I am placed in a
kindergarten class, where my students are focusing on learning to read words,
and small texts, which do not have much plot to the stories, if at all. Even
the program’s stories that the teacher reads are very focused on learning new
words, or counting. This leads to very surface-based conversations with the
students. One thing that I did last semester with my students was read a story
about a family who lost everything in a fire. I somewhat conducted a book talk
in that I first asked the students what they would grab if they could only take
one thing out of the house, as well as what they know about needs, and what
they would ask for Christmas. This provided the students with an opportunity to
think in their personal lives about wants and needs (which was what my lesson
was about) and helped my students relate to the book that I was reading. After
the reading I ask recall questions, and allowed the students to ask “I wonder”
questions about the text. Most of the discussions about the texts that my
students read are recall the words kind of discussions that is used to check
their comprehension of the meanings of the words that they are learning. My
students do have book groups where they read different books for about a half
an hour where they circulate through the classroom. The students rate the books
based on if they liked the book, it was ok, or disliked it. This allows my
students to talk critically about the book with one another, but that is the
extent to their conversations. I think that in order for the Alamasi discussion
to work and be successful my students would have to read stories that actually
have a plot. My highest reading group has just begun reading stories like this.
The roles of the discussion would also have to be clearly defined and modeled
to them, and I think that an adult would have to sit in each group, or it would
have to be a whole class discussion. Even with my “book talk” experience my
students began telling stories that had nothing to do with my original
directions and so they had to be pulled back to the discussion. An adult would
need to help the students to focus. I think that the easiest role of the Amasi
discussion for my students would be the role of the facilitator, because my
students love being in control and making sure that they keep each other in
check. My students’ groups has a coach each day, and it is like the biggest
deal to my students to be the coach, and this only entails choosing which way
to go around the circle to read, and carrying their bucket to each station. The
most difficult role for my students would be the inquisitor and the evaluator.
My students have not fully been taught yet how to think critically about a
text, and as said before their books are not really in-depth. In order to be able
to ask meaningful questions my students would have to have more to go off of
than “Mike is on a bike” and text that help them develop their vocabulary.
Also, the evaluator would be difficult, because there is little material to
think critically about, and very little to have different view points on. I
think that if this were to work for my students there would have to be several
weeks at the end of the year, when they are better readers where my students
can be walked through the process several times and see a model of the correct
behavior.
In my experience in kindergarten classrooms, I find it difficult to spark educational, meaningful discussions with the students because they're so young and they love to share personal stories. While this can be relatable and meaningful to the lesson, I really like how you asked a question before reading your story to the kids. Your question gave the students a chance to be themselves and answer the questions and hopefully keep their answer in the back of their minds while the story was being read. This makes a text to self connection while the story is being read and taught. I feel like that's a really great way to engage in class discussion with kindergarteners. I like the idea of the students taking turns being coaches, where they are in control and keep the rest of the group on track. I think this could be a perfect way for the students to engage each other in small group discussions. Maybe the coach could pose a question to the group, where they all go around and answer the question. This would be the case until they get the hang of starting meaningful content-based discussions, (making sure to stray from too many personal stories). For the first couple of discussions, the teacher or an adult would kind of monitor this, as to make sure the coaches were doing their jobs and letting all of the students speak about the question or topic at hand. I think that by doing little things such as asking a simple question, can really spark conversation among the students and teach them how to properly conduct and engage in classroom discussions for future use.
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea about the use of the coach and really had never thought of using the coach in this manner. Thinking about my kids and their groups I really think that this would be a great and effective way to get my kids engaged in meaningful discussions. I think that as a teacher I could provide my students with different meaningful questions that the coach could ask throughout the book. I also think that this method would be effective if I got some teachers together in my classroom and modeled this activity for my students, showing them how to have an effective book discussion with the coach posing the questions and the teachers meaningfully answering the questions so they can see how this would work. I think that my students' book selections would have to change however in order for this to really be successful. Most of the groups are reading books that have no plot in them or story line. I find it hard to believe that there are no beginning books or easy readers at their level that don't encompass a story line. I think that the program does that the school uses does a disservice to my students in this area. As a teacher I may change the books used and utilize more interesting books that they can have discussions about.
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