Why was this book worthwhile for me to read?

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

This post contains my thoughts on this book, and the benefit I got from reading it.  For ease in reading, I’ve left the font black, but imagine it red, to be consistent with the other 9 blogs!

This book opened my eyes to the necessity of teaching reading in the context of a science class, or in any classroom for that matter.  I loved that it was pragmatic and gave real-world examples for math, science, social studies, English and foreign language classes.  While my content area is science, there were still viable tips and techniques in these other content areas that made sense to me.

Reading this book made me take a hard look at “traditional” methods of teaching reading.  I don’t know how wide-spread reading comprehension is explicitly taught in English classes, but I don’t believe the “connection” idea is widely taught.  This was a whole new idea for me, that avid readers connect to text.  I’m an avid reader, but I never gave any thought about why I love to escape in books.  It was eye-opening to do some thinking about how I read both fiction and textbooks.  I could see my personal strategies in her words, at least in part, but many of them were new to me.

Of greatest impact were the notions of modeling reading comprehension strategies and finding ways to connect students to the text.  Her use of specific content areas for her examples were a great to demonstrate her strategies, and gave me many ideas.  Certainly, many that I can apply for teaching reading in my science classroom.

My favorite strategies are (in no particular order):

1. Short creative writing exercises to practice using new vocabulary and subject matter in ways that the student chooses. 
2. Read “nature writing” texts to help spark interest and supplement reading the textbook.
3. Break vocabulary down into Greek and Latin origins, so these roots can be applied to different, new words later.
4. Teach the specialized test question wording and have students create test questions themselves.
5. Create graphical representations for critical areas of the content.
6. Model reading comprehension strategies.
7. Find ways to connect students to the text and the content.

I’m so glad I read this book.  Definitely worth it!  As I’ve said before, “Thanks, Amy Benjamin!”

Putting all the pieces together

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates what the author says.

Red font indicates my comments.

At the end of the book, Benjamin has a dandy chart that she calls “The Strategic Reader”. 

The Strategic Reader

Before Reading
What do I already know about this subject?	What am I reading to find out?	What do I know about the main ideas from previewing?
During Reading
What are the main pattern clusters? (Narrative, classification, comparison/contrast, process analysis)	How can I connect my life, other readings, and the world, today and in history, to this reading?	What am I visualizing and animating as I read?
After Reading
What can I create, think about, talk about, or do that will help me make sense of and remember what I just read?

This might be a great addition to the wall in a classroom, to remind students that reading is more than fluency!  I’ve highlighted my favorites.  The most powerful concept to me in this entire section (which was about half the book) was the notion of connecting prior knowledge to new knowledge, in all phases of reading.

She also has a closing section on what kinds of strategies work at schools and which ones don’t.  By far the most successful strategies are those that are student directed and selected.  The more typical practices of looking up vocabulary words to write definitions and reading a chapter to take a quiz on it immediately afterward were considered the least effective for both reading comprehension and retention.

After-Reading Strategies

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates what the author says.

Red font indicates my comments.

In an earlier blog, I talked about something Benjamin wrote, that it’s not enough to read, you have to do something afterward to make it stick.  The “something” is what she refers to as after-reading strategies.

After-reading strategies can be used to cement knowledge after reading, or even for assessments.  There are five steps to an after-reading strategy, and she urges teachers to let students decide which ones to use, to take charge of part of their learning and to appeal to the type of learning style they possess (verbal, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, or social).  Unfortunately, she doesn’t give any examples of different strategies for the different learning styles.

1. The first step is to summarize the main idea using the key vocabulary and any pertinent relationships between the data. 
2. The second step is to note the supportive details, deciding which are most important in the process, and connect these to the main idea.  One way to help students decide which details are most important is to ask them to imagine what will be on the test.
3. The third step is to put new vocabulary in context with the new knowledge, which could be as simple as expanding definitions or simply reinforcing what students already know.
4. The fourth step is to make inferences or draw conclusions.  This requires some higher order thinking, to get students to apply their new knowledge. 
5.  The last step is internal organization, having the student identify the types of patterns found in the text.  Again, as in the discussion with during-reading strategies, I found this step to be the least helpful. 

