Strategies
My third grade classroom has students with a variety of reading levels ranging from first grade levels to fourth grade levels and perhaps beyond. It is my intention to scaffold vocabulary and comprehension instruction in order to provide an entry point for all learners. Many of the inaugural addresses are lengthy so I have chosen portions I feel to be valuable and worthy of investigation. I will provide the original text and modified versions and allow students to develop interpretations of these addresses. Vocabulary activities will play a large role in dissecting and analyzing the message embedded in the speeches as they relate to The Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution. Students will work in cooperative learning groups comprised of students with a variety of levels of ability and learning styles. Each group will be assigned one president and will conduct research to gain basic background information. Next students will review and interpret the inaugural address segment. Each team member will be held responsible for learning about the subject matter and for helping the other member learn as well. This mutual support creates an atmosphere where all students can achieve and fosters a strong sense of community within the classroom. When the initial investigation is complete, groups will be re-formed and students will share their knowledge with their classmates. We will create a timeline of the presidents and make judgments about if and how the presidential messages have changed over time.
Vocabulary Development
Vocabulary development is an integral part of all content learning. There is an undeniable link between vocabulary understanding and comprehension. As a teacher in the elementary grades, one must realize that direct and implicit instruction of vocabulary is vital and should occur daily in the classroom. A variety of vocabulary activities can aid in highlighting the most important words for content area comprehension, two helpful strategies I use in my classroom are explained next.
Student VOC Strategy
This strategy helps students analyze word meanings from context. Create a list of key vocabulary words that are coming up. Have your students write the original sentence from where the vocabulary word is found. Your students should make a prediction of what this new vocabulary word means. They should then consult a friend or a reliable resource, such as a dictionary, to determine the meaning of the word. Students will create an original sentence to show the meaning of the word. Finally they should draw a picture that will help them understand the word and explain it. This is a fantastic way for students to analyze and decode words in a text they don't understand. This is the great strategy for students to tackle the vocabulary in the Inaugural Addresses.
Word Banks
Word Banks are places where students can keep a list of words they have learned so that they can refer to them as needed. I prefer to have students keep their word banks on rings. I use a variety of color coded index cards and assign a specific color to a specific part of speech, such as all nouns are on blue cards. Using the rings enables students to develop alphabetizing skills, parts of speech skills, and is more mobile than a journal. Students should be expected to use the words in their writing and their speaking.
Cooperative Learning Grouping
Think-Pair-Share
During Think-Pair-Share activities, students are given information or a question and must independently Think about how they will react to the prompt. The Think period should last a short time, no longer than 5 minutes. Next, they will Pair with a partner and conference about the prompt. During this period, they may develop new questions or clarify understanding. This period should also last a short time, no longer than 5 minutes. Then they will Share with another partner set, small group, or entire class. All information can be discussed and questions may lead to further investigations. The time frame on this portion will be dependent on the choice of sharing. As the essential questions are posed to stimulate student thinking, we will use the Think-Pair-Share model to inspire understanding and questions about our topic. This will provide a starting point for me as it can identify what the students already know, what they are confused about, what they know little or nothing about, and also what interests them and what they want to learn.
Jigsaw
This form of cooperative learning breaks larger topics or resources into small parts. Each group is given one part of the whole. The students read the given portion, discuss, and prepare a tutorial project for the rest of the class. After modeling how to read and interpret Washington's Inaugural Address, students will be broken into small groups of two to three. They will be assigned one of the remaining seven presidents. They will be responsible for conducting research to obtain some background information about their president. After they have developed a snapshot of their president, they will receive the corresponding vocabulary list and Inaugural Address. As a group, they will determine what they believe the idea or vision for America their president embodied. After this step, groups will be restructured and students will be responsible for sharing their expertise with the other group members and rationale for the determinations they arrived at. These new groups will then be able to create a timeline of the presidents and discuss similarities and differences within their messages.
Three Minute Review
I stop any time during a lecture or discussion and give teams three minutes to review what has been said, ask clarifying questions, or answer questions. Using this strategy, students will be able to have time to digest the information already presented, ask questions to clear up misconceptions, and formulate additional questions to begin to connect to future learning.
Reading Strategies
Differentiated Instruction
To meet the needs of all the learners in my classroom, I will use Differentiated Instruction. Differentiated Instruction is an approach to teaching content in ways that address a variety of learning styles and needs of students while maximizing the potential of all learners. This will help me to accommodate the diversity of academic needs present in my classroom. My instruction as well as the students' research can be differentiated. I will differentiate according to content, process, or product. Through differentiated content students will have access to a varied level of texts and/or websites and could be "buddied" with a partner at a different level to assist with the learning. Differentiated process will involve the students being offered choices about the way they gather information; students will be given access to books, audio tapes, and videos. When differentiating products, students are given learning contracts which present them with a variety of options to create different products, such as plays, poems, or Power Points, based on their individualized learning style and interest.
Making Connections
Learning occurs when students can make personal connections to the prior knowledge and future learning. Each student comes to class with prior knowledge; this will be the starting point for new information. While reading, students will make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections. These connections help students to become more aware of different genres, forms, and structures within the text. When students can make a connection to a character within a story, motives, thoughts, and feelings of that character are better understood and history becomes alive for them.
Questioning
"Curiosity spawns questions. Questions are the master key to understanding. Questions clarify confusion. Questions stimulate research efforts. Questions propel us forward and take us deeper into reading." Teachers need to monitor their students' understanding; the questioning strategy offers teachers an opportunity to check for understanding and clear up any misconceptions. Student formulated questions are an essential component to this process and help determine where the students want to go next in learning of the topic.
Visualization
It has been said, "A picture is worth a thousand words". Learning to interpret images—also symbols, graphs, and facial expressions—improves comprehension.
Determining Importance
Students need to discriminate between what is important in a reading passage and what is not important; this is the very definition of comprehension. Once students determine what is important, they can begin to apply meaning to the selection and can build reasoning skills.
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