Learning Blog 6

In chapter 6, the authors discussed incorporating other resources into the classroom instead of, or in addition to, the traditional textbook. I was really excited to find that the authors found this as an important topic to include in this book, which is mostly geared toward future teachers, because I feel strongly that teachers need to broaden their resources in the classroom! The chapter discussed the multimodal platforms that can be used in the classroom. It called the reader to use technology in their classrooms to encourage students to be educated citizens in the 21^st century. I think that our Learning Blogs are a great example of this. Since students are so engaged in the realm of technology, it seems unavoidable to incorporate it into their learning. By using technology and other multimodal platforms, students will be more engaged in their learning.

The chapter listed several reasons why a student might find it difficult to understand a textbook reading. Page 138 says, “It is not easy, especially for struggling readers, to make the shift from reading stories, or narrative style, to reading for information in expository text.” I’ve never thought of this before but it makes a lot of sense! If textbooks are written in a very formal tone (which most of the ones I have read are) it’s very hard for students to make that transition.

I really liked how the chapter encouraged upper grade-level teachers to incorporate more read-alouds into their classrooms. I think that this is something that many teachers often overlook if they teach middle or high school. Read-alouds, as mentioned in the book, are a great way to model fluent reading, develop interest, and help the students to understand the tone of the text. From my personal experience, I have always loved being read to! If upper-grade teachers would incorporate this more into their rooms, I think they would be surprised at how much the students become more interested in reading & literacy.

I liked the techniques that the authors presented to get students more engaged in literature. The literature circle sounds like a fun and interactive cooperative learning strategy. It would be interesting to tweak this and try to make it work in a lower elementary classroom. I think students really benefit when hearing another students’ take on a topic.

Another thing that was discussed in the chapter was how to determine the readability of a text. There were many ideas but one strategy that I really liked incorporated the students. This strategy was the cloze procedure. It’s a great tool to use in the preparation phase to determine a student’s prior knowledge. I also thought that it would be a great tool to gain extra data for those students who I am concerned about, whether they are high achieving students or low achieving students.

I appreciated this chapter because it was very student-centered and encouraged teachers to step outside their comfort zones, delve into the textbooks and remediate any problems, and encourage students to be critical learners by incorporating different text resources.