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#Post#: 133--------------------------------------------------
Videos
DIR By: Rebecca
Date: August 7, 2011, 6:28 pm
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I am not certain if I locked the ELL portion of the blog, but it
is locked to me, so I am starting a new topic in order to post.
I really enjoyed the videos. However, it took me so long to
watch all of them that I have misplaced some of the notes that I
took. The Uncommon Schools video was interesting. The scores
seem to be so impressive, that one has to believe in what they
are doing. Some of the things they did in the classroom seemed
like some of the suggestions from Harry Wong: shaking hands with
students, positive attitude about each child's success and
working hard. I noticed on one wall that there was a huge banner
that said ALL OF US WILL LEARN.
I think that of the four videos on ELL learners, I enjoyed the
Reading to Learn video the most. One of the strategies that was
suggested to help ELL students learn academic language was to
use peers as models in carefully selected groups. I have found
that sometimes when I don't get an idea through to a student,
that often another student can explain it. This section also
discussed the difference between converstational language and
academic language. I really saw what this meant this summer. I
was teaching a group of elementary students, and we were reading
leveled readers. One of the ELL students was a terrific reader.
When there were tough vocabulary words on a page, I assigned
this student to read it first and then everyone choral read the
page. However, when we did comprehension activities at the end
of the selection, I was blown away by the fact that this student
really did not know the meaning of a lot of words contained in
the selection. Even though at a first reading, this student
seemed to be very competent, she only had conversational
vocabulary. In order for her to comprehend the story, she needed
a lot of front loading witlh vocabulary and background
knowledge. One last thing that I will comment on is how much the
videos stressed that teachers model what good readers do.
Besides just not knowing what good readers do, I think sometimes
students don't know what it looks like when we explain it to
them. Some students need the actual visual of teachers reading
text and showing students how they as readers navigate through
text. I am a real visual learner. I discovered that about myself
years ago and know that to learn something, I need to be able to
have it in my hands, underline it, mark it, etc. Somehow doing
those kind of things helps me stay focused. If I am just
listening, a lot of times my brain darts here and there, and I
miss a lot of what was said. This summer I took riding lessons.
When the trainer would tell me to do this with my hands and this
with my legs and this with my feet, often, I just couldn't
figure it out. Then she told me she realized that I was a real
visual learner so she would mount the horse and show me what she
meant. Click! It all made sense. I think a lot of students may
not need the modeling, but there are students who really benefit
from it.
#Post#: 134--------------------------------------------------
Re: Videos
DIR By: Susie
Date: August 7, 2011, 7:08 pm
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I enjoyed your post, Rebecca. One of the things I've discovered
this summer is that when I write fiction, I do so in a rather
unconscious manner. That makes it hard to explain and model for
students! I'd never really thought about modeling that for
students before. Other types of writing I use the whole writing
process, but when I'm working on a story, I just write and the
characters take over--if what I'm writing is real and true for
those characters. Of course, there's the revision and polishing
parts, too, but those come after the initial writing. I had
one kid in summer school go into a rant about having to learn
vocabulary and to read. "We already know how to read." It's
sad to see that attitude; of course, that's probably why he's in
summer school!
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