Paola Dalmonech
CPB 011.3957 – Reflective Practice Seminar II
Prof.Frias
October 14, 2009
Journal #3
Using Children’s Texts in the classroom
Mentor texts or Anchor Books are pieces of literature that you can return to and
reread for many different purposes. Also, mentor texts help students take risks and try out
new strategies. For example, my mentor teacher uses this type of books to help students
make powerful connections to their own lives. Moreover, she said that mentor texts
should be books that students can relate to and can read independently or with some
support. In fact, the book she is reading this week is not too complicated for fifth graders.
In other words, they could read it because the level is appropriate to their reading ability.
However, in the past it happened that she picked books that were too difficult for them to
read independently; therefore, she was the one who leaded the reading meanwhile the
students listened carefully.
Last time I saw Mrs.P., I asked her how she selected the book she is reading right
now and she told me that there was something in specific that inspired her. When she
read it, she found that the characters involved were particularly interesting because they
had certain characteristics that students could also find fascinating. In specific, the main
character, named Lewis, is not the regular ten-year-old boy that everyone could identify
with. The environment in which Lewis is located captured the students’ interest. In other
words, the protagonist is in a situation in which he has to manage everything by himself
and discover things that will make him solve a kind of mystery. In fact, the story is set in
a huge palace that consists of a multitude of rooms; all of them hide a clue that will bring
him to the solution of the enigma. Thus, I now understand that Mrs.P. selects the books to
read in class according to the message they convey.
A couple of days ago, I was in my internship class and I had the chance to attend
one of the reading aloud activities, and it was very interesting to see how the students
were actively involved. The teacher had introduced the book several days before;
therefore, that morning, the reading was going to continue from the point they stopped
the day before. The teacher asked one student to turn off the light because that represents
the start of the reading aloud. The atmosphere of the classroom immediately changed.
The students were sitting on the colorful carpet and in front of them was the teacher
sitting on the rocky chair. During the reading aloud, Mrs.P. was putting a lot of emphasis
that undoubtedly caught the students’ attention. She was pronouncing the words very
clearly using a tone of voice that made the students become more and more involved;
moreover, punctuation helped her to read beautifully. I think this is very important
because a well-structured reading aloud implies that the teacher uses fluency and
expressivity. To read effectively, you have to act and be able to make voices, so then
students can identify themselves with the characters of the story.
I strongly believe that Mrs.P.’s reading performance resulted to be very efficient
because she was capable of drawing her students into it. Although she had introduced the
book previously, the first thing she did as soon as the period started was a retelling of the
chapter recently read. She called out one student and asked to summarize the last few
pages by giving the highlights of what was more important to remember. She formulated
questions such as “Tell me in your own words what happened in the last chapter we read”
or “Describe the last scene that we read”. By doing so, everyone in the class reinforced
their knowledge and refreshed their memory. Hence, the teacher began to read the new
section of the book. From time to time, she would stop to think through what was being
read as the passage was read aloud. In this way, the teacher made the students think
critically and report out what their thinking was. She gave them a question to think aloud
and used the turn and talk to your partner strategy in which each pair discusses the
question that was asked, and eventually shared it within a class conversation. The
question could be “What do you think about the idea of…?” or “What is the relationship
between the two characters of the story? Do you find similarities or contrasts?”
Everybody is allowed to respond because participation is very significant, yet they have
to raise their hands and wait to be called by the teacher.
At the end of the activity, the teacher stopped the reading with a phrase that
enhanced the students’ curiosity. Thus, she assigned them to predict what the next scene
would look like and what would happen to the characters; that is called making a
prediction. She emphasized the fact that their prediction should be said by starting with
sentences such as, “I am guessing that ____ will happen next”, “I bet that ____” or “I
wonder if ____”.
Everything she did in class was planned ahead. Teacher’s preparation for the
reading aloud activity consists of:
-
highlighting places to stop, to question, to make predictions, or to make
connections;
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making discussion questions before the lesson;
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practicing reading the selection using gesture and voice intonation, as I explained
above;
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finally, planning before, during, and after reading activities definitely helps to
enhance the comprehension.
Overall, I think that the picture book Mrs.P. chose provided the models that
helped and will help students to grow as readers in the future. She was able to stimulate
their creativity and create more interest. Most importantly, the think aloud strategy helped
students to understand that reading should make sense, and to move beyond literal
decoding to comprehending. I think it also helped them to learn, think, and reflect upon
themselves and the reading they usually do individually. When the teacher models,
students listen and observe carefully, so then when it’s their turn, they remember and are
able to imitate correctly.
Reading aloud always implies a purpose. In the case of Mrs.P., the purpose was
first to perform the think aloud strategy used to model summarizing. In fact, students
were asked to recapitulate what occurred in the previous scene. Secondly, the teacher
used the making prediction strategy where students had to predict what could happen in
the next passage. This activity was well organized because students responded accurately
using the proper language that suited the activity.