Reading Project--Day Eight

And it has been a long 8 days. The Reading teacher is beginning to feel that this project is dragging on interminably. I worry that that fact will possible lessen the likelyhood that she'll want to do another project. Part of the problem was two snow days, followed by a 2 hr delayed, coupled with one of the classes being skipped for a school assembly. Now, we just found out there will be a fire drill during that class tomorrow.

One of the problems with this project is having the students modify their articles. Many of them don't really understand the concept. They don't know how to make an article flow. When offered suggestions, they are inclined to ask you to repeat it word for word so they can copy it down.

This is partly because a lack of comprehension. I already blogged about why they are not really comprehending the articles clearly, so I won't repeat that here. But, because they are not comprehending them, they are not able to make meaningful or logical transitions, opening lines, or sign offs. If they don't know what they are talking about, they can't react to it or summarize it.

I kept thinking today that one thing I might do differently in the future is provide the students with a handful of report-ready articles. Then, the students could just browse through them and sign up. This would help speed up the project because a) students would pick an article more quickly because they would want to sign up before anyone took their article and b) students would not have to modify the articles at all. Those were probably the two most time consuming aspects of this assignment.

The Reading teacher seems optimistic that tomorrow will go better. They will be doing a paired reading tomorrow. In that activity, students will work in pairs and take turns. One partner will read from the teleprompter while the other reads along with a hard copy of the report and marks errors. This will give the students meaningful practice, and they will at least have a respite from typing and modifying (which has become frustrating for the teacher and the students).