Reading for 9/8/2014

Effective Reading Instruction

The article really goes about how active learning is the most beneficial thing for a students success in reading and in education.  They author states that the schools that are best doing this practice are those those that are in lower income areas and have more racial diversity.  At first I found this interesting because those are the schools that are typically more economically disadvantage and for them to be doing the best with these is interesting.  The article goes on to state that this was the case because of the type of teacher that is placed in these school are probably the best teachers that are available.  That is something else that I find interesting because I feel like in those schools in my hometown they are typically the schools that struggle to hire teachers and those that go there are the ones using it as a stepping stone to get to a school that they really want.  I found the authors strategies with the 6 T's to be something that could be done easily by any teacher and with little necessity for extra money.  So why aren't more schools and teachers incorporating it into their daily teaching teaching if it is something that is shown to be more beneficial to the students.

Both readings including Teacher led reading which I believe is something that is very important.  By having someone read to you you have to be actively listening to comprehend what is being said to you.  This really helps with younger readers because the questions that are asked later are something that can help them realized their knowledge.  The questions also need to be able to have a open ended answer not just a yes or no answer to allow for development and comprehension, like the article stated.  Independent reading is something that also helps with comprehension.  It also helps you think about different questions while reading that you may not think about when someone is reading to you.  Like the article and the book stated having a variety of readings is also very important because you want the children to be able to understand a wealth of readings but also be able to able to read accurately and fluently.  By being able to read a variety of texts it also helps with confidence which is really important when it comes to the Testing aspect of school.

Questions to pose:
1) Why do you think that more schools are incorporating the six T's and active learning into the daily routine of their classroom?

2) How do you think that as a society would could get towards a more effort and improvement based achievement that is mentioned in the article from the assessment based on achievement alone?  Would you think that would be more beneficial in the Elementary sphere rather than grades?