The Adventures Of A Preservice Teacher
Page 67: "Your read alouds are the key to being able to differentiate." I felt that this was an important quote to share because I never thought of read alouds this way and if I hadn't then I know that there are others who didn't view read alouds this significant. Once teachers start having read alouds become common in their classroom, this gives them the ability to have students read books on their level and not be stuck on one book that is too hard or too easy for them.
Page 69: "If comprehending or constructing meaning while reading a text depends on the background knowledge and experiences learners bring to the reading, then discovering what students know before plunging into a topic or issue is a key step in the reading process." I think that this quote is self explanitory for the most part, but it still stuck out to me. It showed me that it's important to not bore the students with a book that they know a lot about but find something that they are interested in and then make it exciting. Building background knowledge is very beneficial to not only reading and writing but science and history as well. As an educator, you need to get to know your students so that you can continue to teach them something new with every lesson.
- What are some ways to get to know your students and what they are interested in?
Read alouds can be beneficial to students for many reasons:
1. They allow educators to model how to apply stragegies so students can do them themselves successfully (page 70)
2. They help teach narrative story elements to students and the difference between narrative and informational texts (page 76)
3. THey help teach the elements of informational texts and how to find the key details and supportive facts (page 83)
Page 90: "...using the content to study an issue, such as segregation, or a problem, such as how wars can be avoided, asks students to apply what they;ve learned to bring meaning and relevance to a unit of study."
Page 93: "Issues and core questions breathe life and energy into whole-class and small-group discussions, addint the twist-the connector-that adolescents need to bond to books, ideas and concepts...Make sure, however, that as you travel into a genre, that you ask students if they see other issues in texts that they'd like to explore."
- These two sets of quotes showed me how important it is to incorporate a deeper meaning into a reading and writing lesson. Read alouds can be used for many things and by reading a book that relates to a history or science lesson allows students to become interested and familiar with topics they've never heard of. If they see the teacher excited about the book, then they know that it is okay to be excited and interested in a content that not many people are excited about. Read alouds open the door for the teacher to combine many lessons and give them a deeper meaning. It also allows teachers to connect the student's culture with what they are learning or even focus on one student that week during read aloud. It could be used as a type of reward system to show the students that they are all important and so is their history, they just need to give everyone a chance to shine too.