When we read something, it’s usually about something that
we have an interest in. For example, I love sports and read Sports Illustrated
a lot. When the author of a Sports Illustrated article is describing a baseball
player’s stats, they use language that is specific to the sport. The author
will discuss the player’s WAR, BABIP, and OPS+. I know what these things are
based on my background knowledge of baseball. And for someone who isn’t
familiar with the vocabulary of baseball, or another sport, then they can’t
fully comprehend it.
“We intend to think of comprehension as the understanding
of what an author tells us, but it is the implicit part – what is not on the
page – that matters most.” (p.77). There’s different types of knowledge that we
accrue. There are three general ways of knowing: text-to-self knowledge,
text-to-text knowledge, and text-to-world knowledge (Harvey and Goudvis, 2007).
Text-to-self knowledge is direct knowledge of something due to personal
experience. Text-to-text knowledge is indirect knowledge resulting from one’s
reading and study. And text-to-world knowledge is based on our impressions of
how things are, usually obtained secondhand and through others’
interpretations.
One thing I noticed when reading was on p.126 “A
long-standing concern with disciplinary reading assignments has been the
paucity of frontloading, not excessive frontloading. Students have been
frequently sent into texts cold (“the pages to be rad for tomorrow are listed
on the whiteboard”).” Let’s not kid ourselves, students aren’t going to read
the assignments you ask them to read. Students have enough going on in their
lives; a 20-page reading is a low priority. I’m sure most of you haven’t read
the readings for this week and are summarizing based off what I’ve written to
post in the comment section. Telling students what the reading is about isn’t a
way to assess what they know, rather teachers should focus on the meaningful (the text’s contribution to
the progression of knowledge-building in the discipline.) Essentially, what
needs to be done is to use prior knowledge as a scaffolding technique to make
sure they can better understand the reading. “Good readers draw from, compare,
and integrate their prior knowledge with material in the text” (Duke et al.
2011, 56). One strategy that Buehl suggests using is “quick-writes.” These short-written
responses help students verbalize their understandings. For example, a history “quick-write”
would be “History: One thing a person should know about the women’s suffrage
movement is … because …” I like this strategy because it allows for teachers to
get an understanding of how much prior knowledge students have and how they teach
the class.
Your point of making the teachers give students background information for the reading is spot on. I can't remember how many times in classes that i was not good in, like chemistry, when assigned a reading, we students had no idea what was going on. Only after I emailed, and the teacher explained, did i then understand it. The teacher has to give the background information before giving the reading out.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I had a similar experience with physics and I feel that if both of our teachers for our respective classes did a better job explaining background information, then we would have better comprehended it.
DeleteNate, I completely agree when you say, "If teachers want their students to understand a specific reading, then they should make sure that they let them know about the background information." Just as (Buehl, 2017) notes, there needs to be this match between authors and readers. If there is no match, then the teacher should be the bridge between them. It is quite interesting because like you said, baseball is something specific to you, and that is why you understand the stats associated with it. If I read sports illustrated, I certainly would not understand the stats, and don't think I would go out of my way to understand them. Similarly, I doubt most students would go out of their way to look up material that they don't understand. Context and background information matter, it lets us draw connections in the reading as well!
ReplyDeleteTo add to that, I think the text-to-self example is important as well. So often we assume that we need to show relationships with the real world, but not with our students. Maybe the real world example doesn't work so how do we get to a point where they can relate it to themselves._Kiley
DeleteThanks for sharing. I totally agree with you. Understand something we didn’t know is difficult. For example, some of my friends play basketball. They talk about basketball and then players so often when they watching the game. But I didn’t even know what they were talking about until they teach me the words and the background of basketball. I think it’s our responsibility to provide context and background information of the readings or subjects for students. This can help them study easier and learn more things.
ReplyDeleteWhile I think it's always important to read, however, I am realistic because I know so many times our students get busy and don't see the inherent importance or value of what we are assigning them to read. After all, are we always picking readings that have inherent value, especially to our students? We need to emphasis an understanding of the readings, not a regurgitation of facts and this becomes much easier when what we assign our students seems important to them.
