Subjects Matter: Chapter Two; When Kids Can't Read: Chapter Three

Subjects Matter
(Page 32) “In short: understanding what we do now, we will teach reading, not just assign it…”
I love how Daniels and Zemelman use all of the different reading examples in this chapter to show us what a difference a little background information makes when reading text. I think one of the things we run into as teachers is that because reading something related to our content comes pretty easily to us, we don’t realize how daunting it can be for our students. I would be interested to know if our social studies and science teachers were able to understand the sample passages with their first readings…I know I was clueless when it came to reading these excerpts. It’s so easy to think that it’s the English teacher’s job to teach student to read, but they have their own content to cover: language and literature. There’s no way they could possibly teach how to read everything—lab reports, maps, primary documents from different disciplines, manuals, etc. Besides the fact that they don’t have the time to do that, they’re not experts in all of the subject areas, so they’re not the best resources in teaching kids how to think like scientists, historians, car mechanics, etc. I think Daniels and Zemelman are showing us that while reading is very complex, there are some not-so-difficult things we can do to make text much more understandable for students.

When Kids Can’t Read
(Page 36) “…we can’t fix the reading problem by buying a particular program; instead, as teachers, we must learn how to teach students to comprehend texts.”

There have been times when people have asked me what program they can use to help their students become better readers. It certainly would make things easy if there was a magic program that we could administer to all of our students to make them great readers, but that just isn’t going to happen! If that were the case, everyone wouldn’t be in a tizzy about making sure all students are proficient by 2013 per the NCLB mandate. The key is that teachers need to be knowledgeable about best practices in teaching students how to read and write. Once a teacher has a toolbox of resources, they can decide which one will work best with certain students and topics. Not every strategy will work with every student—I think we’ve seen that in our class; we all haven’t necessarily liked the same strategies. One of the key words Beers uses in this quote is “how.” So often students are just told to read something but they’re never told HOW to read it. Or, they’re given a practice HSAP or SAT test and told to do it and given their scores, but they’re not told HOW to solve the problems. It would sort of be like giving me a test for medical school. I could take it 50 times and get my scores back (failing miserably each time, no doubt), but until someone explains to me HOW to solve the problems, I won’t do any better. There’s nothing that can replace the teacher. A program may have some great features, but it won’t know the student like the teacher does and can’t make judgment calls based on a student’s ability.

Subjects Matter: Chapter 7; When Kids Can't Read: Pages 258-269

Subjects Matter
(Page 167) “We need to make the classroom a community, a place where students feel safe to take the risks involved in learning where they see it connected with their lives, and where they help and learn from one another instead of working as isolated individuals.”
As I reflect back on my freshman year of college, I realize just how important community is. As I sat in class with 150-200 people (and 500 others in geology) in my freshman-level-everyone-has-to-take-them courses, I just went through the motions. I showed up to class and took notes, but I really didn’t feel like I belonged there. The fact that I lived at home instead of on campus (the deal being with my parents that I could stay home and they would pay for it, or I could go off somewhere and pay for it myself) made me feel like I belonged even less. While in high school I made all A’s and B’s, that was definitely not the case my first year in college. I know my less than desirable grades were a direct result of not knowing anyone in class and not feeling like I was a part of anything when I was sitting there. In my upper-level courses where the classes were much smaller and the students actually communicated with each other about course material, I performed much better…because I felt like I could take risks (I would have NEVER asked a question in front of 100+ people in fear of the question sounding stupid) and I learned not only from the instructor but my classmates as well.


When Kids Can’t Read
(Page 260) “And students won’t believe us unless we create opportunities for success…social and emotional confidence almost always improves as cognitive confidence improves.”
Boy, did I ever get a reminder dose of how it feels to be a struggling reader/learner this summer! I participated in an alternative assessment workshop in June for special education where our job was to set the cut-off scores for SC-Alt, the alternative state test for students with disabilities. While I taught special education—LD resource—while I was in the classroom, I participated in the workshop because of my English certification and knowledge of ELA standards. I had never given a true alternate test for special education (my students always had to take HSAP and EOC just like everyone else; they could receive accommodations, but they weren’t completely different types of test…with SC-Alt, we’re talking about tests that have to be administered one-on-one). I was one of many educators there to be able to help with the interpretation of ELA standards. The man leading the workshop apparently did not get the fact that those of us who had never given alternate test were completely confused about how the test was administered and it truly seemed to make no sense—he told us the questions become progressively more difficult though the test, but I found the exact same questions on pages 24 and 96. What?!? My frustration level was rising and I just wanted to leave. None of it was making any sense to me. Had I not committed to being there for three days, I would not have returned. I must confess my attitude was not very pleasant. There was a very nice special ed teacher at my table who had given the test, and she helped me understand it a little better, though I was still a bit confused. When I sat through this workshop and became increasingly frustrated, I kept thinking this is how some of our kids feel in our classrooms every day! How in the world do they stay motivated to even come to school? I couldn't handle it fo one day. How do they do it day in and day out? No wonder some of them drop out when they’re 17 if no one takes the time to get to know them and do everything they can to help them understand the material!

As you reflect on these two chapters, share some of things you do to build community in your classroom. It may be something that is mentioned in the text we read or it may be something completely different. What kind of results have you seen with these practices? If you’re new to the teaching field and are still working on building community in your classroom, what kinds of things are you trying (or what would you like to try based upon what we read in our texts)?