hi my name is Megan Montgomery and I'm a social studies teacher at Kipp San
Francisco Bay Academy and I teach the fifth and sixth graders so I know this
is a book that tells facts about ancient Sumer and I know that there are two main
parts that I want to look at today and study today and the first one is called
a family farmstead and when I look at the pictures here I can see looks like a
lot of animals goats a lot of empty land when I am teaching strategy through the
think aloud I'm modeling what I'm thinking as a reader in my head because
I want the students to know what a good reader would be thinking about while
they were trying to access a particular text so you can read along on your page
with me I'm gonna read it one time through and then I'm going to go back
and think about what the facts are your farmsteads quite large because your
father's brother's their wives and children live with you too also this
focus is pretending that I'm an ancient Sumerian and explaining my life to me
each family has its own living quarters so today when I was doing the think
aloud strategy of the spoke diagram I was thinking about how the text that I
had chosen fits into that diagram and exactly what I want the students to be
thinking about during the time that they are reading and they're applying this
strategy and the way that I asked the students to practice the strategy that
I've taught for that for the day is really i try to scaffold it very much so
i start with a think aloud with the i do and then we move on to a we do which is
where they set with a partner and they might read one way that they might read
is popcorn style another way they might read as Coralie they might read in their
heads and then they talk about the comprehension strategy and complete it
together because we know that it's really important for students to be
verbal about what they're reading and two
bounce the ideas off of each other what about the title is my main title here
when we're splitting already half the hair plugs we know the other half of the
year there's a drought what is there a big topic so that's a lot yeah the
Christian water supply awesome I was just talking with this group and aquila
said something very wise she was able to look at the title and then after the we
do then we'll come back together and share what they thought about so that I
can identify any misconceptions that they have or the way that they are
thinking so I can make sure that they're on the right track what do you think our
main topic should be here on our spoke diagram so we can organize our thoughts
the uncontrolled water supply and then the last part is the you do when I let
them off on their own to try to apply the strategy themselves on a level that
on a text that has an appropriate level for them my goal for today's lesson was
to teach the students for the first time how to use the spoke diagram as a way to
help them organize the text in their head so that they can get all of the
information that they need to out of their textbook so I wanted them to see
what I had done and then work on their own using the same kind of thought
pattern to comprehend them the textbook I want the students to be able to use
this graphic organizer across a variety of texts across a variety of disciplines
and really take ownership of that as a tool they have to help them become
better readers and also better writers what did you read about in your book
that oh they plow like human auction I just have to do with a plow or when a
student or a pair of students is having some kind of difficulty with a
think-aloud process I really try to listen to them and to see what they're
thinking because a lot of times if I truly listen to what they're saying I
can understand where their thinking is breaking down so when the class is
working I'm never standing still I'm always going around trying to see what
the students are doing try to understand more of what they're thinking what's
working and what's not working and then if I see there's something that's not
working for us for a pair of students or even a bigger group of students I'm
right there to intervene and make sure that I'm guiding them to be thinking the
way that I want them to be thinking murmurs nice way to
for my quiz when students are able to use a graphic organizer during the time
that they're reading it helps them make sense of the text in a way that's
accessible and visual for them for example in today's text there were a lot
of facts about the ancient Sumerians that I wanted the students to be able to
understand and when the students are reading a text that's so packed with
facts it can be difficult for them to determine what the main ideas are and
versus what the details are and to find out what are the most important things
so when I use the spoke diagram it's a way for them to visually break down the
text into the main points the sub points and the details that are supporting that
and when they can see that all laid out in front of them it helps them to say
okay this is what the text is really about and this is what I'm needing to
know I'm definitely seeing a lot of improvement and the way that our
students are able to comprehend the material that they're reading I know
that I'm seeing a lot of improvement because of the kinds of diagnostic tools
and the assessments that i'm using and i'm typically seeing between two and
three years growth from our students and they're in their ability to comprehend