Teaching Reading Via Poetry
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•Using Poetry to Teach Reading Reading Rockets
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•Poetry Lesson Plans
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•Teaching Comprehension through Poetry Teacher’s Net /scroll down
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•Strategies to Read and Analyze Poetry/Scholastic
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•Reading Skills through Poetry
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★Teaching Struggling Readers with Poetry
Developing Inferencing Skills via Poetry
Summary of ideas from Margriet Ruurs
Reading Today, Aug./Sept. 2010
Abandoned Farmhouse
BY TED KOOSER
He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house;
a tall man too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.
Listen to the poem.
Describe the picture this poem painted in their minds.
Discuss:
Who or what gave us the information about the person we never met?
It was the shoe that told us about the size of the man
The Bible that showed us that he read if a lot. ( had a broken back.)
List on chalkboard information given:
He was big - told by the shoes.
He was tall- told by the bed.
He read a lot- told by a broken back.
Note: BUT:
He was not a good farmer told by the boulders and the leaking barn.
Prepare for their own poem:
List three things about themselves ending with a But...
Example:
He excelled at playing video games says the unbeatable high score
He loved soccer says the scruffy ball.
He sure liked pizza say the empty boxes on the kitchen table.
But he wasn’t very good at math says the “C” on his report card.
Text: Teaching Tool
“Reading is about mind journeys and teaching reading is about outfitting the traveler: modeling how to use the map, demonstrating the key and the legend, supporting the travelers as they lose their way and take circuitous routes until they are off on their own.” (Ellin O.Keene and Susan Zimmerman in “Mosaic of Thought”)
Besides Guided Reading,
the teacher should daily read aloud literature. Focus the discussion on interpretative meaning in lieu of recalling of facts. Analyze the text; relate the text to other texts; connect the text to the their own personal life; dramatize the story- just as students do when they read the text independently or in a guided setting. Discuss interesting vocabulary.
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★Reading Aloud to Build Comprehension/LDOnline
★Leveled Pictures Books
Good readers visualize when they read. Here are 5 simple ways to engage students in visualizing text using tactile, visual and kinesthetic
Lsa Frase
“How do you teach children to “see” what they read? We know good readers visualize when they read, or make “pictures in their minds,” but how do we help struggling readers create their own mental movie picture shows?” Ms. Frase explains are five visual, tactile, and kinesthetic solutions to actively engage your students.
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★Just - Right Comprehension Mini- Lessons Grades 2-3 by Cheryl Sigmon
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★Reading Comprehension - ETA hand2mind 2001
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★Implementing a Comprehensive Literacy Framework/Arkansasli
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★Language Arts/Reading Instructional Block Sanchez
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★Think -Aloud Mysteries - ppt download - SlidePlayer
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✴ How to Teach Expository Text Structure to Facilitate Reading Comprehension Akhondi, Malayeri, Samad
-Story Bits or Story Treasures
Story bits are a popular tool for helping children remember and retell a story.
Story bits
-Dramatizations
Don’t underestimate the power of dramatizations.
As someone once said, “To understand an idea we must: talk the idea, write the idea, and think the idea into our system.” Dramatizing fills two of the shoes.
Individualizing Instructions
You should not have guided reading with an entire class even if it is a homogeneous class as with the Joplin Program. Guided reading is only one aspect of the whole language arts program but the most important one.
Individualizing instruction is instructing students on their instructional level. This entails grouping. The At Risk group needs to be kept small and meet every day. Groups read books that are on the same instructional level, learning how to construct meaning. The district is not meeting the needs of the At Risk students if they are mandated to use the on grade level anthology. “Alternative Level-Low” material - text with a lower readability than grade level, must be provided.
The middle group is usually the largest of the three groups. They will usually be working with “on level material.” There usually are advanced students in each classroom. They need to be given material on their instructional level- an advanced level. “Alternative Level-High” must be provided - usually the next grade level. The advanced group could score a 99% on their Standardized test without spending time on test preparations because they are being instructed on higher grade level but tested with grade level standardized tests. The goal for all students is to learn to construct meaning and develop higher order thinking skills using increasingly more difficult material.
A good program has many sets of books for instructional use and sets of take-home books - mini books for independent use. For the emergent reader, many sets of leveled books such as Reading Recovery material is important. There should be sufficient material so the emergent readers can read a new story each day. The anthology programs are structured to use a story a week. That is totally unacceptable for the At Risk students.
Accelerated program Only with an accelerated program will the At Risk be able to eventually “catch up.” ( I use the term “accelerated” to mean double instruction time in order for the students to move along more quickly.) Regrouping should occur as often as students manifest competency for the next level. Move them on a trial bases- “visiting” bases. Those students need to meet with both their old group and new group until the gap has been bridge.
The At Risk deserve the same Constructivist approach as the more advantaged groups. All too often the most needy students are expected to learn through a far more difficult approach- learning skills in isolation, using boring, and contrived text, and using a lot of worksheets in the name of reading. Too often they are expected to use one program in the classroom and another in the reading room. The classroom teacher and reading specialist need to work in tandem- teach same skills and strategies but using a different story.
