Shared Readings: Modeling Comprehension, Vocabulary, Text Structures, and Text Features for Older Readers

Shared reading has many benefits for students. Through modeling, teachers are able to show students the way that they think about reading and the strategies they use to help them with reading. By modeling comprehension by taking the time to talk through parts of reading the teacher is providing the students with an example of how they think about what they are reading. Talking aloud about what is happening in the story, or relating aloud the relationship of the story with some type of background knowledge gives students a great model of how they can think to themselves and make connections with what they are reading.

Modeling strategies to decipher confusing vocabulary also helps students realize that they have options when they aren’t sure of words. Modeling the use of context clues aloud, using the outside-the-word and the inside-the-word strategies aloud, and if those fail then modeling how to use other resources to learn vocabulary helps students see the options they have to help them when they come across a word they don’t know.

The examples and the advice from the 25 teachers used in this research makes so much sense that it is hard to understand why some people feel that shared reading is only for younger grades. I think that it is difficult to model thinking but I think that it is very beneficial for students to see how to think about what they are reading. We give students examples for how to do math problems, science experiments, and how to play games. It makes sense that they would benefit from being given an example for how to develop their reading skills.

Pirate Internet Workshop

I found completing the Internet Workshop to be very easy and informative. I liked the idea of having the sites for finding the information already listed. When doing research, I find that I spend a lot of time looking through sites unless I get lucky and hit just the right site the first time. This process requires a countless amount of time for me to find good information so I can imagine how long it would take students. Having the sites already bookmarked for them enables them to focus more on the information and less on the search. I think as a teacher, another advantage of having the sites already available is that your students will have accurate information and will be able to focus on the information that you want them to learn. If allowed to search on their own, the students could find different information, some of which might not be accurate or applicable.

I don’t have a lot of background knowledge on the subject of pirates therefore I found conducting the Internet Workshop informative. I didn’t know that pirates, buccaneers, and privateers were even close to the same things. I had an image in my mind of what a pirate was but that image came mainly from the fictitious pirates portrayed in movies and children’s fictional books. I have heard the words buccaneers before but for some reason I associated them with cowboys instead of pirates and I associated privateers with businessmen. Using these websites to learn more about what pirates were, where they came from, where they lived, and their lifestyles has given me a truer understanding of piracy. While I like internet exploration, I also like that the unit on piracy integrates other types of resources as well as the internet.

I found it interesting that not all of the websites contained the same information about buccaneers. I found variances between where they came from, and in the origin of the name buccaneer. Some of the sites were much more detailed than others but each site shared much of the same information just presented differently. Being able to compare the information on each site in the DRC was a useful way to distinguish differences in my findings. Comparing more than two websites gave me more of a research base to decide what information was the same in more places. This helped me make a choice about what information I believed to be correct.

I was extremely impressed that three of the sites we visited were created by students in either elementary or middle school. Showing students that other children have done this research and created a place for them to obtain this information would seem to be a real motivator for students. I’m sure that I will use the idea of Internet Workshops into my classroom.