Focusing on the Essentials

I truly believe that the title of this blog rings true: literacy is the heart of education. If student are not literate, they face immense challenges in life outside of the school walls. The fact of the matter is that in today's day and age, teachers are failing their students. Teachers are forgetting to incorporate literacy into every day lessons. They do not provide enough guidance or strategies to comprehend the text material. These patterns lead to downward spirals of less learning and more memorization. Yes, the stakes are high and the pressure is great, especially in light of standardized tests. However, educators cannot allow those obstacles to deter them to reaching out to students and to communicating that their teachers believe in them. We have faith in them because we have provided them with the tools to succeed.

Chapter 10 in Content Area Reading discusses the important of studying text. In schools, text is the medium by which we impart information to our students. Is it an essential piece of the curriculum, and, too often, it is neglected. Teachers cannot expect students to pick up a text and to immediately become experts regarding how to extract the important information. That is a completely unwarranted assumption. Instead, educators need to make a conscious effort to provide our students with the tools necessary to highlighting the most important points. The process begins when teachers choose which text to use. It is our responsibility to sift through the options and to choose a text with strong, clear, and effective text structure. From there, the tools for organizing information are nearly endless. The book highlighted many techniques for effectively raising the level of material that students retain including graphic organizers, note taking, and study guides. There were two specific strategies that stuck out to me.

The first strategy that caught my attention is called a guided reading procedure (GRP). The students read the text material silently. After they finish, they put their books face down, and are asked to recall the important information from the reading. The teacher records the facts that the students remember and after compiling the list, the teacher and the class go over what had been recorded. During this time, the class discusses important points and eliminates trivial information, modeling how to decide if something is important material or not. Then, everyone refers to the text to ensure that all of the main points of the reading were covered. I think this is an excellent strategy to develop students' reading and comprehension skills. It assesses their comprehension without singling anyone out, and therefore will help students not to fear providing a wrong answer.

The second strategy I really liked is a study guide called a selective reading guide. The teacher provides a specific purpose for the reading assignment along with guiding questions to aid comprehension and retention throughout the reading material. If any section of the reading doesn't apply to the purpose provided for the assignment, it is eliminated. I think this is a great way to help students not to feel intimidated by a reading assignment because they know exactly what they have to look for. The key to effectively implementing this strategy lies in the guiding questions. It is important to write questions that require deeper thinking. Otherwise, the students can use the material simply to skim for the answer. If that happens, they are unlikely to retain information at all.

We also read a supplementary article this week called "Focus on the Essentials of Reading Instruction." It outlines a rubric for new teachers and how well they direct their classroom's focus on literacy. Literacy is so incredibly important to learning and growing as a student, it cannot be overlooked. I think that every teacher should read this article. It is very well written and it provides insights regarding what practices to avoid, like Round Robin Reading, and which ones work effectively. The goal for a classroom should be that the teacher involves his or her students in critically thinking. We need to challenge our learners. Through effective scaffolding, we can slowly hand over the reins of their learning. That is the end goal. Our students need to take charge of their own learning, all the while being guided, ever so gently, by effective teachers who truly believe that their students can succeed.