Adolescent literacy with difficult readings
The most interesting thing I felt in the readings was that it's not about a student being good or bad at reading or being literate. It's more about teaching students, or these adolescents, how to approach difficult readings. What might seem easy in one subject can also be a weakness in another. Some students are stronger readers than others, and some students might be able to read the text but not actually grasp what they read. Schoenbach et al. actually talked about this in the form of reading apprenticeship. Essentially, what he explained is that teachers should make their thinking visible. This is especially useful because most students just see the teacher understand the text, but they might not understand and pretend they do. Putting our thinking out loud is actually a strategy that also helps because it helps students not only understand the text but also gives strategies on what to do when they get stuck on advanced readings.
For me, this would be insanely useful in a math classroom because reading is also a huge part of mathematics, even if it doesn't look like the traditional English textbook. Word problems and reading graphs are some of the biggest ideas that connect with that. Showing students how to approach those problems and thinking out loud is why it is so important. You can read the sentence but not understand it.
This connects with Martinez' idea of metacognition as well. In simple terms, metacognition is basically understanding your own thinking to do something about it. Rereading, breaking the page down, or asking questions when you're confused are all important examples of learning to manage difficult readings.
At the same time, it shouldn't be about making problems easier, but about giving your students more tools to manage difficult problems. The biggest question I think I should consider when teaching isn't "Why can't students understand this?" but "How can I help my students gain intuition on what to do next in a hard problem when they're stuck even if it's one step?" That shift in thinking is what helped me most in the reading that I can apply today.
Hi, thank you for sharing insightful thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI’ve also seen students who know how to calculate but struggle to understand what a math problem is asking them to do. That’s one of the reasons I became interested in literacy. I agree with your point that students sometimes pretend they understand when they don’t. We can’t make them understand a problem for them, but we can teach them what to try when they’re stuck: break a long sentence into smaller parts, or pause to look up background information they need.
hi!
ReplyDeleteI felt really connected to this post as a hopeful history teacher!!
I was that student that would read and not understand, reread and try really hard to understand, and slowly reread and break down the texts... I am still that way at this stage in my life and it can feel like an uphill battle for the rigor that grad school requires. BUT I think that is what makes me so conscious of what the reading for metacognition was saying about really processing your ideas while you read but I think this takes time and also something that students really care about to develop these skills. If I hate reading about the French Revolution but I love reading anything about the 20th/21st century, how can the skills my teacher wants me to develop might be manifested different if my interests are different.
I also think that I have so much hope from my observations because the teachers are conscious about how much of subtle ways to develop reading strategies like annotating, breaking down the meaning of words according to the time period and as well as developing writing skills at the same time.
I really liked your point that students may be able to read something but still not understand it. I see this in my daycare classroom too. Sometimes the children can follow the directions, but they do not always understand what they are supposed to do. I usually slow down, explain one step at a time, and show them how I am thinking. This helps them understand what to do instead of just giving them the answer. I think this connects well with the idea of giving students tools to use when they get stuck.
ReplyDeleteHi Sebastian,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your point that it isn't only students being "good" or "bad" at reading, but more about giving them the correct tools to be able to work through the material. I also liked your example of using think-alouds in math, especially when word problems and graphs are difficult to understand. Teachers should be focusing more on helping their students understand rather than having them figure it out themselves and making it more difficult.
I really liked your discussion about the challenges adolescents face when reading difficult texts. I agree that students may become frustrated or lose confidence when the vocabulary, structure, or ideas are unfamiliar. Teachers can make a big difference by providing strategies that help students work through challenging reading instead of simply avoiding it. Breaking a text into smaller sections, discussing important vocabulary, asking guiding questions, and connecting the reading to students’ experiences can all make difficult material more understandable. I also think students need opportunities to practice these strategies independently so they gradually become more confident and capable readers in different subject areas.
ReplyDeleteIts very important to be able to create an environment where students can ask questions about things that dont make sense to them or to clarify things in the text or lecture. Teachers always want to help students by any means and even with our willingness to do so some students wont take in that help because they dont feel comfortable or like they arent asking the right questions or asking "dumb" questions.
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteFor me reading is one of my weaker subjects. Similar to how you said that some students read the text but not understand it, for me in elementary, I was able to read but once I was done reading, I had no idea what the text had said or what the main idea was. It wasn't until 7th grade when my Social Studies teacher showed us how to annotate the text. She would read the text out loud in class and then stop and write a question that she had or underline important text and write her thoughts on it. For me this was the first teacher that showed me how to think about the text while reading.