I have been using small group work with most of the consulting work I do but still
struggle with many of the issues rasied by Nate in teacher's interpretations of how to
teach strugglling readers. Today I observed a special ed teacher fresh out of college
kill a story from an anthology meant to be language experience and rich with connections
to the kid's lives by insisting they decode it- words that were not decodable by what
they had learned - and then only ask questions about which words rhymed, etc. (She
didn't even read the title or discuss the pictures!) Then when the kids picked out two
words on the page that rhymed, but not the two at the end of lines two and three, she
said they were wrong! No explanation- just told them the two that rhymed instead. I
couldn't help but "offer" to model and then we took off in the richness of the language
and experience and the kids were clamoring to take their turn reading and telling me what
they had seen outside and experiences, etc. Modeling has been the most effective way to
break these "notions" of how to teach this population and what the kids can do. The
teacher and I then had a lovely discussion about her observations of what I had done and
how excited the kids were etc. Next I get to come back and help her while she tries to
restructure the lesson. So this woman, fresh out of college, knew neither how to teach
with language experience or phonics. And when I asked her to consider the purpose of the
material she was working with ( a non controlled reader) and match that with the lesson,
she hadn't considered that. She couldn't answer any of the questions the kids raised
about the phonology that was pressented and instead told them they were wrong when they
were right! I was dying!
The next teacher had planned a lesson on silent e words that only used one consonant.
the kids started making up compound words and even more complex nonsense words. i then
jumped in and supported the extensions they were designing before she could cut that off
back to "her agenda' and she ended up being "astounded at what they could do!" that
discussion then centered around designing lessons with challenge built in so she could
always sample above what she anticipated.
Ilda
Mike Cole wrote:
> Hi Ilda-- Take a look at our accounts of Question-Asking-Reading which are designed
> for students who have been given up on too, but which seem to work more broadly. They
> are not 1-1 (the QAL procedures) but rather provide a small group setting which I
> believe has a lot of virtues.
>
> I could easily be dead wrong. Your opinion would be highly valued.
> mike