questions.
- I think the biggest thing I have seen with content literacy is in relation to vocabulary. When I first came into the classroom, I noticed that many of the students were REALLY struggling with learning the new words. My host teacher is traditional, and she has been having them do worksheets out of the book, read the definitions of the words, and things of that sort. The vocabulary test grades did not come out the way she expected. The students could not transfer the meanings of the words across different areas. They could match the words with the definitions, but they struggled to write original sentences using the words. They struggled to fill in sentence blanks with the correct words. They struggled matching the word with the synonym or antonym. When I took over the class, I used a more constructivist approach. Yes, I used many of the techniques my host teacher used, but I also had the students use their creativity as an advantage. I had them illustrate the words (like we did in class). I had them write their OWN definitions. I had them play a game using the words. We have not had another vocabulary test yet, but I believe I am seeing the students gain a greater understanding of the words.
2. Progress with literacy explorations - successes to celebrate
and challenges.
- My successes and challenges relate directly to the vocabulary I wrote about in #1. It was a definite challenge to figure out how to get the students to create meaning. However, once they did, I had a feeling of accomplishment. I felt like a made a difference.
- Another challenge that I did not have the opportunity to take on was the Accelerated Reader program. All of these students received a test grade based on the number of points they earned. The day after the grades came back, I was shocked. A number of these children earned ZERO points. Is this just laziness or what? This was an assignment that was spearheaded by my host teacher, and I did not have an opportunity to interact with the students on this.
3. Reflection for ways to avoid readicide in your content area.
- I am still working on this. During my TWS unit, I am going to implement several literacy techniques - background articles, article summaries, etc. - to see how the students react. I'll have more to write after this is completed.
I have the same concern for vocab. My teacher just has them look up the words and then we give them a quiz over them in a few days. But, the kids for the most part do very well on the quiz and can tell you what the words are. There are a few kids that dont do real well on the quiz, so I have been trying to so show them a couple of alternative techniques for learning the vocab. I don't really know how it going to work until they take the next quiz. I think it probably was laziness when most of the kids got a 0, I think laziness is the biggest problem in my classrooms
ReplyDeleteI am experiencing the exact same problem with vocabulary. The oly difference is the fact that in a Math classroom, it is not typical to have Vocabulary quizzes. In the Math 2 Support class that I teach, I used a graphic organizer to help the students identify various terms and their connections to the Math examples. For instance, in a Compound Interest Problem, I had the students draw a large graphic orgnizer and define "rate" and "compound" in their own words. I think it helped, but I haven't seen official results yet.
ReplyDeleteI think it is good that you have realized that some new strategies needed to be implemented to help the students better transfer the vocabulary words into more than just definitions. I found that by using real world examples with the words also helps the students better understand the vocabulary. Also I think graphic organizers is a great way to help students improve their vocabulary and therefore improve their reading comprehension. That is the topic for my research paper! Good luck in the final weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSounds like very traditional teaching, Ross. These traditional strategies work (show good quiz grades) when the students already know the words, or have a pretty good vocabulary to begin with. However, quiz grades are misleading. A student can memorize for a quiz and it doesn't mean the word becomes part of a working vocabulary.I am glad you are exploring other pathways for learning words.
ReplyDeleteI definitely understand about the vocabulary, in science it's full of vocabulary and most of it is from latin or greek. I spend a lot of my time trying to get students to make connections to the vocabulary which is hard because it is such a large part of science.
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