Joplin Program Some schools have a modified Joplin Program where students move to different rooms - each room being on the different instructional level. A 90 min. block of time is devoted to language arts instruction. However, if the group is too large, students still need to be instructed in smaller groups. The teacher needs to monitor students’ strengths and weaknesses closely and give individual help when needed. Teachers are wasting time by trying to conduct guided reading with entire class- if it is too large. You can’t have five At Risk students in one classroom and 30 average students in another classroom during the 90 min. of Lang. Arts. A teacher needs to hear from everyone. If a teacher tries to conduct guided reading sessions with the entire class of 25/30 some students will just withdraw and let someone else contribute or a few students will monopolize the time not letting others respond. Also, after a student responds, he/she may shut down for the day. In a small group, the interaction can be very lively, stimulating, and inviting. The students learn from one another; challenge one another; and use contributions as a spring broad for a new insight.
Scheduling is always a challenging time. Creative minds working together find a solution. Classes can be split up for gym. Part of one class joins another partial class for gym while the teachers work with a reading group. No two years necessarily find one schedule working all the time.
Assessment At the end of the school year an assessment should be made of each student - can’t use the results of a standardized test score; they are not valid unless it is Marie Clay’s assessment. Individual assessments should be given at the same time by a team - reading specialists and if necessary a classroom teacher or two to assure impartiality. The classroom teachers would need substitutes. The team should use same benchmark books for assessing. Each teacher evaluating would meet students in a room or area such as the cafeteria where areas are blocked off for privacy and quiet. As soon as one student is finished another would be sent to the teacher assessing.
Roster/Class List
Need for Grouping
Need for grouping contained in a research paper by Fountas & Pinnell The Effects of Fountas & Pinnell’s Leveled Literacy Intervention...”.. In order to do this, reading must be taught in small groups that cater to the needs of the individual readers.”...
“...Teachers use small group for instruction because the structure makes it easier to cater to the needs to individual students. Good teachers know that what works for one child does not always work for others and approaches their job with humility and an open mind (Tomlinson, 2001).
“...When teaching in small groups, teachers can use leveled texts to cater to the needs of their students. Students are grouped homogeneously and are using books to practice their decoding and comprehension strategies with the guidance of a teacher on their instructional reading levels...”
Classrooms need to be formed/assigned with three groups in mind to help teachers meet the needs of each student in their rooms. This is possible if students are assessed when they enter school- both the new first graders and transfer students. The first criterion needs to be the reading level then the ethic background and leveling the number of students in each classroom. Standardized Tests results should not be used because the test does not give a true readability level.
At the end of the school year, after assessments are finished the teachers need to fill out a form indicating the reading level, the student’s reading group, and other pertinent comments such as which students should not be placed together etc. This is best done via the computer on a data sheet /spreadsheet. If the teachers do not know how to use the spread sheet than names of next year’s teachers could be placed on a long table. Each set of student names from each teacher could then divided evenly-one group/level at a time. Parent request should not be honored except for some exceptional reason such as a personality conflict. In this way the students are already approximately grouped for the opening of school in the fall. No one teacher is assigned all the advanced students or an imbalance of the At Risk students.
Granting parent requests causes an unbalance in the classroom- all too often it is along ethic lines or among “clicks.” Influential parents can band together asking for a particular teacher who has done her/his “homework” charming parents. When parents’ requests are granted, an unbalanced classroom occurs. All too often the popular teacher gets those students s/he wanted. The best educator, however, isn’t necessarily the most popular. The unbalanced classrooms result in some teachers getting a bad reputation. All the At Risk go to the teacher or teachers whom parents didn’t request. Those teachers get a bad name after a while even though they may be better educators/ teachers. Obviously, if year after year the same teacher gets an overload of At Risk students it will appear that he/she is not a good teacher where in reality he/she may be doing a phenomenal job with the students s/he has. Parents aren’t necessarily good judges.
“Creating a “supermodel” for teaching comprehension:
It is a process that embodies a four- part approach. The components are:
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1.Teacher-led instruction is key comprehension strategies using basal readers, newspapers, trade books, or other literature in homogeneous small groups
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2.A Read-Along Guide—reading diary, which chronicles students’ grasp of specific strategies such as recalling facts and details, making predictions, and finding word meaning using context clues
3. Independent activities during which students can read on their own, write in the journal portion of their Guide, or practice other strategies
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4.Assessments after each unit that enable teachers to make sure students are learning - assessments can take different forms viz. Running Record and obsevation
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Reading Today Vol.25 p.45 April/May 2008
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★Guided Reading in the Primary Grade Classroom /Guided Reading Grades K-2 Lesley University
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★Leveled Literacy Intervention/Fontes & Pinnell
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★Guided Reading the Fountas and Pinnell Way
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★Center for Literacy/Univesity of Arkansas at Little Rock
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★Second Grade: Guided Rdg.: Levels K,L, M 43 pages
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★Children Learn to Read by Reading Mrs. Judy Araujo
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There is a problem with placing all children in the same text. The At Risk are going to be frustrated with the grade-level text and the higher functioning students are going to resent having to read an easier text to accommodate the At Risk/slower child. Plus, the teacher is wasting precious time.
Shared reading approach is very conducive for the initial stage of reading. It is also used to develop skills or background for text too difficult for students but it can not be substituted for guided reading on their readability level- the time the teacher guides and closely observes students’ progress.
“During shared writing, the teacher and children collaborate on the construction of the story.The teacher does most of the writing, but may call individual children up to contribute known words. The story is reread each time new details are added. This places the emphasis on meaning-construction and provide a language scaffold for adding new details.”
The At Risk and those reading below level should receive daily guided reading by the classroom teacher and the reading teacher/ coach on their readability level.
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★Eight Strategies to Keep informational Reading Fun
UTube Reading Strategies-Emergent Kelly M. 2008
