David’s Reading Plan – dRP

3 thoughts on “David’s Reading Plan – dRP”

1. chill

   December 9, 2012 at 7:02 pm

   David, thank you so much. Your first post was great, but this one makes everything crystal clear. I started a French 1 story on Friday using your technique and I am really looking forward to continuing on Monday! This obviously took some time and effort – great job. Your Latin students are truly lucky to be working with you!
   chill

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2. Dana

   December 10, 2012 at 6:54 am

   David, this looks like a great way to draw out good ideas from kids who usually stay quiet. I’m looking forward to trying your plan this week, especially since I have to be gone on Tuesday. On Monday they’ll fill in their blanks, and when I return on Wednesday, we’ll jump back in with their ideas. I’m sure it will help them to remember back to Monday! Thanks for sharing your work!

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3. David Maust

   December 11, 2012 at 12:54 am

   Thanks chill and Dana. And you’re right about having a tool to access the answers from the quieter kids. I did this in my Latin 3 class and was able to use responses from kids who haven’t ever volunteered an answer in class until now, but with this approach, I have their input right there for me to use, just like anyone else.

   A couple other things I’ve noticed after doing this with each level:

   1. It’s great to have a little time to think through a story at home rather than just always having to make it on the fly in class. True, that is a good method as well, but I’m noticing that each method – the ask a story method or this dRP method yield a different sort of story because of the way they are crafted and it adds variety to the reading I give the kids.

   2. A student in my Latin 3 class told me yesterday that she and another student had been talking about the dRP story we did and both agreed that they understood it better than any other story we had done in the “ask the story” in class format. Incidentally, both of these students are what I would classify as slower processors or barometer students; they make decent effort in class, but are easily distracted and I can tell have a difficult time on the whole keeping up with the story.

   I asked why she liked it better and she couldn’t really explain, but just said it was easier to follow, comprehend and make sense of as a story. My thought is that these two students probably often loose what’s going on in the often noisy process of “asking the story.” They are the quieter, more reserved kids in the room. The other kids that get excited with making suggestions suck most of the energy and focus in the classroom, leaving students of the quieter sort without involvement.

   I also asked her if she was a visual learner and she said yes. So I think that a very simple, outline sort of script, (as I’ve learned now to do from the Embedded Reading model) is a great help for her. I felt like she was saying that she liked the fact that the whole story unfolded neatly and clearly before her without interruption. It was up there on the screen in it’s most basic (yet complete) form for her to study during the whole time the story unfolded. That’s a visual learner’s paradise if you ask me.

   And incidentally, the other of these two students happened to be one of those I described above – one who had never had any input in a story until now, mainly because of her shyness. So I think that had something to do with her being engaged on a new level too. Both these students got perfect scores on the test at the end of the week. Something that has rarely, if ever I think, happened for these particular students.

   ok, going to bed. Valete!

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