She gave a science example of a wrap-up activity.  Students read about Mount St. Helens erupting, then had to describe another volcano somewhere in the world, and what would happen to the surrounding area if it exploded and why, based on what they’d just learned.  This helps the students to internalize what they’ve learned and utilize their new knowledge to analyze  and draw conclusions about similar situations.  Great idea!

She ended this section emphasizing yet again, the importance of connecting prior knowledge to new knowledge, calling it this time, creating links between the known and the new.  It’s significant to note that this is a common thread through all of her strategies, for before-reading, during-reading, and after-reading.  

During-Reading Strategies

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates what the author says.

Red font indicates my comments.

After the before-reading strategies comes the during-reading strategies.  The strategies for during-reading involve ways to keep the reader engaged and focused on what they’re reading, use prior knowledge, just as before-reading strategies, and also allow the reader to realize when they’re losing focus and comprehension.  I loved the way she added a strategy for when you realize you’re just not in the mood to read or you’re just staring at the pages.  She said to punt and revert to skimming.  That way when you come back to it, to do the close reading, you’ve got some basic knowledge. 

There are three during-reading strategies:  recognizing textual pattern clusters, visualizing and animating, and making connections.

There are numerous patterns found in texts.  The reason it’s important to recognize them is that the brain likes things that are organized.  Science texts rely heavily on classification, definition and example patterns, comparison & contrast, and process analysis or sequencing.  She gives several diagrams to help students organize the text, depending on the type of pattern they find.  I found some of these helpful and some not. 

Visualizing and animating text may be more common with fiction, where our imaginations and emotions run riot.  However, Benjamin does give a science example where the teacher describes wetlands and gives a demonstration to the class of how wetlands work before they read about it.  It helped bring the topic alive for them.

As with before-reading, Benjamin writes about the students connecting with the text.  She states that learning happens when we make connections of the new knowledge to prior knowledge, and that this can happen in three ways:  text-to-text (what the student is reading reminds them of something they’ve read), text-to-self (what the student is reading reminds them of their own experience, knowledge, and emotions), and text-to-world (what the student is reading reminds them of something going on in the world or in history).  This to me, was far more powerful than recognizing patterns in the text.  She lists questions for each type of connection, that at first might be cumbersome to students until they begin to occur naturally.

She gives a great example from a social studies text that describes how railroads changed America.  She asked the students to briefly think about and discuss how their lives would be different without cell phones.  Armed with a new awareness, they then read the text about how railroads changed the way America communicated and could more easily understand.

Connections should be made to any type of text, from textbooks to fiction to poetry.  She writes that readers with comprehension problems typically read 1% of a novel, then put it down because they don’t feel connected.  Perhaps nobody ever told them to ask the connection questions:  “What have I read that reminds me of this?  What has happened to me that reminds me of this?  What has happeneed in the world, today or in history, that reminds me of this?”  Benjamin is in favor of the teacher modeling the reading-for-connections process, to demonstrate how students should be thinking as they read.  The more I read this section, the more convinced I became that we don’t teach this concept when students are first learning to read.  We teach pronunciation, fluency, and how to pick out settings and character names, but not how to connect to the text. 

Feeling a connection to the text seems a simple, yet integral part of comprehension to me.  So why did it feel like such a revelation when I read about it?  Thanks again, Amy Benjamin!

Before-Reading Strategies

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates what the author says.

Red font indicates my comments.

Benjamin writes that there are three critical time frames for reading:  before-, during- and after-reading, and that there are specific strategies to increase reading comprehension at each one. 

There are three features in the before-reading strategies.  Establish a purpose for the reading, use a before-reading strategy to quickly look at the text, and connect the new knowledge to prior knowledge. 

