Module 7: Powerpoint Presentations

Perspectives for tutoring
When we question our students about reading and writing we should use this as a conversational approach rather than in a formal approach. I find that if I have a conversation with my students one-on-one I get more from them and I am able to reach these students in a better way. I think this same thing goes for parents as well. I think if parents are feeling somewhat attacked rather than just talking to you then you are trying to tell them what to do rather than trying to find out information. It's important to build repertoire with your parents and your students to gain trust and respect.

Comprehension Evidence and Strategies
This whole powerpoint gave the different strategies needed to have good comprehension. There are different ways in which we should question our students depending on what we are trying to assess. The different areas are predicting, inferring, self-questioning, author questioning, monitoring, summarizing and synthesizing, and lastly is evaluating. At the end of the powerpoint we are asked to think of a student who needs specific area of comprehension help. I thought of a child who I will call, Sally, who is struggling with Cognitive Monitoring/meta cognition. The needs this student demonstrates is that she seems to get distracted very easily. When she is reading she doesn't make connections and when she is done and questioned she can't visualize or verbalize what was read. She takes a lot longer than the rest in her reading group and even at a slower rate I'm not sure she is doing anything but having her eyes move across the page. I think one of the key strategies I could use with this student is modeling my reading and stop to make connections throughout reading to show her what strategies she should do when she reads. I could stop her every so often in her reading and ask for a thumbs up for knowing what she read or thumbs down for clunking on what she is reading. I know she has some mental things going on but I worry that her school work is being dramatically affected by her distractions.

Nine Best Practices
Similarities and Differences; Most Important Point; Summarizing and Note Taking; 10-2 Strategy; reinforcing effort and providing recognition; reflection; Think it, Ink it, Link it strategy; Provide recognition; assigning homework and practice; cooperative learning; slate share; numbered heads together; think pair square; Ball toss; non linguistic representations; setting objectives and providing feedback; generating and testing hypotheses; Cues, Questions, and advance organizers; these were all the strategies provided in the powerpoint. Many of these ideas I have used before but many I have not and am very interested in trying. I think some strategies that are best when tutoring a child are providing recognition that is specific to help continue the work they are doing, summarizing and note taking, and most important point. I have been incorporating writing into my reading groups this year to help with summarizing what we are reading and note taking. As a fifth grade teacher, most of reading group is working on comprehension skills so these strategies are going to be very useful for me. I think homework is important when there isn't enough hours in the day to get everything done. It's our students responsibility to continue learning and practice at home. I think many of these same strategies could be used when teaching adults as well. I think adults work well in cooperative learning groups. For adults as well it's important to find similarities and differences to their lives to help make the learning meaningful and effective. I found many of these strategies within the 9 best practices necessary to reach all learners.