Read, Write, and Talk!!!

In the video, the teacher demonstrated how reading is a social act. She gave the students informational texts and let them discuss the the cover out loud. The students turned to each other to make inferences in pairs about the cover of the text. The students used clipboards to have a flat surface for writing and a place for their papers. The teacher placed the text on the overhead for discussion. She wanted to make her thinking process of the information visible for the students. She discussed and explained with the students about what she noticed from the information. The information was circled, underlined, and summarized for all the students to see together. The students were placed in groups for further discussion of the text. She gave them three different text. This way all the students were able to learn about each topic from the whole group discussions. The students made written responses in their groups, as well as a whole group. The teacher sat with each group to utilize higher level thinking by asking questions. She participated in their discussions and listened very closely to what the student's responses. Toward the end, she asked the group as a whole, "How can this text help you?", "What did you get out of this information?", and "What did you notice the most?". The students did an independent practice at the end. They read a text and turned to talk to someone next to them about what they read. The group came together in a circle and discussed what they read out loud. This reading lesson promoted active learning, which is what reading needs to be about. It has to relate to the students interests and something the want to learn more about. It provided a fun learning opportunity for the students and helped engage them in the reading. I really enjoyed how the teacher incorporated fun, informational texts into a reading lesson.