Catching Up...

I think I may finally be getting caught up on things now.  This past week nearly killed me, with Site Base meetings, Staff meetings, Face-to-Face class, and a visitation, I've been exhausted.  Thankfully, I've had some time now to get caught up on things and feel more confident about where I am and where I am headed.  Now, for some data...

I recently began my second mini-unit for the study.  During this unit, we focus on the basic structure of the solar system.  It is the shortest unit we will have, but it is an important one to build students' understanding of the solar system and its parts.  I planned to use the textbook a lot more during this unit simply because it has all the information I need right there in one spot.  Since using an outline and having students read the text and complete the outline worked so well before, I decided to use it again during the lesson. 

As the students worked with their partners, I walked around and took notes, talking with students as I went.  Here are some of the conversations I heard...

A conversation between Maria and Nadia (pseudonyms):

• Maria: The sun’s gravity is very strong because of its “blank”. (Nadia begins searching in the book; Maria sits for a second, and then looks in her book too. Then she looks back at her paper and then at her book again.)
• Maria: It’s bec… , the grav..., the gravity is strong because of the sun’s size (motions with her hands to show a large round shape in front of her).
• Nadia: (nods)
• Me: How’d you know that, Maria?
• Maria: Because I read. (points to book and reads) “The gravity on the sun is really strong. That’s because of its great size.”

This was great because it shows how Maria has learned to read non-fiction to find the answer she needs.

Another conversation I overhead happened between Eric, Caleb, and Calvin:

• (The boys are sitting on the beanbags with their books and clipboards. Calvin seems to be unsure of something. Eric is eyeing me, and then continues to talk. Calvin’s book is not open. He opens it now as they talk.)
• Me: Were you two debating something?
• Eric: What’s “debating” mean?
• Me: Debating means, like, kind of arguing, but not like “fighting”, arguing. It’s like discussing back and forth. One of you thinks it’s one answer and one of you thinks it’s another.
• Eric: (shakes head)
• Me: No? I heard you were looking at the one that talks about how big the sun is. Are you thinking about what we saw in the BrainPop [video]?
• Calvin: Yeah, because it said there was a hundred Earths.
• Me: I think it said more than a hundred, so that would... they didn’t give the exact number, but you know it’s more than a hundred.
• (The boys nod and continue to search for the answer.)

The videos on www.brainpopjr.com are a resource I frequently use.  The students love the way the material is presented, often making it fun and easy to remember.  We can take a "quiz" at the end to see what they remember, and there are even games and other activities as well.  This is also a great resource because it provides more exposure to the content the students need to know.  According to Heisey and Kucan (2010), using multiple texts increases the chance that students will remember and really understand the information afterward, which is what I am hoping for. 


References:

Heisey, N. & Kucan, L. (2010). Introducing science concepts to primary students through read-alouds: Interactions and multiple texts make the difference. The Reading Teacher, 63(8), 666-676.

"Thick Descriptions": Finally a success!

During this lesson yesterday, I finally felt like I had some luck with keeping my students engaged while incorporating science content and reading instruction.  Here are my notes from the observation, which also serve as my first bit of "thick description".  Please note: this is my first attempt at "thick description", and while I am getting the hang of it, I am not quite there yet...bear with me! 

The article the students read

Students were working with partners on reading the article “Why Can We Breathe on Earth?” and then completed an outline together with important ideas from the passage.  First, we previewed the article, and I asked students to identify words they were not familiar with or did not know by highlighting them.  After a few minutes, the students shared the words they had highlighted and we went over them.  I did this because during some of the other lessons, students were not familiar with words used in the reading and this became an obstacle for them.  At least now, the students were somewhat familiar with the words and had heard them before.

Afterward, students paired themselves up and read the article together, working to complete an outline I created.  The students seemed really bored during one of our last lessons when we read and discussed material from the science text book.  Using this article outline gave students a chance to search for relevant science information in the passage and use their non-fiction reading skills as well.  As the students read and discussed the article, I noticed how engaged they all were.

Students read with partners

I walked around the room, careful to avoid stepping on the pairs of students working on the carpet, in the floor, and on the bean bags.  Two students played “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to determine who read the first part of the article.  Other pairs were already busy at work, using their highlighters to help them understand the passage better.  Some students highlighted important ideas, while others used the highlighters to find the information in their outline.  The room was filled with conversation as students read and discussed the article about Earth’s atmosphere.  One pair raised their hands frequently, asking what certain words in the passage were, even though we discussed those words before reading.  I wondered if they had paid attention during that part of the lesson.  Another pair chose to work on their outline separately, reading silently and then completing the outline individually before checking their answers together. Two boys who were working together surprised me as they sped through the outline page, getting all the questions correct.  They are best friends who tend to become more interested in talking to each other than in doing their school work.  Apparently, something about this assignment “worked” for them.  Students followed along with the article as their partners read and debated the answers to some of the questions.  I experienced one pair having this conversation about the answer to question #5 (Some of the gas in our atmosphere is oxygen, but most of it is _____________.):

     M: I think I found number 5.  It’s Nitrogen!
     S: (throwing her hands in the air) I told you that!
     Me: Why do you think it’s nitrogen?
     M: It said (pointing to the outline) “Most of it is a ‘blank’, most of it is, but in here (pointing to text) it said, um, most of it is a gas called nitrogen.

As I continued to walk around the room, I was amazed at how engaged the students were.  Most students were working diligently with their partners, either reading or completing the outline.  Several pairs, like the one described above, had different ideas on what the answers to the quesitons could be.  I heard students explaining their thinking and sharing their ideas.  When I checked the students’ outlines, I saw that most of the answers were correct, showing they read and understood the information. 

At the end of the lesson, I asked a few students whether they preferred this method of reading or reading out of the textbook better.  Of the six students I asked, all of them agreed it was better.  One student explained why:

     S: I like it better ‘cause, um, we get to work with a partner and we don’t have to just sit and listen and then go back to our seats and, like, do our work, and we can just read it and do our work.

This lesson showed me that my students can become engaged in this process.  The students really loved working with partners, especially since they were able to choose them.  Using the outline held students accountable for the new information they had to learn and required them to use the non-fiction reading skills we have talked about during previous lessons.  In addition, the outline really gave them a purpose for reading, making it more authentic than simply sitting and listening.  This gives me hope for future lessons!