Blog week September 1, 2010
(Teachers please tell your parents about this blog series. It will encourage quality reading at home.)
In my blog last week, I gave you my definition for reading: “Reading is interacting with the printed page to make meaning.”
The key word is interacting. And the interaction comes from the children’s own past experiences.Young children need to interact if they are to find meaning. Reading is not a passive act. We must set up connections between the child and the story so they can see its meaning in their own lives. If the story is about Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, for example, then ask first if they have ever had a very bad day; and if they answer yes, ask them to tell you about it. If they answer no, then tell them one of your bad day stories. The richness of the meaning that will follow as the child connects Alexander’s story to his or her or even your real life is quite remarkable. This kind of meaning connection lifts the quality of the reading experience. Reading an engaging story to a youngster who is connecting the story to his or her own life is quality learning.
And how does quality learning happen? It is actually quite simple if we understand the steps.
It begins with a connection. Then we share the connection, Then we picture or image the connection and, if anyone is interested, we describe our image. In the example above, a parent might ask what a terrible bad day looks like? If there is time, the child might draw her image of such a day. The child’s imaginative description delivered to an engaged, listening teacher, parent or peer is an important step in conceptual learning as the brain research now confirms. The image connects the child more deeply into the “gist” or core of the story. Follow the image with reading the story together. After the story has been read, have the child tell you what they liked best about it. This will clarify the child’s own reactions. End the session by having them do something as a result of reading this particular story, something based on the connections they have made. Help them decide what this might be.
That is a complete learning cycle. It is short, simple and elegant. Notice it moves from the child’s own experience, including his or her image of that experience, to the story itself and ends with a discussion of the learning and how the child might use that learning— short, simple and elegant.
Here is the complete 4MAT learning cycle for Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
The “Gist” or main concept: We can change bad days into good days by learning to cope.
1. Have the child describe a bad day he or she remembers. If they do not have one, tell them about one of yours. Then ask how they copped or managed to get through that bad day.
2. Tell them the following two stories. A wood chuck is burrowing a new tunnel. He comes up under a big rock. He pushes and pushes, but he cannot move the rock. He turns around and starts a new tunnel and succeeds.
A climbing rose bush is growing along a fence. It comes to a brick wall. The roses climb over the wall and down the other side and keep growing.
What is happening in these two examples. Help the children see that the animal and theflowers are coping. (Dealing with a difficulty successfully.)
3. Have the children fold a piece of art paper in half and draw a bad day on one side and a good day on the other. Have them share their pictures.
4. Read the story together.
5. Have the children tell you some of the things Alexander did to cope in the story.
(Some answers) speaking up in the car, telling Paul to go sit on a tack, blaming Anthony when he fell, deciding 16 wasn’t an important number, wanting to go to Australia to avoid the dentist, not wearing his white sneakers.
6. Ask them to rewrite the story with a new ending. Point out that the book is in black and white, but maybe with a happy ending the pictures could be in color for the new ending.
7. Have the children make coping badges to have on hand the next time they see someone who is trying to cope.
8. Have them give their coping badge to someone who needs it and tell you what happened when they did.
Go to the following link if you have computer access and see Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day being read by its author. (This video will be archived on the BarnesandNoble.com site after 9/7/10) http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/index.asp?cds2Pid=34202
When you read to and with children, this is what the children need to understand:
- They need to know why they are reading and why this particular story.
- They need to know the “gist” of what this particular story is about.
- They need to know how their understanding of this story will be a learning time for them.
- And they need to know if they can do something as a result of having read it.
When you read to and with children, this is what you need to understand and do:
- How to draw forth something in the story that connects to their lives.
- How to decide what the “gist” of the particular story is.
- How to help them clarify what happens in the story.
- How to posit for and with them what they might do as a result of reading this particular story.
—short, simple and elegant.
Next week I will take you through a complete learning cycle of another famous children’s story, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox. Check out my complete 4MAT learning cycle and then read it to a special child or two.
