Learning Blog 2

I definitely enjoyed reading Chapter 3 in our book, Reading to Learn in the Content Areas. This chapter deals with the "Preparation" part of the PAR framework. Being that I will have to use this framework at least in our lesson plan assignment and later on as future classroom teachers, I was excited to read and learn about some very effective strategies. Preparation is summed up as, a student's prior knowledge. Our students will come into our classrooms with little, none, or incorrect prior knowledge and as teachers we need to find ways to see what knowledge they already have and try to fill in the gaps or holes based on their prior knowledge. We need to do that so that they are able to be successful in understanding the material covered in our lessons.

In terms of a model of how to activate a student’s prior knowledge, PAR could be seen as identifying prior knowledge, strengthening on prior knowledge, and making connections to prior knowledge. A sentence that was mentioned in the chapter that really summed up what it was about for me “Fifth graders may not know much about the Pilgrims, but some may know what it's like to be uprooted and have to relocate to a strange place” (p. 59). Our jobs as future teachers find texts that they can connect with that challenge and motivate them to take more risks in terms of what they read and expose them to many different mediums besides just textbooks like online text, journals, and magazines.The chapter stresses the importance of identifying and strengthening a student's prior knowledge, but it then goes on to list many strategies for tapping into their prior knowledge. I’ve been in many different education classes and discussed many different theories, but not a lot of real-life examples of applying those theories and strategies which this chapter does a really good job of. Most of these strategies were very helpful and gave me great ideas for my future classroom, but the two I would use the most would be the K-W-L Chart and Pre-Learning Concept Checks especially in the younger elementary grades as well as using the story impressions to predict what will happen next in the story. I think it would be so useful to have the students look back on their original answers from the start and see if their opinions or ideas had changed after doing the lesson.

I feel the most simple and effective strategy for students early elementary grade would be a Pre Learning Concept Checks. At beginning of any unit you give them key vocabulary and concepts and see how much they already know as a means of activating their prior knowledge. Then give the check list in the middle of the lesson to see if they are on par for where they are supposed to be, and at the end of the unit as a form of informal assessment of what they learned from your unit. These checklists could also stimulate class discussions during the unit as another way of informal assessment.

Overall this chapter gives several good strategies I can use in my future classroom and does a great job of showing how to activate students’ prior knowledge. As future teachers we need to look at what knowledge our students come into our classrooms with and how we can tap into that in the lessons we teach them to make them as successful students as possible.