In these chapters, the authors discuss many manners of questioning the text. In my classroom this week, we discussed text-to-self, text-to-world and text-to-text connections each on a separate day. Then we asked students to work on making these connections in their own reading immediately following the mini-lesson. I noticed that some of our third graders were able to do this pretty easily (I believe this to be because they had this instruction last year too) but that the second graders really struggled. I noticed that some of the second grade students (as well as some third grade students) made a connection on every page and others made no connections at all. They also only focused on the type of connection taught that day. How do we know when to introduce each type of connection and when to ask students to begin using more than one connection at a time? and what makes you think that?
I feel that doing three types of connections three days in a row is too fast for second graders but I do not really understand how to know that they are ready for the next type of connection. I also feel that introducing the idea of using multiple types of connections while reading one text should be introduced as soon as the second type of connection is taught. In our room we encouraged students to focus only on the type of connection we taught that day but I feel that this could discourage them from ever using the other types of connections.
The other chapter we read this week focused on visualizing and inferring while reading. In our classroom we often ask inferential questions about the texts we use as read-alouds but we have not discussed visualizing. In what situations is visualizing taught and discussed?
I feel that visualizing should be reviewed in all grades as students sometimes forget that this is part of reading. In addition, each type of text involves a different type of visualization and this is a type of strategy that should be reviewed in each genre. We have not done a genre study yet in reading but I will be interested to see if we work on visualizing. In addition, how would students show their visualizations? If they discuss their mental pictures, they are nearly retelling the story and if they draw a picture they may not have the artistic talents to express their ideas. How else might they share their visualizations?
Becky, I understand your concern with how we know when to introduce each connection and when to start to interconnect them. In our second grade class we have only been focusing on text to self and a little bit of text to text. Have you been giving explicit instruction on each? We have been doing it through teaching about personal narratives. Patricia Polacco books have been especially popular in our classroom and have been good connecting details to her life and how we can use her examples to write their own life stories. Text to text connections have been made at read aloud time when we make a few comparisons to other books we have read. Usually this is not done "purposely" but rather used to explain concepts and answer questions as they arise. Do you think you have to explicitly say the different connection names in order to be actually "teaching" it in isolated lessons or do you think they are still learning it just by using it in other learning contexts?
ReplyDeleteAs far as introducing each connection type, I think it is okay to give a mini lesson dedicated to each type. However, I would never stop talking about one once it is taught. For example, I would take a day to focus on text to self. Then the following day after giving a mini lesson on text to text I would also use a few minutes to make text to self connections. This may even come up automatically by students raising their hands and pointing them out at random times. I would not dismiss these comments if they do ever come up but rather use them as a good opportunity to show different connections can be made with a single text. After they have been instructed on each type, I would even assign groups (each group will focus on a single connection while reading a single text). Each group can then share their findings with the class after reading the same book. This is a good chance to use the jigsaw method! :)
We teach visualizing through "show don't tell". Show don't tell is something we point out during read alouds and require during writing workshop. We tell them do not just tell us you are doing something (I went to McDonalds and ate a hamburger). Show us so we can visualize it (I walked in and heard the squeaky door shut. I walked up slowly to the register feeling the cracked cement under my feet, etc). Every time we come across it when read aloud I tell them to close their eyes and visualize what is happening. Having them use it in their writing is the only way we can really tell if they understand it.
In our classroom we also use "show don't tell." This has been a great transition for the students to see it modeled in text, and then creating their own in their writing. I think that read aloud is a great time to teach visualizing. You can really get a sense of how the students are taking it in by their responses. What exactly are they seeing, can they see and feel the uneven cracked cement under your feet? It works as a great little assessment as you're reading, and also as you read the students writing.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that I would limit the students to only use the connection you are working on that day. If they make another connection that should be celebrated. I was super surprised when my students already knew about connections, and they love making them every time I do a read aloud. I think if I were to start teaching connections I would start with self connection. This seems like the easiest connection to help transition into the others, and help the students understand.