Wow! I don't know what else to say. I am so impressed by everyone's presentations. Our class has the most talented, well-versed, and hardest working teachers I have ever seen.What a privilege it is to be a part of this class!
I was very nervous to stand up in front of all of you knowing what vast amounts of knowledge you all have on the subject of reading. You made me feel very comfortable and in a few minutes I felt like I was in my classroom comfort-zone (not that y'all act like a bunch of kids).
I was happy to discover that one of my favorite ways to teach students how to sight-read music is one of the strategies that Stahl used in his research. I have used peer pals in sight-reading music for years. Several years ago, I paired students consistently through one semester to see which students had the most improvement. Some were grouped high to low abilities, some were grouped with equal abilities, some chose their group, and some groups used a combination of all the different groups. The groups that used a combination of groupings made the largest gains. I have used this strategy consistently since then and have gains every year. It was nice to relate successful music reading strategies to successful reading strategies.
I'm looking forward to use some of the vocabulary comprehension strategies with my music students. I think that using some of these will help the students to sing the texts with meaning and improve the emotional context of the musical performance. I can probably incorporate some of the games that were introduced.
Until next time,
T
Saturday, July 30, 2011
"Assessing Adolescents' Motivation to Read"
I was very excited to read this article about motivating students to read. For my entire adult-life I have considered my children as unmotivated readers. My husband and I are avid readers; we love books of all kinds and read frequently. In fact, a book is like a movie to me. I read a book in one sitting rather than over the course of several days. I don't like to be interrupted. However, books of academic nature can be "chewed on" over the course of several days or even weeks.
I read to my children in the womb. I read to them everyday until they were able to read themselves. I still read to them from time to time, but not very often (especially with Thing #1). Thing #2 still loves it! It's probably because I do voices! However, my children do not like to read books. I have tried everything that I could think of to get them to read. I have been successful getting my son to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. I think the reason he does is because they have drawings in them. He loves picture books!
This brings me to the article. I was thrilled when I read that reading magazines and information on the internet was actual reading. My daughter, of course spends lots of time on the computer chatting with friends, looking up things on the internet, and reading magazines. My son loves informational books with lots of pictures. I never thought that these things could be considered reading. I guess I thought that they should be using books as their entertainment rather than T.V., computers, or video games.
I love the Reading Profile that is defined in this article. Using the students input, not only gives insight on what the students are reading, but it helps us to figure out what reading materials they could be interested in and possibly what material could motivate them to read. According to Partin and Hendricks (2002) teachers should broaden their spectrum of materials that they use in their classrooms and their ideologies of "quality" reading material. This is a huge lesson for me personally; hopefully, I can find some way to incorporate some of my children's interests into wonderful reading materials. I'm already "Google-ing".
Later,
T
I read to my children in the womb. I read to them everyday until they were able to read themselves. I still read to them from time to time, but not very often (especially with Thing #1). Thing #2 still loves it! It's probably because I do voices! However, my children do not like to read books. I have tried everything that I could think of to get them to read. I have been successful getting my son to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. I think the reason he does is because they have drawings in them. He loves picture books!
This brings me to the article. I was thrilled when I read that reading magazines and information on the internet was actual reading. My daughter, of course spends lots of time on the computer chatting with friends, looking up things on the internet, and reading magazines. My son loves informational books with lots of pictures. I never thought that these things could be considered reading. I guess I thought that they should be using books as their entertainment rather than T.V., computers, or video games.
I love the Reading Profile that is defined in this article. Using the students input, not only gives insight on what the students are reading, but it helps us to figure out what reading materials they could be interested in and possibly what material could motivate them to read. According to Partin and Hendricks (2002) teachers should broaden their spectrum of materials that they use in their classrooms and their ideologies of "quality" reading material. This is a huge lesson for me personally; hopefully, I can find some way to incorporate some of my children's interests into wonderful reading materials. I'm already "Google-ing".