The first step of any before-reading process is to set a purpose and expectation for the reading.  I suspect that most students would say their purpose is that the teacher told them they have to read the chapter, not something more meaningful, so most will need a little help with this.  I think it would be helpful to have a short introduction to summarize the main topic, and the basics of what the teacher wants the student to learn from the reading.  Knowing why they’re reading can help students pick out important details and facts.

Then, there are a couple of before-reading strategies to choose from, skimming and scanning.  We skim when we want a brief exposure to the text, typically before we read more closely, or to decide if we want to read the text at all.  We skim by flipping through the pages, reading headings and captions, and looking at pictures.

Scanning allows the reader to quickly find information to answer questions.  Typically, one might use an index or table of contents.  If you must scan the text itself, you narrow your search by using headings or textual notations, just as in skimming, but you’re looking for targeted words or phrases.  She says that scanning pages instead of using the index is too time consuming, but I would say, after helping my daughter with her history questions, that many answers aren’t in the index or table of contents.  Knowing how to quickly peruse the pages is a valuable strategy. 

She also points out that building on prior knowledge is key to reading comprehension.  This can be tricky for science textbooks, if the topic and jargon are new to the students.  This is part of the reason that skimming and scanning are so vital.  The teacher can also select a few key words that are vital to understanding the text, and preview them before students read the text.  Once the student has the general structure or pattern of the text from the headings, and the knowledge of the keywords, comprehension during close reading is more easily achieved.  Relating the topic to something the student already knows about is extremely powerful.

One way to “activate” prior knowledge is to break the class into small groups and have them brainstorm what the text will be about, based on some basic information.  If the students find some link to a topic they’re already familiar with, the new knowledge can then be assimilated more easily.  She emphasizes that it is vital to connect the students to prior knowledge, and it doesn’t have to be through the same subject.  Analogies work as well.  She gives an example of teaching biology classification by using an analogy of classifying ice cream by fat content, flavor, brand, texture, etc.  The kids could connect with this analogy, so went into the text armed with more confidence that they would understand.

 

Graphical Representations to Clarify Text

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates what the author says.

Red font indicates my comments.

One of the strategies Benjamin uses is to turn text into a graphical representation.  This makes the student read through the text carefully, pulling out keywords, and if they know they have to make a graphical representation, keeps them more aware of relationships between words and phrases.  The first step would be to write down words that are unfamiliar.  Then, break these words down into components to find any Greek and Latin roots to help kids learn the vocabulary, comparing these new words to ones they’re already familiar.  When they learn the components for one word, they can then extend that knowledge to another word.  

For example, “optical” contains the root “opt” which means related to the eyes.  The kids might already know optometrist, so the teacher can point out that any word containing “opt” is related to the eyes.  A quick study of a few words wouldn’t take long, and could have lasting results.  Much more so than looking up vocabulary words and writing the definitions.

Benjamin points out that doing this graphical representation with a partner or a small group is helpful, especially if each group has to explain their graph to another pair, group or the class.  As she puts it, “you have to do something after you read to really have it sink in.” 

Some examples of graphical representations pulled from text that come to mind might be flow charts that describe cause-and-effect processes and cycles, hierarchical diagrams showing animal classification, Venn diagrams to show set theory, or drawings of atoms reacting to form new compounds.  Using diagrams and pictures in math help students envision equations from word problems. 

Scientific field guides often have a diagrammatic component to aid students in classification, since diagrams are so powerful in conveying information quickly and concisely.  This strategy is used in biology, chemistry and geology labs too, to aid in classifying “unknowns.”

A follow-on activity Benjamin describes for the graphical representation strategy, is to have students disrupt the representation somehow and ask questions about the resulting changes.  For example, if your representation is a flow chart, and you move a decision point, how does that effect the flow?  The overall result?

I can see how this would be helpful to conquer specific topics that were difficult to grasp, but doing this for much of the textbook would be too time consuming.  Doing it a couple of times at the beginning of the semester or a new topic might help kids to read more carefully in general.  

