1.
Chapter 3 and 4 of Tovani’s “Do I
Really Have to Teach Reading? ” discuss multiple ways of integrating reading
development into non-literary disciplines. Chapter three focuses on reading
within the industrial tech and math classrooms, both of which do not require
your traditional form of “reading”. Tovani encourages these special area
teachers to make reading meaningful to their classrooms by focusing on reading
materials integral to their own content areas.
2.
In chapter three, Tovani presents
different strategies and ways to integrate “required reading” within a variety
of classrooms. For instance, in the industrial tech class, which requires very
limited textbook readings, she emphasizes the importance for these students to
be able to read blueprints and directions that many non-vocational students do
not possess the skills to decode. Although it is not always apparent, reading
is practiced in all content areas. Experienced teachers are extremely familiar
with their content areas and often forget to break down their thinking and
reading processes for students who are not as comfortable with the material.
Teachers should take the time to model reading comprehension for their
students.
Reading and decoding are two very important skills in language
acquisition. Although the bulk of lower level Spanish pertains to the building
of basic vocabulary, it is important for students to be able to recognize
cognates as well as understand the context of different text. In foreign
language students frequently come across new vocabulary but often times are
able to deduce the correct meanings through understanding the context
surrounding the word. Along with context, cognates are very prevalent and
helpful in understanding Spanish vocabulary. Students are often able to look at
the stem of the unknown word and deduce the correct meaning based of previous
knowledge of latin roots. For example, the word construir means to construct, a
vocabulary word that many students would be able to decode without ever having
learning the word. I would love to explore different ways to further
incorporate common core into the foreign language curriculum.
Courtney, I agree that we often assume that decoding is a skill that transfer from the native language to learning a foreign language. However, we often leave students behind because we fail to explicitly teach these skills. Oftentimes, we are so used to reading we have forgotten all the steps we use to make sense of information. Many of our students may experience the same since they do not take a second language until high school. And some students come to us lacking literacy skills in their first language. We should test students in the beginning to see if these skills need to be explicitly taught.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, I feel like Latin is just a class for decoding grammar and sentence structure, which is exactly why I sometimes feel that learning living languages is a whole other ball game. The decoding skills that one has to remember to teach in a Spanish or German class is an explicit component of Latin. Oftentimes, I feel like students who take Latin end up improving their English reading by a huge margin, simply because our focus on grammar is so intense.
ReplyDeleteDecoding and the use of derivatives makes up the majority of early Latin class, much like Elizabeth said. Any time a student is struggling with vocabulary, I always try to offer an English derivative, or even a Spanish one if the opportunity arises. Many times this is enough for students to retain the definition and many times it will lead to many interesting derivations, like how journal is a derivative of "dies" meaning day or pretzel deriving from "bracchium" meaning arm.
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