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Nate Martinez
Schmer
EDUC340
1 May 2014
Reflection
When I first began attending grade school, I was placed in the third
grade because my age corresponded with the age of a normal third grader.
However, my reading level and language arts skills were probably at a
kindergarten level. My first year of grade school was extremely difficult as I
had trouble comprehending much of the content in all of my subjects
because my reading skills were not up to par. It was not until I greatly
improved my reading and language art skills that I was able to move forward
with progress in school. All teachers are teachers of reading, I believe, is
one of the truest statements ever spoken, because if any teacher, no matter
the subject, wants to be successful at their job they must incorporate reading
in one form or another to better educate students enrolled in their course. I
have personally experienced that poor reading skills can lead to a large
amount of struggle in all subjects of school, while improvements in reading
can lead to improvements in nearly every subject in one way or another.
However in many subjects of schooling, incorporating reading means much
more than having students simply read and understand the content,

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although that is an extremely vital part. Teachers in subjects other than

language arts incorporate reading to help successfully educated their
students by using activities that promote content literacy, spark interest in a
lesson, and help improve memory storage and retrieval.
For students to learn, the first thing that they need to understand is the
content that they are being taught. If the students do not fully understand
the content of the lesson being taught then it will be extremely difficult for
them to grasp any of the concepts let alone learn a thing about it. This can
pertain to a number of different subjects, for example in a history class you
cannot jump into a middle of a conflict and expect the students to
understand the cause and effect of that event without making sure the
students understand the basics. Thus teachers use a number of different
strategies to build on information that students already know about the
content, as well as to guide and extend their thinking on the subject.
According to Robinson and McKenna the first thing that teachers need to do
is to decide whether or not the students prior knowledge is accurate enough
to be built on by the lesson. Mr. Wals from Preston middle school executed
this exact strategy when he asked his history class what they knew about the
Arab-Israeli conflict, and corrected and affirmed many of the students
thoughts. However Mr. Wals approach is not the only one, as Robinson and
McKenna state that there are other strategies to determine what the
students know, such as Free recall, word associations, structured
questioning, Recognition questions, and unstructured discussion (97). Prior

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knowledge can be a difficult thing to use as simply having it is not adequate,

it must be implemented into the learning process. Appropriate background
knowledge is important because new knowledge, if it is to be well learned
and understood, must be integrated into existing knowledge (98).
After learning the extent of their students prior knowledge, the
teachers have to build off of it, and use comprehension strategies to both
extend and guide thinking. According to McLaughlin there are three major
categories of strategies to guide thinking, which are the Self-Questioning,
Monitoring and Clarifying, and visualizing techniques (112-125). I have
seen teachers use these strategies almost every day during classes at
Colorado State University, as well as at Preston Middle School. In every one
of Mrs. Deckers classes that I attended, she paired visualization techniques
with peer questioning to help the students build connections with the
content, and in nearly every session many of the students were able to make
profound connections by the end of the class. Many teachers also use
reading comprehension strategies to help extend learning beyond the lesson.
Unlike the strategies to guide thinking, McLaughlin only lists two major
strategies to extend thinking. These two strategies, summarizing and
evaluation, seem like simple things, but in reality can greatly improve the
education that students receive. I also witnessed Mrs. Decker use these
strategies in her classroom when she had her students summarize two
articles to make sure her students were retaining the information they read,
rather than them reading just to finish the assignment. Much like the

