As this week’s readings demonstrate to us, there are countless benefits to engaging students in literary discussions and book talks. Based on constructivist principles, students learn by actively constructing meaning and understanding and relating new ideas to pre-existing ones. In contrast to traditional recitations, response-centered discussions and book talks enable students to interact with one another in meaningful discussions about a text and construct deeper understandings. Not only do these student-centered discussions help students better connect with a text, but they also provide many social-emotional, affective and cognitive benefits as well.
Although book talks and response-centered discussions are being implemented in classrooms across the country, they have yet to enter into the literacy curriculum in Rm. 122. In my kindergarten classroom, recitations as opposed to discussions are the norm. The I-R-E format of inquire, respond and evaluate can be frequently seen as the students respond to the teacher’s factual-based questions. Generally, the teacher will read a book and ask questions about what is happening in the story or who the main characters are both throughout and after the story. At this young age, students do need scaffolding to learn about the elements of a story. However, this does not mean that literary discussions beyond recalling facts are unnecessary.
Even though I am in a kindergarten classroom, I think that response-centered talk could be implemented with sufficient scaffolding from the teacher. The students are just learning to read and none of them are advanced enough to read a page of text on their own, but this form of talk could still take place based on books the teacher first reads to the class. Although students wouldn’t be able to refer back to textual quotes to support their discussion, they would build memory skills by recalling information to justify their responses. The teacher could scaffold students into this form of discussion by modeling responses to initial questions she poses. After students see what types of questions they should think about and how they should formulate responses, they will eventually internalize the strategies so they can take part in these discussions more effectively. The teacher may want to use whole-class discussions instead of small group ones so that students can hear a wide variety of responses and learn from one another.
While all students would need scaffolding because they have no prior experience with response-centered discussions and lack a large literary knowledge base, some students would require particular types of scaffolding. For example, some of the students are very shy and struggle during the literacy block. Many of these students leave the classroom each day for the resource room. They would probably need extra scaffolding as well as encouragement to build their self-confidence to participate in literary discussions. Also, there are a few students in the class who have behavioral problems and frequently talk out of turn or criticize their peers. They would need scaffolding about proper behavior and classroom norms so they would respect the other members of their group and give them a chance to share their opinions without being judged or ridiculed.
After reading about the value of response-centered discussions and book talks, I now look at the literacy curriculum in my field placement through a different lens. Although the children may be young, this should not discount their ability to take part in these discussions as opposed to strictly recitations. With so many students in the classroom in need of extra help who struggle with literacy, one solution may lie in introducing book talks into the curriculum.
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3 comments:
Kristin!
First of all, I loved that you connected our weekly math writing prompt on constructivist learning to our literacy articles! I kept thinking about that the entire time I was reading and how well they worked together! Also, your idea of incorporating this into the primer level ties exactly into the book talk article! I think that your idea of incorporating these talks with books that the teacher reads, and then having the teacher model how to initiate - respond - evaluate, are great steps to having these deeper discussions with young children! I wondered, as I was reading, if there was any way to incorporate response-centered reading at home? I think it would be great if we could find a way to have parents help encourage this kind of reading for deeper comprehension, and your response prompted that thought!
During discussion today, and through your article, I can see that you fully appreciate using toe form of book talk discourse for struggling readers, and I began thinking about how with your particular interest in Spanish, you would keep the conversation in an ESL classroom focused on the larger themes and ideas of the text, and not only on vocabulary comprehension? Or do you think that the vocabulary is equally as important to the students comprehension of the text? Overall, I think your response shows that you are critically analyzing the discourse that goes on in your classroom, and are looking to provide more constructive dicussions of text in the future in your classroom! Great job!
YOu're right- those factual types of questions are in the kindergarten standards and need to be addressed. YOu are also right in that they can push further and look for more interpretive meaning. This is a tough task in kindergarten because some of your kids may not even engage in these types of conversations one-on-one at home, so they have no schema for what it should look like. But, you have to start somewhere and kindergarten is as good of time as any. These kids are likely to need a lot of scaffolding and a bit more teacher modeling and intervention because, developmentally, some of them aren't in a place where they natrually think beyond the concrete.
Miss Kristin -
At your level (Kindergarten) I do agree that it is difficult to implement deep discussion within such young minds. It is hard enough to keep the students' attention let alone have a deep meaningful whole group conversation about a book. That shouldn't mean we shouldn't have to try. I think even though it may be difficult, it WILL get students accustomed to large in depth book talks and that way they will be more prepared for them in later years. In these early years, it's all about priming and preparing students for the upper levels and by starting constructive learning and thinking students will be better prepared for the future.
Excellent job!
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