Cathy Marlow RE5130 October 2, 2002
A. What did you learn about discussion from this analysis?
The most important thing I learned from this discussion analysis is that the students get their ideas more from the pictures than the words in read-aloud picture books. This shows why it is so important not to show the pictures until after the students are able to think about the story by just listening to the words. My students tried to answer my questions by remembering the pictures from last year instead of listening to the words I read. I couldn’t believe it! They did improve on this skill during the story. They realized they weren’t getting the right answers without listening to the words. I loved Student 8’s comment, ”Does it say if he was dreaming?” She realized that the words are important and you couldn’t tell everything from just the pictures. We talked about this after the story.
I learned that my older students were able to comprehend the meaning to this story better than my younger students. I learned that students do listen to each other and learn from each other. Student 6 is very young, but she listened to her fellow classmates and learned from them. I see a correlation between my top readers and getting correct answers to questions that required higher level thinking. My low readers had more trouble listening and comprehending. This tells me that discussion skills are very important, can be taught, and could support their reading development. They easily picked up on agreeing and disagreeing with other students. They have to be able to listen and comprehend what their friends are saying to be able to agree or disagree.
B. What did you learn about yourself as a discussion facilitator from this analysis?
I learned that I asked lots of explaining questions to check my students comprehension of the text. I also asked a lot of judgment questions. I want my students to think about how the characters are feeling and what motivates them. I encouraged them to have opinions if they could support their opinions with facts from the story.
Most of my responses to my students were Turning Back questions. First graders don’t always give complete answers or they’ll just guess. I usually stayed with the same student until I could get him/her to dig deeper for the correct answer. I also learned that I repeat my students’ comments a lot. I do this to make sure everyone hears every comment and to hold everyone’s attention. When I repeat or paraphrase a statement the students have to think about it again. I usually let the student know that I agreed with him/her before I moved to another questions. First graders want my approval and the approval of their classmates, and this encourages more students to answer questions to get this approval.
I learned that I think of better questions as I am reading, than I did when I planned ahead. My Thinking Skills training long ago conditioned me to ask probing, thinking questions even to young children. I respond to my group and I think of better questions as I see their reactions to what I am reading. But, I still see the importance of planning ahead. I have always asked questions during stories and have never waited until the end of the story. By teaching young children I learned, early-on in my career, that most children need help comprehending stories and understanding the vocabulary in them. Reading aloud offers so many teachable moments. I now see even more benefits.
I learned that I use my voice to express meaning more than my choice of words. As I reread the transcript I thought I sounded mean on paper, but my voice can make statements sound like a question. My smile or funny questioning look can make a student feel OK even if his/her answer is wrong. I have a safe environment where my students feel free to express their ideas and then change their mind if they want.
I learned that I try to call on students that don’t have their hands raised to include them in the conversation. Some wouldn’t know the answer and some would say “um”, but it drew them back to the book and they would know the answer the next time. 15 out of 21 students participated individually, but I had a lot of times where everyone participated by answering as a group.
As I read the transcript I see lots of places where I could have asked a better question or chose better words in my responses. I also see that my diagram looks like a quiz show. I had a little student to student conversation, but most first graders want to talk to their teacher and get her approval. My Discussion Diagram shows that this did improve later in the book. The end of the book had more student to student discussion. They caught on to this when they saw that I was encouraging it. My older boys were the ones who directed their comments to another student. I am open to any suggestions on how I can improve.
C. Please connect what you learned about discussion from the readings, viewings, and activities we have done in class and your own discussion. What similarities or differences can you comment on? (Ways your questions and responses compare to these.)
I found myself using a lot of the discussion moves as my responses. In the Beck and Mckeown Text Talk article they encouraged teachers to give children opportunities to reflect rather than expecting a quickly retrieved answer. I feel my questions and responses followed this philosophy. I am a very analytical person and this carries over in my teaching.
I also agree that children can be distracted from the story when they start talking about personal experiences, but, I feel I need to bring this in at my grade level to teach children how to relate to characters or story plots. Learning the difference between fiction and non-fiction is important in first grade. I had to limit the children’s examples and get back to the story, but I feel it can be important if used correctly. I feel like I was able to quickly get back to the story.
I saw how this discussion promoted comprehension and children’s language development. We spent a lot of time repeating sentences and words and going over what they meant. I also saw how the children became better at listening and comprehending by the end of the story. They were better at focusing on the words and not just waiting to see the pictures. They wanted to be part of the discussion so they listened better to the story.
I agree that when children have trouble answering a question it is useful to reread the relevant portion of the text and repeat the question. I did this many times. I agree that this helped the children focus on the text language as the source for their responses. They were wanting to answer my questions by remembering pictures until I reread the text and they realized their answers were not in the text.
In the McKeown and Beck Discussion article it says to treat students’ comments in such a way that they invite other students to extend and elaborate on them. This can be done with Marking and Turning Back responses. I thought I did a lot of this and the students did start referring to what other students had said. I also used Turning Back to encourage students to reconsider ideas that are not supported by the text.
I thought I would do more modeling in this discussion, since I do a lot of this in my teaching. But, I think this whole discussion is a model for the students to use when they become independent readers. They are learning how to think about the story as they read.
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