What the heck is Nature Writing?

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates what the author says.

Red font indicates my comments.

You’ll notice that today’s blog post is all in red font.  As promised yesterday, I looked up “nature writing,” and am blogging on it today rather than discussing the book listed above.  Thanks Lori and Diane for your comments on my blog post yesterday.  You were very helpful.

According to Wikipedia, “Nature writing often draws heavily on scientific information and facts about the natural world; at the same time, it is frequently written in the first person and incorporates personal observations of and philosophical reflections upon nature. […] include natural history essays, rambles, essays of solitude or escape, and travel and adventure writing.”  A website that came up in my query was http://naturewriting.com/, an online magazine that has essays, blogs, book recommendations and poetry.  It lists authors like Muir and Thoreau.  If Benjamin had added those authors to her discussion, I wouldn’t gotten the point yesterday!!!  Ah well, now I know about this cool website.

The books listed on this website chronicle naturalist’s explorations, autobiographical accounts, and interestingly, novels and short stories. 

I’m going on a wild tangent, so hang on.  Way back in my undergraduate days (and I’m not going to say how many decades ago that was) I took a creative writing class for short stories, and wrote an account of two people that got lost in a Carlsbad-like cavern.  I wrote about bats, cave ice, stalactites, stalagmites, underground lakes, carnivorous beetles, albino crickets, blind fish, and on and on.  I loved it.  In fact, I still have it.  Writing fiction, and marrying it with my knowledge of biology and geology was incredible!  It was wildly creative, but imbued with facts.  Why can’t we do this in a science classroom?

I’ve always thought that writing was a force like no other – extremely creative.  What if we harness that creativity and interject science, just like I did in my short story?  Might be worth trying to get a little interest growing.  I think writing fiction with science facts would be a fun project, and appeal to those put off by the drier textbooks.  The teacher could even list facts and vocabulary that needed to be included. 

This would support what Emig said, that writing can be used as a mode to learn.  There could be other writing to learn exercises, like having a sentence or two prompt, then students have to create the rest of the paragraph, using the science vocabulary provided.  Creative writing might not appeal to everyone, but it might be engaging for some.

Wow, that was fun!  I loved this tangent, and the ideas that came sprouting forth!  I promise, back to the book tomorrow.  Thanks, Amy Benjamin, for making me look up “nature writing.”

Subject Area Reading for: 

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates my blogging about what the author says.

Red font indicates my comments about what she says.

Benjamin spends quite a few pages on various subject areas, talking about specific reading techniques for each one.  She discusses the fact that many people used to think that reading was reading, no matter the subject.  That the way kids learned comprehension in English class, on stories perhaps, would transfer easily to any subject, where the child would be reading what she calls, informational text.  She states, “We understand much more about the domain-specific nature of reading sills, and how they don’t so easily walk themselves over from the room in which story text is taught to the rooms in which other kinds of subjects are taught.”

For each of the subjects she discusses, math, business/computer/vocation, science, social studies, foreign language, and English, she gives examples of typical texts a kid might come across, a discussion of why it would be difficult for the kid to understand it, and techniques on how to help the kid understand.  I had naively thought that once you knew the specialized jargon for a subject area, you were golden, but that’s not the case.  There are grammatical, phrasing, and contextual differences for various subjects too.  She gives some good, but simple examples:  in the computer section, paste is a term used in computing as a verb, when in Standard English, it’s a noun.  Math is a specialized symbolic language, dominated by large phrases. 

In many subjects, including science, a textbook uses both text and graphs to explain concepts.  The reader must be proficient in reading both, and in interpreting one in relation to the other.  “It’s difficult to get students interested in straightforward facts devoid of a point of view,” she states.  This lack of interest manifests itself as a comprehension barrier, just as the vocabulary does.  

