Week 2 Assignment

Dear Participants:

Some of our school districts are still having problems. I am particularly concerned for those of you in Kentucky. I know you have just gone back to school. However, some of you may still be living without electricity. Know that if necessary, we can make up whatever you miss after the 6 weeks are over. If possible, submit your original post for the week, the one discussing the implications/applications of the readings. We will worry about the other 2 comments later. I know you will be so behind both here and at school!

I have abbreviated the titles of the books for brevity's sake. Y = Youngest Learner and T-A = Think-Alouds. Please, place a Y or a T-A to indicate which prompt you are responding to at the beginning of your post. In addition, when looking for a colleague's post to comment on, make suggestions, propose adaptations for, give both the name of the author of the original post and either Y or T-A for the text on which the comments are based. Remember, your first post for the week should be based on the reading assignment; your later posts should comment on your colleagues' posts.

Important: go to the URL address for your blog and post your responses in that spot. Do NOT send responses by email unless you have cleared it with me first. We will do all discussion online on either Strategic Reading or Strategic Literacy (whichever group you were assigned to).


Online Training 02/04/09—Week 2
Texts: Think-Alouds and Youngest Learner

Reading Assignments

Youngest Learner: Chapter 4, “Reading Aloud to Children,” pp. 76 (starting with Vocabulary) – 89. Pay special attention to pages 79 and 83.

Think-Alouds: Chapter 1, “Seeing Reading,” pp. 18 – 34. Pay special attention to pages 25 – 31.

Prompt: Notice that both readings discuss the same strategy, although for different age groups. The information, however, can be applied to all age groups. For example, Youngest Learner, p. 83 lists Question/Comment Types that could apply to high school and college students: “focusing on text structure” or “summarizing.” Plan a new Read/Think Aloud or discuss modifications to one you have already used. Include 3 items as emphases from any of the lists included above in the “pay special attention to” pages. Tell us how you would expect higher-order thinking to be required as you and the children go through the activity.
Note: I know you use these strategies. My purpose here is to share with you the incredible number of purposes/applications possible with them. Sometimes, a slightly different approach breathes life into a practice that has become commonplace to either you or the children.