Thursday, October 2, 2014

Comments on Buehl

The first of the three steps of mentorship that he gives is modeling. I wonder how this is similar to or different from the modeling we've talked about in class thus far. Maybe this is a sub-set of modeling, or more what I would consider a demo? Modeling thinking would be super useful though, especially if you expect students to be explicit about their thought processes, or to think about something as a scientist. Can you imagine being told to consider a text as a scientist without any scaffolding? Students will have no idea how reading science is different from reading novels except that they will probably find it less interesting. That's why we've got to model for them what it means to read and think like a scientist.


On page 35 the chart lists out the fundamental comprehension practices. Based on his wording, these seem like they would fall under intermediate literacies, but based on his message, I think he wants them in the secondary content classroom. I think that should be introduced as general reading practices when students are first learning to "read to learn", which I think is the same stage as his intermediate level. I think these become discipline literacies when we talk about how we make inferences in science reading, and how that is different from how we make inferences in fiction. Students will probably be familiar with most of these only in the context of ELA, not in science. And there are certainly distinctions in each of these fundamental processes between how we do them in science and in other areas. It could actually be super useful to see if they are being taught in other content areas and how students are learning these words to help them avoid confusion.

1 comment:

  1. Modeling scientific thinking is very important to our future students. Science teachers must lead by example of inquiry thinking for their students. Also, scientific reading must be a scaffold process for students. Without scaffolding, students are likely to become less interested in the desired material. How could teachers find time to model how to read scientifically rather than reading fiction? These practices are not easily grasped but must be acquired so that students are thinking as scientists. Also, how could you monitor whether your students are reading as scientists; how could you monitor this cognitive process? Also, how could interest be created for scientific reading? Is this something that could be modeled? What about students who are less interested in the applicable portions of scientific reading such as future non-scientists? Your thoughts are important to how different reading scientifically is from reading fiction.

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