Strategy Lesson - Partner Reading

After doing my Think Aloud, I wasn't as intimidated to do my Strategy Lesson. I was nervous by the planning of the presentation and the activity itself as I was assigned the specific strategy. When I read the book’s description of the strategy, I wasn’t able to quickly think of an activity that would work well. With partner reading, it helps to have material that students could read. Many math textbooks have example problems and practice problems throughout the chapter with very little text in between. I originally wanted to find a fiction math novel or story to use as I thought that would work better with partner reading. I eventually decided to use a common core text in order to bring up the point that some strategies should be adjusted to fit a classroom. If you as the teacher believe that there is a better way to reach your students, by all means adjust the instructions! I almost wish that I could have used The Phantom Tollbooth as well as the textbook in order to compare the way the two texts worked with the strategy.

I didn’t receive as much feedback as I was hoping to, so I’m not sure if there were any suggestions from the class as to how I divided the text up and adjusted the strategy. I also realized that I forgot to time the activity. In planning I was mindful of the five to ten minute suggestion, but I didn’t expect our class to need more than five minutes to complete the activity. In the future, I would most likely set a timer so that students know about how much longer they have to work on the activity.

Overall, I enjoyed working with the strategy lesson and I can see it being useful if I had a text I wanted students to read that contained more difficult information or language. By creating partners, the students can work through their combined knowledge and discover the message of the text.