Later,
T
Busy Summer
What a terrific, but busy summer! I have had a wonderful time starting a new class to obtain a reading endorsement. The classes have been very interesting and I would love to learn more about the brain research that was discussed in our first week of classes. That was totally fascinating. However, I will be honest; it has been very overwhelming. Since I have a music degree, I have felt most inadequate in the vocabulary and terminology of the course. On the other hand, I am a total "book freak" and have a passion for learning new things, so I think that what I learn will be totally valuable to my personal development and my professional development. I have already found many techniques that I can use in my chorus classes.
I've spent most of the summer at the pool with my son the fish! Each visit, I dove head-first into a pool-side lounge chair with a book in one hand and sunscreen in the other. Most visits to the pool were usually accompanied by a visit to get ice-cream (my favorite thing on earth besides my family and music) or a grape or cherry slush (my son's favorites). After swimming the entire summer and completing level five swimming lessons, my son announced that he would like to take Jr. Life Saving next year. Yeah! That means more reading time for me!
My son is addicted to television, so everyday I had to play "Meanie Mommie" and say turn it off and go outside! Read a book. Play a game. Being that it was the Sahara Desert this summer and temperatures were as hot as I remember in my Mississippi childhood, I think I played more board games this summer than I have in my entire life. I wouldn't trade a minute of that time with my son! We had a blast!
My daughter spent the majority of July on mission trips. She started with SPLASH Bartow (Show people love and share Him). This is a week-long event where children and adults flood the community with service projects. The last two weeks she has been in St. Vincent, which is a small island in the Caribbean. The people of this island are very poor and have very limited supplies. My daughter has a total new understanding of what luxuries that she has been offered. She also has many wonderful new stories about the provisions and grace of our wonderful God.
I worked a lot at school and home this summer getting ready for the coming school year. I really am excited about using the strategies that I learn in this class with my students at school. I already know I am going to use the (I'm not sure what it's called) vowel holding method with my chorus students to get them to sing their diction correctly. This method is where you draw the line under the vowel and you hold it out while you are tracing the line with your finger. I hope this will work in addition to our open-vowel sounds that we use with hand signals. It could help to apply this method using whole words. I will post how well it works.
School starts this week and I know how busy things will be. I hope to have a good bit to post next week-end!
Take care,
T
I've spent most of the summer at the pool with my son the fish! Each visit, I dove head-first into a pool-side lounge chair with a book in one hand and sunscreen in the other. Most visits to the pool were usually accompanied by a visit to get ice-cream (my favorite thing on earth besides my family and music) or a grape or cherry slush (my son's favorites). After swimming the entire summer and completing level five swimming lessons, my son announced that he would like to take Jr. Life Saving next year. Yeah! That means more reading time for me!
My son is addicted to television, so everyday I had to play "Meanie Mommie" and say turn it off and go outside! Read a book. Play a game. Being that it was the Sahara Desert this summer and temperatures were as hot as I remember in my Mississippi childhood, I think I played more board games this summer than I have in my entire life. I wouldn't trade a minute of that time with my son! We had a blast!
My daughter spent the majority of July on mission trips. She started with SPLASH Bartow (Show people love and share Him). This is a week-long event where children and adults flood the community with service projects. The last two weeks she has been in St. Vincent, which is a small island in the Caribbean. The people of this island are very poor and have very limited supplies. My daughter has a total new understanding of what luxuries that she has been offered. She also has many wonderful new stories about the provisions and grace of our wonderful God.
I worked a lot at school and home this summer getting ready for the coming school year. I really am excited about using the strategies that I learn in this class with my students at school. I already know I am going to use the (I'm not sure what it's called) vowel holding method with my chorus students to get them to sing their diction correctly. This method is where you draw the line under the vowel and you hold it out while you are tracing the line with your finger. I hope this will work in addition to our open-vowel sounds that we use with hand signals. It could help to apply this method using whole words. I will post how well it works.
School starts this week and I know how busy things will be. I hope to have a good bit to post next week-end!
Take care,
T
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