Benjamin recommends breaking this comprehension barrier by using a different types of text to augment the science textbooks.  Literary text.  By offering literary texts that can be easier to understand, and have more similarity with stories that kids are used to reading, a teacher can arouse interest in science or any subject.  She points out that she’s not referring to poetry or anything, but what she calls “nature writing.”  I have no idea what this is, but I’m going to look it up and blog about it tomorrow.  I personally can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t be fascinated by science and soak it in like a sponge!  I’ll use any methods I can to engender some enthusiasm for science!   

She suggests using these literary texts and “nature writing” as reference materials for the classroom, and for kids to use in projects as one of several sources.  Might be a good idea – again, I’ll know more and report in the blog tomorrow.

She’s definitely getting more and more specific in her recommendations and techniques.  Yea!

Test Language

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates my blogging on what the author says

Red font indicates my comments.

Benjamin talks about standardized reading comprehension tests (you know, the ‘read this paragraph and answer the questions’ type of tests) and how to prepare for them.  She also describes how to prepare for multiple choice tests and how to best interpret test-taking language.  One technique she described was to have students create test questions themselves.  Then they see firsthand how to phrase both the questions and the multiple choice answers. 

The only thing I’ve ever thought about test-taking language is that multiple choice questions are tricky.  I’d never given any thought to tests actually having their own language – their own phrases, conventions, jargon, etc.  Understanding this language more would be valuable not only for taking tests but for interpreting questions in texts.  It might help address the challenge of increasing reading comprehension in the textbook by getting the kids thinking about phrasing as they read.  It might also get them to recognize and be aware of the basic organization of information in the textbook, helping them when they need to look something up.  I also like her idea of having students create test questions and answers.  I think the exercise of writing them will make them think about how to read them. 

She has some detailed examples of standardized test questions and answers, and how to lead kids through which answer is correct and why.  Helpful.  It demonstrates how to take a passage of text apart into pieces that help the reader understand intent by sentence placement and word usage.  In this section, she also describes a reading process, to help kids evaluate passages based on prior knowledge.  She emphasizes that taking a test in science is also testing their reading comprehension skills, not just the science knowledge they’ve acquired.

Familiarizing the students with skills for taking multiple choice tests and reading comprehension in general will help me evaluate my success of teaching science content by removing (at least in part) any failure of reading comprehension from the test taking process.

Benjamin points out 5 practical things to do to prepare kids for tests:

1.  Use the kind of language, including vocabulary and sentence styles that the test uses.
2.  Have kids write their own test questions, using vocabulary and sentence styles the teacher has used. 
3. Give abundant test question samples and have kids find high frequency phrases. 
4. Model complex sentence styles, like: if/then, toward which, with which, in the direction of, etc. 
5. Give kids the start of a question and have them predict how it will end.

By these 5 strategies, she says the teacher will be teaching the test language itself as content. 

I like all the suggestions she has about teaching the test language as content and having kids write test questions as practice.  I think it will help the kids learn the science jargon more quickly, and it can be couched as a game, making it more fun.  Isn’t that a goal for a teacher?  To cultivate a love of learning?

But, but, but, ... I'm Going to Teach Science!

To aid in distinguishing between what my selected book’s author says and my comments about what she says, I’ve used a different font color. Red font indicates my comments.

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

 I chose this book because of its title.  I wanted something as pragmatic as possible, to give me some tips to increase reading comprehension of textbook for teaching science in high school. 

Benjamin points out that we learn in layers over time, connecting new knowledge into an existing structure of old knowledge.  For science, this assumes two things.  That students have had some science education, and that they remember at least some of the jargon from prior years!  

She describes techniques such as reading buddies to make reading a more social activity, and reading in phrases instead of discrete words.  I think a lack of vocabulary would sabotage the phrase idea until they begin to accumulate some of the new jargon.  Perhaps later in the school year or as a review activity this might work. 