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previous strategies she implemented, summarizing and evaluating helped

the students improve on their content literacy. I have seen the use of these
comprehension strategies throughout numerous classrooms and different
subjects, and the teachers that implemented these strategies can be
considered excellent educators by all accounts.
In many cases teachers of every subject use reading as a way to spark
interest an interest, or place importance on a certain lesson. In both Mrs.
Decker and Mr. Wals classrooms, instead of having the students fill out a
worksheet on the content they went over that day they instead were given
freedom in designing their own personal take on how to go over the
information. The strategy that they used was RAFT, which stands for role,
audience, format, and topic. The students picked a role, audience, format,
and topic and wrote critically and creatively to relay the information they
learned how they most wanted to. Another strategy that I witnessed that
sparked an interest in their lesson was the quick write. Mrs. Decker
implemented this strategy a number of times, and the students were given
the direction to simply write about what was on their mind, and their take on
the content they were taught. This strategy gave the students the freedom
to make observations they were not able to during the lesson, or allow the
students to express their thoughts without having to openly state their
opinions in front of the other students. There are also many strategies
teachers use to help students store and retrieve information. In many
subjects such as math and history, some educators teach two different sides

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or methods because the more ways something is learned, the more memory
pathways are built (3). If there are more memory pathways then the
students will be able to more readily remember that certain information.
These teachers also implement multiple stimulations to create better
memory, as well as enriched classrooms and curriculum. With these
strategies teachers have become memory enchanters rather than simply
information dispensers (5). Teachers in every subject should be trying to
interest their students in the lesson of the day, as well as using strategies to
help students to store and retrieve their information.
The class at Colorado State University and the classes at Preston
Middle School taught me too many things to count, and many of the
strategies and activities I learned can most definitely be applied to a history
classroom that I will be teaching in the future. In my class I will make sure
that students understand the basics of the content I am trying to teach
before then using activities to promote content literacy, spark interest in a
lesson, and help improve memory storage and retrieval. One such technique
that I could use in a history class, is the RAFT activity. The RAFT activity
,which stands for role, audience, format, and title, is basically a writing
assignment that lets the students choose what perspective they are writing
from, and who they are writing to. I could use the RAFT strategy in a history
classroom by allow students to pick a side of a conflict such as the cold war,
and address the other side in a format of their choosing, such as a text
message or letter. Another strategy that I could use in my history class is a

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constructive argument. This strategy could be used in a number of ways, for

example I could have two groups of students pick different sides of a conflict
such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, or the Cold War and debate each sides main
argument. A strategy that we observed in the hands-on class was
discovering the claim, or significance, of an article or event. This activity
could easily be incorporated into a history class, as the students could
determine a certain countrys thought process for a certain action, such as
the Bay of Pigs invasion. Another strategy that could be used in almost every
class is semantic mapping. Semantic mapping is basically a strategy where
the information of a unit, or lesson, is visually and graphically put together to
help students see connections through ideas. Like discovering the
significance of an event, semantic mapping can be used in pretty much
every classroom. In my classroom I would use it to preview the information at
the start of a unit, and then use it a t the end of the unit to review and make
connections based on the work we had completed since the preview. The last
strategy that I could use in a history class is the use of verbal/visual models
for teaching as well as for an activity for students to reflect on. In history it
could be used to show the differences between a number of countries losses
during a war, or the students could create their own model that shows the
differences between the north and the sound during the time of the Civil War.
All teachers are teachers of reading. In every content area of
education, there is in some way or another reading is being taught. Whether
it is through comprehension strategies or literacy strategies it does not

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matter. It has been my personal experience that classes that are more
focused around reading and comprehension strategies are far more effective
than classes that simply exchange information. If I have learned anything
this semester from the students and instructors of this class, it is that in
every subject incorporating literacy strategies and reading into the
curriculum benefits both the educator and the learners.

Works Cited
McKenna, Michael C., Robinson, Richard D. (2011). Building Prior
Knowledge. Pearson Custom Education EDUC340: Literacy & The learner.
(91-110). Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions

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McLaughlin Maureen. (2011). Using Comprehension Strategies to Guide

Thinking. Pearson Custom Education EDUC340: Literacy & The Learner. (111126). Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions
McLaughlin Maureen. (2011). Using Comprehension Strategies to
Extend Thinking. Pearson Custom Education EDUC340: Literacy & The
Learner. (127-142). Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions.
Willis, Judy. (2006). Reasearch-Based Strategies to Ignite Student
Learning. Alexandria, VA: ASCD publications.