know from experience that more than half of my students won't understand a simple sentence like that. They don't know the words "dynasty" or "civilization." They have heard of China, but they have little to no background knowledge in which to contextualize anything new they learn about China. I would bet money that most of my students don't understand what a country actually is. The textbook is not going to explain that to them; it assumes that they know (as they should, but unfortunately don't). So before the kids can understand even that simple sentence, I have to do a lot of scaffolding. I will have to teach them about countries and what they are, where Asia is located and where China is located in Asia. They will have to understand the ideas of civilization and government. And that sentence was one of the simplest you will find in this textbook! I don't know if your students' comprehension woes are as acute as my students'. I certainly hope that they aren't. But if a good number of them genuinely cannot comprehend the textbook (and aren't just being lazy or pretending they can't), then you should seriously consider alternative texts. You might need to do work in the textbook during class time, when you are there to guide and support them. Or, you could have them read the text at home, then go over it with you in class, to clarify and reinforce. Or you may have to abandon the textbook entirely, in favor of alternative sources of information.
Social studies and literacy? Are you in my department? That's exactly what we have to do. I'm a social studies teacher that is expected to integrate literacy into everything I do. Most of my kids would understand the sentence in your example (but not all). I have upper and mid-level track freshmen. However, to your point, I have had kids ask questions on words/concepts that I would have thought they would understand, but apparently don't (couldn't tell if they are legit about it or just being lazy. I'll have to figure that out). Our district expects that they should be able to read the text, so I see part of my job is to help them do that -- I won't be throwing it out just yet. I think I'm going to go the "read it in class" route for the next unit, teaching them previewing/outlining/notetaking literacy skills in the process. As we move along this year, I think I hope to do less text stuff in class and more at home as their comprehension improves (I hope). I will supplement these activities with others that will help them reach the big learning objectives (I used an easier supplemental reading today and it helped. I also want to do cooperative non-reading activities that takes advantage of their socializing skills.) And yes, we will be starting the unit (after my ILPE, of course) with foundational vocab. Thanks again for the great responses. Want to mentor me next year when I go through the BEST program up here in CT?
I will. Today I introduced the THIEVES previewing strategy (Title, Headings, Introduction, Every 1st Sentence, Visuals & Vocab, End of Chapter Questions, and Summary.) So far so good. From there we are going to learn how to take useful notes. In CT Dept has a program called "Beginning Educator Support and Training" (BEST), in which those with initial educator certificates (like me) have to put together a portfolio to show the state they know what they are doing. Usually teacher put this thing together in Year 2, which for me is next year. I've been told its a bear to do. But if it makes me a better teacher, I'll gladly do it.
i may be wrong about this, but i think that not much more than succeeding and failing as a teacher makes you a better teacher. you can do a lot of peripheral stuff, some of which sharpens tools in your kit, but my limited experience in translating what i know into language that others understand and can store as learning tells me that you still have to take that "staff development" and "OTJ training" into the classroom lab and try to float it. OTOH, there's a book by Bruce Wilkerson ( a spiritually based book, but worth a look ) called The Seven Laws of the Learner. it's direct application is teaching the Bible, but the principles are broader. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cu...te&n=283155&s=books&customer-reviews.start=11
Thanks for the response, Stilton. I agree that teaching is much more than putting blinders on and just moving forward with your plan and hope kids follow along. There is an excerpt from the book you reference that details my philosophy: "Dr. Hendricks believed that as the teacher he was the one responsible for my learning. He felt responsibel, and if I wasn't learning, he did whatever it took--changed ths lesson plan, his style, told an irrelevant joke, even ran down the aisle and confronted me. In contrast, the second teacher's mindset was limited to his responsibility to cover the material whether anyone was learning it or not." My goal is to be like this Dr. Hendricks in this area. To that end, I've started the literacy stuff with my freshmen. So far, so good.
Howard Hendricks is a giant in his specific area of excellence. You're on the right track, IMO. I went to a 7 Laws of the Learner seminar about 15 years ago. It was held at the Fullerton Evangelical Free Church, where Dr. Swindoll was pastor. Dr. Bruce Wilkinson taught the seminar, and the statement from Hendricks that you quoted ( "...a teacher is responsible..." ) hit home hard.
A quick update... My new direction is a success. They are reading the text now for understanding. The literacy skills helped. The fact I'm giving open note quizes that require higher order thinking skills based on the notes helps even more. My next task is to find out how to extend the day from 24 to about 30 hours so I can fit in teaching, planning, correcting, family obligations, eating, and sleeping.
you need to adopt the wisdom of the famous French expression: Celui qui dort, dine. IOW, He who sleeps, eats.
Well, the year ended last Thursday. As I expected, I've slept 9-10 hours each day since then catching up on sleep Its a very satisfied sleep, though. Teaching has been as enjoyable and rewarding as I had hoped, and more. On top of it all, I seem to have a knack for actually teaching kids something! For example, my literacy strategy worked like a charm. My kids developed the skills I was hoping they would. The greatest joy in teaching is seeing a kid "get it" and know you played a large part in that process. Its a rush! If you are thinking of entering the teaching profession, ask yourself two things -- Do you enjoy working with kids? Are you willing to work your butt off working with kids? If you answer yes to both questions, then consider teaching. You won't regret it.
Wow, Post 1 is like me right now. Haha. I just registered for school last week to get my certificate and change careers midstream.
Thanks, heh. I've got about four semesters plus student teaching, by my count, unless I decide to try and take advantage of Idaho's need-based teaching hiring process, in which case I can skip the student teaching and just work on finishing the required courses. It's tempting to try that route because in a family of 3 I'm the only salary, so student teaching would really throw a wrench into that. But, of course, there's no substitute for on-the-job practice before you actually do it when it matters.
So its been a while since I last posted here. I have just finished my eighth year. Becoming a teacher remains the best professional decision I ever made. The advice I gave many years ago still holds true. If you like helping kids develop and don't mind working your butt off doing that, then teaching is for you. The flip side is also true -- you may love a content area so much that you want to pass knowledge to others, but if you don't like interacting with kids, don't bother.