It is a gray kind of marine-layer day here in California. The kind of day that makes me want to hunker down in my jammies, grab my ubiquitous cup of coffee and read a book. Except now that I am an iPad owner, it makes me want to cuddle that sleek, little rectangle and find something new and different to do.
So reluctantly, I put my NY Times crossword puzzle aside and I continued my quest for great Education related apps.
I found one.
Greetings, faithful readers!
I am coming off of an inspiring evening speaking at a career fair with the Girl Scouts of San Diego-Imperial Council, hosted by the Junior League of San Diego. During this event I addressed 50+ 6th through 9th graders about the career of “Teacher.” I was a bit nervous…after all, most of these girls spend a lot of time at schools with teachers, so what would I have to add? To make matters worse, there were some really cool jobs on the panel…gemologist, anyone? I decided to talk with these girls about why I love to teach rather than what teaching was all about. I explained about the creativity, the challenge of reaching all students, the humor required, and the joy of watching learning as it takes place. Ultimately, remembering why I love education was important. If you haven’t taken a moment recently to remember why you entered this field and why it is so wonderful…pause for a moment and remember. It is completely revitalizing!
Perhaps it is the spring in the air or the sweet sounds of birds chirping. Perhaps I am grateful that my home/office has not been shaken into the Pacific Ocean. Or perhaps it is because my kindergartner is home from school for Spring Break and I have escaped for a few minutes of peace and serenity into my office under the guise of work. I’ll never tell. However, regardless of the motivation, I am feeling generous today and so will begin a serious of little gifts to my loyal blog readers. But first, a little about our philosophy on instructional seminars.
Over the past few blogs, we have been examining what makes a reader passionate and have been compiling lists of the books we love and adore. Part of what makes us passionate about reading is our ability to connect to what we read. In fact, in their work, Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding, Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis address this very topic. They explain that our context, what we have experienced, know, feel and understand plays a powerful role on how and what we learn. Across the board we find that those that are strong readers will both consciously and unconsciously relate what they are reading to their personal context and will use it to help them comprehend what they are reading. This experience of making connections with the text helps to enrich the quality and depth of comprehension. Likewise, most reading teachers know that struggling readers will plow through their reading assignments without stopping to make the critical connections to their own background and therefore they lose out on comprehension. As teachers, we must examine how we can teach students to connect to the text. A more in depth examination of schema theory can be found at this website.
