Hi everyone,
I was fortunate to attend the Reading in Many Languages conference in Chicago on April 26-28, 2010. There were over 12,000 attendees and an abundance of specialized literacy seminars and workshops available. The days started off with the keynote speakers, Al Gore and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordon, who are both sensational speakers and strong advocates for global education. Every presenter emphasized the importance of developing a “staircase” curriculum, which enables students to develop academically throughout their education. By creating “I can” learning targets, students are able to clearly identify their goals for each class. This International Reading Association hosted conference was filled with many “ah-ha” moments for me; however, I wanted to share some strategies to teach reading and summarizing non-fiction and fictional text.
Teaching comprehension is one of the most difficult to teach because the reading process is such a private process between the reader and the text. As teachers, we help guide the student to make the reading process more visible. By taking notes and annotating text, the student is able to capture his/her thinking and understanding. Attached is a document used to monitor students’ comprehension. The document identifies various targets for different ways of thinking while reading, such as: predicting, connecting, creating opinions, asking questions, summarizing, identifying author’s craft, and reflecting/evaluating text. Also, attached is an annotating text document that can help students while reading fictional text. Once the teacher models how to take notes in the margins and throughout the text, the student will be able to use this document throughout their classes.
There are many definitions written to describe a summary. Gerald Duffy stated, “The creation of a brief retelling of a text. While it may include the main idea or theme, the focus is on describing in brief form the text’s major points.” Some students struggle with summarizing text, making the summary too long or too vague. The basic summarizing formula states, “topic + what is said about the topic+ purpose = main idea” (Zwiers, 2004). Before reading a non-fiction text, readers can use the THIEVERY approach to preview the text. Please see the THIEVERY attachment.
Overall, the conference was inspiring and educational. Many presenters affirmed what I was doing as a reading teacher, and then other educators shared effective strategies that would be useful in the classroom. Hopefully you will be able to take something from this summary of the conference and make it your own. If you are interested in learning more about these topics, I will be presenting to a small group of educators at the end of June. Please let me know if you would like to attend, and I will let you know the exact meeting time and place.
Thank you,
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/avaliton/Desktop/reading/Annotation/annotating%20sheet.pdf
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