Benjamin states that “comprehension results from the reader’s emotions, cognition, motivation, ambient physical conditions and experience,” (p. 7).   It reminds me of Rosenblatt’s stances.  However, while I might agree, it doesn’t give me any clues about how to implement specific reading strategies to increase comprehension.  Or if it does, I’m missing it.  Does it mean if students aren’t getting it, I should encourage them to change their physical location to put them at ease?  I often read outside for a change of pace, and can enjoy the fresh air.  I don’t know if it’s practical at school though. 

She emphasizes that reading often builds fluency, and encourages teachers to have reading time in class.  She calls it quality time.  Her premise is that reading often, even if only for 15 minutes a week will build fluency over a year’s time.  Hmmm, fluency.  We read about that in Gee’s paper.  Seems like we’re building a science Secondary Discourse, doesn’t it?  She further states that the only way to raise students to the level where they need to be in high school is by building on what they already know to scaffold them up to what they need to know. 

She addresses vocabulary by telling us that having students look words up and write definitions is the wrong way to teach vocabulary.  She says a better way is to look at patterns in words and put words into categories.  This will help students characterize words’ meanings, and give them the ability to find relationships between words, helping them understand future words.  You do this by teaching Latin and Greek word components.  She advocates introducing new words, whether of Latin or Greek derivation or not, by relating them to other synonyms and words they already know.  Doing this sparingly is a great idea.  Pointing these derivations out as they occur would be helpful, not as a whole lesson.  It would take just a few minutes to pull a word apart and analyze it.

In general, I like how Benjamin is developing her ideas.  She started very broad, and is getting more and more specific as the pages fly by.  I have great hope that this book will give me what I’m looking for.

How do I use blogs?

Getting information on blogging from Wikipedia was interesting – I wasn’t aware of the huge list of blog types.  There truly is something for everyone, no matter what media, style, or communication paradigm you like. 

Even though I browse through blogs every month or so, I rarely post on them and am not an author of one (well, until now).  I’m by nature a private person, and prefer not to have a large electronic footprint.  If I do post, it’s to praise or comment.  Unfortunately, comments can have a lack of clarity, a prevalence of miscommunication, and can even be argumentative and nasty.  Not helpful.

Despite the fact that (for me) electronic communication lacks the amplitude and accountability one gets with verbal communication, it does open up the world as we sit in our comfy chairs in our pajamas.  Kids for the last couple of generations have grown up with electronic media, and blog and vlog routinely with their eFriends around the world.  The world is indeed becoming very small.

Having blogs as part of an educational program would be as natural to most kids as talking.  It might serve as collaboration space for discussions or other informal communication.  However, one problem using blogs to teach reading and writing is that chatting, texting, blogging, emailing, tweeting, or any type of electronic writing uses its own vernacular and is usually extremely concise, and as such, would probably not increase reading comprehension of textbooks or expand writing skills in the classroom.


Now, for a quick visit to my favorite blogs (and why they're my favorites):

I subscribe to several blogs, and visit them on a monthly basis.  The subject matter of most of them are tied to my hobbies.  The blogs I like the most seamlessly integrate text (often in two languages), photos, and embedded widgets like video and Snapguide.  To me, it’s a quick and easy way to get the latest and greatest techniques from artists and crafters that I admire.  Several blogs that I frequent are bilingual.  In some cases, like the blog, Scrapstuff and more, there are paragraphs in two languages.

In some, embedded widgets ask if I want the page translated, like this Russian site, C облаками в голове..Nadya Tana Lifa.  Having options to put blogs into our native language is a powerful tool helping to keep the world a smaller place.

My absolute favorite blog belongs to Graphic 45®, a commercial papercrafting company. To me, their design is elegant, combining tabs, menus, links, search, photos, tutorials, and videos, and is aesthetically pleasing.  I can find what I’m looking for in seconds and don’t have to scroll through posts unless I want to.

That for me is key, and the sign of a well designed blog - to be able to do as I choose.  I can find quality information quickly or browse at a more leisurely pace.