ReplyDeleteYour statement about kids not reading their assignments (and the assumption that we haven't read the chapters either) saddens me. Hopefully by using these techniques of frontloading, we help students be ready to comprehend the text. I like the quick-writes strategy too, and I think that other strategies Buehl listed, like read-alouds, hands on activities, comprehension checklists, and shortening the disciplinary texts themselves, might help if students are so mismatched with the reading that no one has sufficient background knowledge to make sense of it. If the students are not reading for some reason other than being mismatched, it might need to be addressed in some other aspect of teaching. For example, perhaps they are not reading because they expect to be told by the teacher anyway, in which case the teacher might want to reevaluate how students should best engage with the curriculum.
ReplyDeleteNate,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the importance of background knowledge. It is unrealistic to think that in a school environment so diverse as ours, all of our students have gone through the same experiences, read the same books, or have the same interests. As an educator, one should always try to understand and know the community that one is working with so that one can create relevant curriculum. Seeing themselves represented in the curriculum can help increase student engagement. However, as much as we try we can still miss engaging or capturing every ones' stories and that's when front-loading can help bridge that gap.
I totally agree with you. Indeed, reading in an unfamiliar field could be a challenge for students. A teacher needs to focus more on “prior knowledge” if he/she wants students to fully comprehend the text. While reading Buehl’s article(p.79 Chapter 3) this week, I was deeply impressed. A few weeks ago, I was asked to read texts on racism. As a Chinese student, we rarely learn about race in classrooms. Therefore, I was quite confused, and I sought a lot of resources about race issues, but this only gave me a general understanding of the problem. Therefore, as educators, we should not only focus on reading the texts but also should pay more attention to prior knowledge. I think it would be helpful for students to deeper understand the texts.
ReplyDeleteThanks for comments. The connection you made learning about racism is a perfect example of the lack of background information for readings. I'm sure that if the professor provided background information, the readings would have made much more sense.
DeleteHello Nate -
ReplyDeleteYour point about how often students avoid assigned readings made me reflect on why teachers are assigning reading. I think that all too often, assigned readings are not given the instructional attention that they deserve. As you mentioned, in order for students to access and apply their prior knowledge, it is the instructor's responsibility to adequately scaffold students' interaction with the text. In my experience, it seemed that teachers assigned readings without ever really looking at what they were assigning and that the readings in essence served to fill instructional gaps - for example I often recall my teachers saying, we didn't cover this in class, but it was in the readings. Reading assignments that serve to shift the burden of instruction from teacher to text are destined to produce the results that you describe - students that struggle to read, students that are unable to contextualize the reading or apply the ideas of the reading, students that eventually avoid the reading
Hi Nate. Background information is definitely important in learning process. Schema and prior knowledge is the bedrock for comprehension. Background information depends on daily accumulation, so, I think, maybe teachers could summarize these knowledge and then put it on the wall of the classroom, or, let students who have deep understanding of the background knowledge to share this knowledge with other classmates.
ReplyDeleteI agreed with your statement about it being the teacher's responsibility to provide background knowledge before assigning a reading to their students. By attaching a small summary of the reading, and explaining the context of the historical time period it was written it will help intrigue students to actually complete the reading. I also thought that Buehl's "quick writes" after the readings are extremely helpful to assess what the students grasped from the reading.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. Hopefully what we take away from this reading is how critical background information can be to help students comprehend. It's something small but meaningful.
DeleteNate, thanks for sharing what you did. I love the point you were making of having reading be more on understanding as opposed to just knowledge retention. having that kind of focus will create a permanency in retention but of something that is more valuable than just knowledge. Understanding of a document is when the students know the meaning of a document, not just what it says. Thanks for your insight!.
ReplyDeleteNate,
ReplyDeleteI appreciated your honesty in this blog post, and agree with your statements. If students don't understand the reading or have prior knowledge they do not make it a priority. In my Earth and Environmental class, I had to make a lab report on the reading assigned to me in class. I am not a science major and I did not have any prior knowledge of rocks nor the chemical levels and was completely lost. Instead of using technqies you mentioned such as quick write ups- or word banks, I would just skim through the passage or ask another peer. As educators I feel like its important to give prior knowledge and do different strategies such as read-alouds, hands on activities and shortening the passages. I feel as if these could really benefit the students.