D&Z Ch. 11: Help for struggling readers narrated real situations where teachers successfully implemented strategies for helping students with reading. The first narrative, placed in a physics class, started with students who had trouble visualizing material they read. I’ve noticed this multiple times tutoring physics, but always thought it was something unique to the subject. I thought it must have something to do with students closing their mind to the subject because of disinterest. I never considered the possibility that the student might be struggling with reading. The issue of unfamiliar content is minimized in my mentor’s classroom, however. He writes the majority of his problems and examples himself, often making them specific to something about Farragut High School. (ie: the physical speed limit of FHS’s circular parking lot, given a satellite photo with dimensions and a mustang skid pad test results.) This also reminded me of an article I read about students in hawaii and their performance on standardized tests. Most standardized tests are written for white students in the NE and so when questions involving something as familiar leaves changing colors-- students in hawaii are often stumped or distracted by wondering what changing seasons and falling leaves would be like.
One of the most brilliant suggestions to me was having students record themselves reading primary sources aloud. In addition to helping them gain fluency- the side effect of building a teacher’s collection of tape recordings could be a huge help for future classes. This could also be an excellent use of technological resources.
As soon as I read the first scenario, I thought of you and your physics students! I think a lot of the time, students need help reading the problem. It is not always that they do not like or care about the subject and what the question is asking. They can genuinely not understand what the question is asking. However, you are not the only one in this case. Many times, other content areas experience this exact same issue. A lot of times, students have a hard time relating to a question when they have never experienced a situation first-hand. I think this chapter gave us a lot of helpful situations and strategies for us to observe and grow from overall. I know this opening situation hit home for your content, but do you think you could use these strategies and information in a different way in your content? I definitely think so! Your mentor teacher creates problems for his class because it alleviates the issue on getting caught up in deciphering the problem. I hope you use this information presented if you do not always make up your own problems! This chapter gave us a lot of good information to use, and we do not need to over look this chapter!
ReplyDeleteLisa,
ReplyDeleteI believe that we are in the same boat as far as the reading goes. My students also have trouble visualizing the question being asked. I must say it was very eye opening when this article suggested they may be struggling with the reading. One great thing about physics is that almost all of the problems lend themselves to a visual representation.
I agree that recording may really help with future reading but it got me thinking about another possibility. What if you had videos of a student drawing a picture of what is being read aloud while it is being read. That may help future students see how the picture develops as the reading goes on and can also really help them begin to see how to visualize mathematical word problems.