Notes from A's Class

Review from last week
Comprehension - making connections to schema
Stumbling blocks
Strategies to improve comprehension
Last week, played a game to show how questioning relates to thinking, and how to teach
questioning
Start with out of context actitivity to teach self-questioning (e.g. 20 questions); go to reading acitivity to teach questioning (e.g. Stump the Teacher); go to activities where they are reading and thinking of questions at the same time.

Questioning minds don't get bored. Questioning is thinking, is making connections.

For younger kids, 20 questions about pictures instead of reading passages.

Game: Guess who? A series of pictures of people with descriptions. Ask yes or no questions, put down each picture that doesn't match.

If you are doing a lesson and it's too difficult, you have to know how to go down a few levels, then work back up when they are comfortable.

Major topic: Visual imagery
What? Being able to create pictures in your mind.

Making connections in the brain: neurons sprout dendrites; dendrites don't touch each other. The gap is called a synapse. That gap is bridged by chemicals, neurotransmitters (e.g. adrenaline). There are positive ones and negative ones. The negative ones make you feel anxious, scared, etc.

Story of struggling reader who came for tutoring... said one day "I love you"; "you don't love me, you don't know me; you love the way you feel when i'm around you." A few months later, reading problems fixed, still coming because of good feeling. Asked "can you show me how to do what you did with me? I've got friends who are about to make bad choices and I want to help them.

Visual imagery - picture worth 1000 words. Helps students make solid connections.

Example, picture map of United States. Candidate got on the plane in Miami, FL. went to ..., etc. etc. listed off all of the places. Because you made a mental picture, you could remember all of those places.
Remember example of what I'm wearing. Once your mind starts working, it keeps working.

Second reason for using visual imagery with kids, it gives you pleasure. Avid readers, raise your hands. I don't expect many. Okay, when you read a book, and then a movie comes out, which do you like better? The book, of course. You are making pictures in your mind.

Third reason for using visual imagery, it will improve comprehension.

Visual imagery is very powerful.

So, how do we teach it?

First floor, out of the context of reading.
Example: Everybody, picture an elephant. With your arm show me what the elephant's trunk is doing. Arms down. Put the elephant in an environment. Now picture elephant raising his front right foot. Now give it polka dots. Raise your hand if you changed your elephant's color when you gave it polka dots. What color was your elephant? Put your elephant in clothes. What clothes is your elephant wearing? Make your elephant stand on its head.
Go back to a kitchen that is somewhere in your past. Go to your seat at the kitchen table. Think about the smells, sights. All of your senses can be activated.
In your mind, picture a 3 x 3 grid. Number each of the spaces, 1 through 9. Start in the upper right hand corner. Move down 2, left 1, up 2, left 1, down 1. What number are you on? Some of you are there on the third floor and had no problem doing that. To scaffold, give them the grid on a piece of paper and a red disk to cover. Next, take away the number, or take away the marker. Then let a kid call the directions. Use number cards to do a comprehension check with the kids of the whole class.

Story about little Jerome, who said his TV set wasn't working. When it "warmed up", he was happy.

Second floor, you read and have them make the pictures. Read passage from "Sarah Plain and Tall". Could also have them buddy read, where one reads, one visualizes, then switch off. Also, read a picture book, but don't show pictures. They visualize, then show them the pictures to compare. Also, read them a picture book and give them a wide angle lens. Ask them what's happening to the right and left of the picture you can see. Picture your favorite car. You're in it. Now you're going through a drive through. Where are you? What are you wearing?

Some people say that they can't tell a joke. As your comprehension gets better, you'll get better at telling jokes.
First floor activity: tell a joke, and have your students try to tell the joke back. By the third floor, try three jokes.
Inquest dramatization - I'm going to read first two pages of a chapter book, these two are going to act it out for you. Freeze them and ask questions. Read beginning of The Great Gilly Hopkins. 1) dramatization, 2) stop periodically to ask audience to ask questions.

Teach the students to make the pictures in their minds. As they move into 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, there won't be pictures for them.

BREAK

I'm going to read a passage. As I read, I want you to go outside of this classroom and make a connection. When you do, raise your hand. I'll ask you to share your connections. Record in Inspiration.

Guided Reading, demonstration.
First floor. Warm up by listing six things to pick up from the grocery store. Who can list them backwards? Second floor. Read passage to them. Challenge them to remember everything. (Passage about caterpillars and moths.) Third floor, they read and remember everything.
Steps: 1) Challenge to remember, 2) Read to them, 3) record what they remember, 4) read again and make additions and corrections, 5) short term memory test, bar graph in reading journal. 6) Week or two later, long term memory quiz. 7) Graph in reading journal. Goal: by the end of the month, how many of you can get your LTM scores the same as your STM scores? That makes the kids responsible for their own learning. Guided reading procedure is very powerful.
Remembering 12 items and saying them backwards is a subtest of intelligence tests. Could you do that? Yes.
We study Alzheimer's here at USF. My friend is in one of the classes and they do a lot of these same activities to do with young children to get them to think. We pay a lot of attention to keeping people from losing their minds, but we don't pay enough attention in schools to making sure kids develop their minds to begin with. We test them so that we can say 'you're smart', 'you're not', but we don't pay enough attention to helping them develop their minds and become smart.

Chunking. Social security numbers, phone numbers with area codes. Cleaning garage: big job, break into chunks. When something isn't manageable, you break it into chunks. Break text passage into chunks. Use procedures on each chunk, like guided reading or visualization. Mnemonic devices.

Readers Theater
Story grammar
Once the students understand the framework, your mind wants to fill the framework.