Content+Literacy+Strategies

Date: Sept. 15 & 22, 2011 Presenters: Joyce Young Description: This introductory level course is the first required course in the Content Literacy Strategies strand on the DI and UbD Learning Framework. Participants will learn and practice metacognitive routines and activities to use in their classrooms so that students will be able to read and learn from difficult text in all content areas. * Teacher utilizes content literacy routines including Personal Reading History, Reading Analysis Strategies, Think Alouds and Talk to the Text, Question-Answer Relationship, and/or Text Rendering and Summarization. * Elementary Teacher uses assessment practices, instructional strategies focused on student readiness and interest, and management practices for leading a differentiated classroom (workshop model) in his/her classroom.

Objectives/Ideas: Essential Questions: What is Reader's Apprenticship and why is Hempfield using it? What is metacognitive conversation? How can you make thinking visible?

Application/Implementation: In addition to my technology integration role, each year I try to participate in the Elementary Evening Learning Opportunity program. This session will be very useful as I work with struggling readers.

Learned helplessness:
 * Shift from learner to teachers
 * Teachers need to ask "where" a student doesn't "get it"
 * Students need to monitor comprehension
 * Need to teach self-monitoring

Comments/reflections
 * Reader's workshop/conferencing address many of these concerns

Personal Reading History
 * Write about key moments/events in your development
 * Experiences that stand out for you?
 * High/low points?
 * Times felt like insider or outsider?
 * What supported or discouraged your literacy development?

I never had trouble learning to read or understand what I was reading, though I noticed in late elementary school that many of my peers read faster than me. What this meant is that I was often the last one done reading a story or passage or that assignments took me longer. This made me feel like an outsider in my reading group, though I was in the top group. My mother always encouraged me to read and fortunately I enjoyed it. As I grew older, I learned that my comprehension was best in a quiet environment so I tried to provide myself with that when I was reading.

Ways to use:
 * Interview someone at home

Metacognitive Conversations Talk to the Text Teach the Learner, Not the Reading
 * Talk about thinking as one reads or performs tasks
 * Curriculum includes how and why we read and think, rather than just what
 * use post-its or highlight to record thoughts, connections, unfamiliar vocabulary, or questions about a text
 * say something about what a student has just read

Video refelections
 * students used note-taking methods that worked for them (bullets, paragraphs, graphic organizers)
 * students used different strategies when dealing with difficult reading (continue on, read out loud)
 * made real-life connections (homework, athletes)
 * grouped ideas together, then summarized what the discussion into one statement (this was difficult for them)

Reading for purpose:
 * provide tools to aid understanding (vocab sheet)
 * assign students to read for specific purpose
 * discuss strategies