Read Aloud

When I asked Mrs. Watson what the students Lexile range was for my read aloud, she insisted that I read a chapter from "Frindle" as this was the book she was reading aloud with them for the time being. With that, my partner in the classroom took chapter two and I took chapter 3.

Chaper threee is titled "The Question" and it goes as follows:

Nick’s first day of fifth grade was going well until seventh period language arts with Mrs. Granger. Mrs. Granger starts class with a pretest of the week’s vocabulary words. She gives the class handouts, review papers, and sample assignments that demonstrate how she wants her students’ homework to look. Nick finds the pace of the class exhausting compared with the easy flow of the day earlier. Nick is an expert on wasting class time. In Mrs. Granger’s class, Nick waits for the right time. He raises his hand and pretends to be very impressed by the number of dictionaries in the room. He asks, “Where did all those words come from?” The other students and Mrs. Granger know exactly what he is doing. She gives him a special assignment to deliver an oral report about dictionaries during class the next day. Then she goes back to giving out homework. Nick is shocked and embarrassed. He cannot believe that Mrs. Granger is so good at spotting attempts to stop her from giving out work. He is horrified that he now has to do extra work on top of the assignment Mrs. Granger was planning for the whole class. He realizes that all the stories he has heard about this teacher are true: nobody can mess with The Lone Granger.

As with any read aloud, it is crucial that the teacher ask questions before, during, and after the read aloud to test for comprehension and to make the read aloud enjoyable for the listeners. Before the read aloud, I asked the question, "I am going to pull name sticks and the names I pull will tell me about a first day of school experience they have had." Many students raised their hand and wanted to share even though their names were not pulled. However, I pulled one student's name and asked him to share but he chose not to. I did not pressure or force him to share as I could tell that the topic made him feel uncomforable. At the time, I had no idea why until another student aksed to share his story. "Before I came here, I did not like school and the first day of every grade made me feel really bad because I thought that other kids did not think that I was smart." Oh boy. Maybe I should I have not asked this question. I thought to myself, "Great, I did not mean to make the students feel bad or bring up anything that would make them sad." Once the student made his point, other students agreed with him and wanted to share their story. After this happened, my wondering is what are appropriate questions to ask? And, did the students want to share their story with me in order to create a relationship like they have with Mrs. Watson?

During the read aloud, I paused and defined a few terms that I thought the students may have trouble with (i.e. acquainted). If I had more time to introduce the chapter, vocabulary activities would have been implemented before the reading of this chapter. During the reading I also asked forecasting questions and questions that related to facts mentioned in the chapter (i.e. What does Nick get next to his name now that he has upset the teacher?). I asked questions such as these to check for comprehension and listening.

Overall, the read aloud went very well. I had the students close their eyes during parts with intense imagery and then I showed them pictures of what the paragraph was talking about. We compared the real thing to the thoughts in their head. I love to read alouds. After my observation in Mrs. Watson's class, I have noticed that she does the majority of the reading for the students rather than having the students read for themselves. Mrs. Watson said that they would be doing a chapter a week- putting them well into the second semester with just this book. It is my hope that Mrs. Watson lets them read chapters (either through partner reading, silent reading, or popcorn reading). The students need the opportunity to practice their fluency and not be read to all of the time. Perhaps this would have been a good book to do this with as the book is in their lexile range; a read aloud book could have been another chapter book that Mrs. Watson could read just for fun (i.e. "The Chronicles of Narnia"). Students need to become aware that they can read for the pure enjoyment and that not every reading article is going to have a corrleated assignment. This could be why students today are pushed away from reading- they are not given the opportunity to read/read aloud to just because.

I have learned so much from Mrs. Watson and the way she runs her classroom. Many of the things have been inspiring and I give kudos to her for being such a driven teacher (i.e. throwing her students a Christmas party and giving them gifts- "For the students who may have never had a Christmas"). Though I do not agree with some things, I would have never put this into my educational philosophy had I not had the pleasure of observing her.