Blog 4

I found chapter 1 to be a good starting off point for the book. The chapter offered lots of examples of strategies to use in the classroom to support literacy development. We studied most of the comprehension strategies discussed in chapter 1 previously in CIR 407. However, we only studied how to incorporate the strategies in the younger grades. It was interesting to read and learn how to use the strategies in the older grades. Something that stood out to me in this chapter is the idea of reflective teaching. It is important for teachers to think deeply about their lessons and teaching styles by asking "How effective was I today?" or "How can I improve my teaching?" I think it is necessary to take a step back and analyze what works and what doesn't in your classroom, in order to be the est possible teacher you can be.

Chapter 8 discusses writing to learn as opposed to learning to write. The author explains writing to learn entails getting student to formulate words to explain what they are learning. Writing to learn allows the students to engage in a higher level of thinking. What I found most interesting in the this chapter is using writing to learn in mathematics. I have never considered incorporating writing into a math lesson, but this chapter opened my eyes to this concept. Having the students write out each step in the process of solving the math problem allows them to articulate and fully understand the  problem at hand. It also allows them to justify why their answer is correct,  by explaining how they found the answer in the first place. Math is my absolute least favorite subject in the entire world, because I never fully understood what I was doing. Writing to learn would have forced me to think deeply to understand each component of the problems. It is definitely a strategy I plan on incorporating into my class. I question that I have after reading would be is there a way to incorporate writing into math other than just having the children explain their problem solving process? Also, how can I use writing to learn in math in a fun way?