A Semester in Review

This course has been more than I expected it to be. I read the description and expected to spend a semester talking about how important reading is over and over again. While that is essentially what happened, it wasn’t through the redundant conversations I was expecting.

Through our Subjects Matter readings, Daniels and Zimmelman have given us many different tools to use in our classrooms to promote good reading strategies with our students. While I don’t believe that I will use all the strategies within the text in my math classroom, I can see how effective they could be for classes that are more naturally inclined to text readings, such as history and science. I believe that the “Think Aloud” strategy is applicable across content areas and that it is particularly useful in teaching students how to read word problems. In middle school, students begin to see more complex test questions and this strategy will help them learn to efficiently sort through information to solve a problem.

We reviewed the “Literature Circle” strategy by actually participating in literature circles. While I am not sure how I would implement this strategy in my class, I do know that I would like to use it to supplement my students’ reading skills. My group read Monster’s Proof and while the book covers some math content that is advanced for middle school students, the reading level and action within are more than appropriate. Since the story has a main character who hates math as well as one who doesn’t, this book can connect to many students. This text would be used outside of class along with other texts such as The Number Devil or The Phantom Tollbooth. The students would have a fun book to read in their spare time that they would choose, read, and discuss with a group of their peers. This assignment would not bear much weight grade-wise as the purpose is not assessment. I would have them keep annotations or some form of participation notes so that I could make sure the assignment was being completed.

In class, we’ve also discussed various websites and tools that we can use in classrooms along with our texts and strategies. Mr. Robinson has introduced us to Donors Choose, a website that allows teachers to request donations for certain items needed for their class. These requests can then be funded by any individual who wishes to donate. This site could be helpful in building a classroom library in the future, especially if I am trying to buy sets of the same books. We also used SoundCloud to record and upload podcasts. Students could easily do this with technology that should be readily accessible. Most importantly, we used Blogger to track our reading and progress throughout the course. This resource could be useful for readings, review, checking depth of comprehension, and more. In a math course, this site could be used for students to explain concepts more in depth than they could in class. The students could also interact and present their projects via Blogger.

Overall, these resources and strategies can be used to reinforce good reading habits with my students, even though I will teach a math course. Students will practice content area literacy through these strategies which should improve their content area understanding as well as their reading comprehension. Even though math and reading could not seem farther apart, I have learned over the course of this semester that the two actually go hand in hand.

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