Depending on the purpose of the text, how the text is
written, and reading ability, reading can be a challenge at times; especially
remembering important information from a text.
You may be thinking, “How can it be challenging?” Consider reading a dry, boring, informational
text. Think about the amount of times
you had to stop and reread the paragraph you just finished because you did not
understand or simply could not recall what you just read. In academia, students are stuck reading dry,
informational texts all the time. I can
relate to this as before I had found a technique to remember text, I had found
myself reading and rereading text because I was not retaining the information. There are a large number of excellent
techniques students can use to make notes to “hold their thinking” or help them
to remember important content. Taking
into account that I am a pre-service mathematics instructor, some techniques I
would apply in my classroom include;
Sticky Notes- having kids write
questions they do not understand and stick them near the passage or concept in
the book
KWL- I would approach this
technique in two different ways 1) as a chalk talk and 2) as an individual journal
entry
Graphic Organizers-I would use
these to help students make connections among concepts.
If I try to read a boring text, I find myself rereading certain passages to help retain the information. While I agree with sticky notes and graphic organizers, I do not like KWL. I feel that they bring the low students even lower. If they already don't know the topic and we ask them to write what they do know, they may have a blank page. This can be a determent to their self-confidence.
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