I believe that teaching and learning is a process of little things which eventually turn into bigger things which in return are great things. Everyday a child is in school they are building on things they have learned from that morning, yesterday, last week, last year, etc.
We never stop learning, everyday is a new experience. The only way people can process these new experiences is by comparing them or adding them to prior experiences.
My time working in a kindergarten classroom has taught me so much about the foundation of schooling. In kindergarten we are taking the most simple concepts and stretching them out in a way that the experience is memorable for the students. Lets start with something such as writing a sentence. When my students write a sentence and space their words they consciously think about the fact that their words should be one finger apart. They will finish one word, lay their finger down next to it and then start writing the next word. Wouldn't it be hilarious if college students or professionals did this?! The point is WE DON'T DO IT BECAUSE IT IS SECOND NATURE. I bet you haven't thought about the way you spaced your words since you were.... well... in kindergarten. But I'll also bet you forgot that at some point in your life you had to learn how to do certain things.
Take thinking about a text you are reading. This blog post for instance! While you are reading this you might be thinking about what I have written, asking yourself questions, disagreeing with my thoughts, changing your opinions because of my thoughts, wondering why I bold some phrases and underline others, considering other aspects about the education system, etc. I'm sure you're not stopping yourself and saying "hmm it's been a while since I considered how this blog post compares to my thoughts on teaching, I should stop and reflect." This is because you are... as we say in kindergarten... a 'good reader'. You naturally use strategies to keep yourself focused and engaged in the text at hand.
This past week I had the awesome opportunity of teaching my students reading strategies by performing a 'think aloud' with them. The idea of a think aloud is just as simple as it sounds. This is about teaching students to be active readers and fully engage themselves in a text but instead of keeping these thoughts in your head, during a think aloud you say them out loud! During my think aloud I was working with two students, one boy and one girl. They were both at very similar reading levels. We did our think aloud in a conference room, away from all distractions. I chose to do a 'talk through' form of think aloud. I chose this because in a talk through the teacher reads the book and the students only handle the questions part of the think aloud. I thought this would make the experience less stressful for my students because all they had to do was listen and respond when they felt the need to. My goals for my students was to use specific reading strategies we had discussed prior to the actual think aloud.
First what we did was talk about what a think aloud was. We then brain stormed things 'good readers' do while they read. My students and I came up with the following list...
-Ask questions
-Look up words
-Use the pictures
-Picture yourself in the story
-Make predictions
After we made this list we discussed how we could use these strategies while we reading. I then explained that during this special instance instead of keeping these thoughts in our head we would say them out loud so we could help each other understand the story.
I then read a short story called King's Job to my students and told them just to listen while I read the story. While I was reading, I periodically stopped and engaged in a think aloud. I asked myself about the cover of the book, questioned what I thought the dogs job was, I predicted that the dog was going to run away when he saw another dog, I talked about my experiences with my own dogs, etc. Once I got to the last few pages of the story I invited my students into the think aloud to contribute when they felt the need to. They both jumped right in and asked questions and made predictions! I was very impressed.
Essentially I modeled the process before asking my students to do it themselves. This way they could see how this process looked. I invited them in to think aloud with me towards the end of the story to give them a guided practice (practicing with my assistance and prompting). After we finished that story we discussed how strategies from our list came up during the think aloud.
Next, I read the book Watch Me to my students. I told them that this was their turn to participate in a think aloud with each other (independent practice). I was going to read the book and they were allowed to stop me whenever to express their thoughts. For the purpose of working with chatty kindergarteners I actually told them they were to stop me at the end of the page when they wanted to speak.
THEY DID A FANTASTIC JOB! I was beyond impressed with the level of questions, predications, and relating they did to the story. WOW! One of my favorite moments was when there was a picture of a character with a towel looking thing wrapped around its head. Student L said she was not sure why that was on his head. Student J said it may have been because the character crashed its bike. Student L then said he was probably right and that must be a bandage. Student J then said how he always wears a helmet when he rides his bike so that doesn't happen to his head. WOW! I was one happy teacher after watching this happen... without my help! They did this on their own!
I was beyond satisfied with the outcome of my think aloud lesson.
I learned from this experience how powerful modeling is while teaching anything. If I had just verbally explained what my students were to do, I highly doubt they would have been as successful. Learning is such a visual process. In the words of my classroom management teacher, "If you don't have time to model something, when do you think you will have time to teach it?"
Next time, I would choose a more interesting book. The books I used were short and part of a series that the district is asking this school to use. Therefore the book wasn't all that interesting.... my students still did a fantastic job using it! Next time I would love to pick a book from Chris Van Allsburg. He has some incredible stories with beautiful illustrations. This could have given our think aloud more substance. He was one of my favorite authors I learned about during my Children's Literature class.
I noticed that my students had so many good ideas about reading strategies. One that had never occurred to me was placing yourself in the story. Student J told me when he reads Curious George he thinks about what would happen if he was in the story with George. What a great idea and an awesome way to help yourself stay engaged!
Overall, I learned that reading is a lifelong learning process. People learn how to become better readers by reading more. Sometimes we need to be told about strategies that might be helpful to use when we read and sometimes we come up with these strategies on our own based on what we have experienced. Therefore if I were to keep working with these students, I would continue to challenge them and stretch their reading strategies even further. I think the best way I could do this would be by providing them with a more difficult text. This way they could exhibit some higher thinking because of the complexity. I do not believe that because they are in kindergarten they couldn't handle this, it is always good to be challenged. We learn from difficult experiences. As a teacher, I learned how open-ended the process of teaching reading can be. There is no wrong or right way to teach a student how to read. Although there is a wrong and right way to provide the tools a student needs to be successful in reading. A teacher should be motivating and offer every strategy they can, while showing students how to use that strategy. In the end it is up to the student to explore and figure out what is working best for them. As a teacher, all we can do is guide them in a direction that we believe they will be most successful in. It is important to let the student mostly be the guide because who knows them better than themselves? Again, "Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." -Vincent Van Gogh
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