Chapter one of Janet Allen’s Reading History: A Practical Guide to Improving Literacy was very insightful. I like that it started off discussing the building of background knowledge for students. I think its very important for teachers to identify the parts of a reading assignment that student have issues with and to address those issues. I feel that by allowing students to come up with question regarding the parts of the reading that they found difficult is important for trying to bridge the learning gap for students in regards to a certain reading. I agree with this chapter on the importance of gaging student prior knowledge. This way one can address any students that have any misconceptions or false information regarding the topic. I liked the different strategies in the reading. I agree with Ms. Allen that its take the use of primary documents or artifacts to get some student engaged in history lessons. However, at the same time a wide variety of reading material can be used to cater to a student preference in reading.
Besides the different strategies of assessing student knowledge, I like the excerpt on the Teacher Christine. I could see a big difference in Christine’s teaching in the beginning compared to the methods and strategies she used to get a better input from her students.
What was the difference you noted?
ReplyDeleteI like how you note the importance of prior knowledge. It mimics a bit what Derrick's post is about. In a blog, it's ok to do that and acknowledge what he says and build on it. I'd like to see more of that "dialogue" in the posts here. Feel free to post more than once.
It would be great to write a bit more - so you can make more connections between this text, your CPD, your experience as a student, and other ideas/texts you are readings.