After this class, it almost seems like common sense to teach literacy in every classroom. If you have to read to teach the material, how do you expect the students to be effective active readers? How to read different types of texts? Texts they really only interact with in your classroom? Saying the reading strategies should be left to the language arts teachers is just lazy.
My two focal content areas are science and social studies. It is much easier to teach reading strategies in social studies than science in my opinion. Social studies has very tangible ideas. This happened because of this: cause and effect. Here is a picture from a long time ago, what do you see? However, with science there is a countless amount of theories and abstract ideas that go with science. So many different multimodal resources must be used and that can be a daunting task. Even so, teaching reading in a social studies classroom is a challenging new idea before this class. I never thought of myself as someone that needed to teach reading as my students will know how to read. However, my teachers probably had that mindset and since then I do not feel like a strong reader.
For most of my life I read like a scanner. “Reading is about comprehension and thinking…these squiggles have to be built into meaningful concepts by the mind of a hard-working reader”, Chapter 2 Subjects Matter. I think it is an extremely cool idea to focus on the fact that there are 27 letters in the alphabet and 40 sounds in the English vernacular that have created every sentence, word, or phrase I have said, heard, or read. However, schools should provide us with the supplies to conceptualize and understand what the things we hear mean and how to convey what we want to say. The craziest part is that we are able to understand a language through a created written text, and there are ways to do it even better.
One thing from class that I find myself intrigued with are the ideas of book club and all of the different aspects or flare I can add to it as a teacher. Since then my mind has been in lesson planning mode I guess, even though I have barely ever lesson planned before. Thinking of different books and different types of worksheets that I could use in my classroom. It is an exciting thing to see real things coming together from my classes, finally. Student collaboration is difficult and as a student, I hated it; therefore, I believe I can do a better job of it. I believe student collaboration is key to peak understanding.
A reading strategy that I will most definitely use in my classroom but also for myself is self-monitoring. I believe sometimes I can read something, believe I understand it, but not be able to retell it. Finding different presentations, worksheets, and group work that teach students to retell, self-monitor, and peer monitor will be a cornerstone of my classroom.
Lastly, the end of Subjects Matter focuses on the specifics of helping struggling readers. This textbook is something I will draw upon in the next coming years to ensure I am always giving my students the most that I can. In order to truly understand a disciplinary you cannot just be explained it but you must do self-research and read on your own. Reading is the backbone of education and as future educators it is important to realize that it is our duty to ensure students receive the most out of our classroom.
My hopes for my students when they leave my classroom are to understand the curriculum, understand what different types of literacy look like, and to have felt safe to make mistakes and be themselves in my classroom. My hope as a future educator us to be a teacher that can teach different disciplinary areas through my students’ reading, not just instruction.
Adios cowboy
WC:664
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