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Full On CI Class Schedule That is Easy on the Teacher
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8 thoughts on “Full On CI Class Schedule That is Easy on the Teacher”
Please, what is SSR ? It would be nice if there were an acronym page for us newbies. This is all very overwhelming, but I desperately want to make this work for my students. It’s just so hard to grasp, and acronyms make it even harder.
Sustained Silent Reading. It differs from FVR – Free Voluntary Reading – in my view because in free reading they get to pick the book but in SSR they read an assigned text. But that may not be true. That’s just what I think. Anybody else on the difference between SSR and FVR? Big gains are possible with these two things and it seems as if we never do them enough. We pretty much take the first ten minutes in DPS – Denver Public Schools – for FVR. It works.
From where I used to work as an ed tech, SSR was Silent Sustained Reading – reading quietly for a sustained 20-minute period of time. They could read ANYTHING they wanted – their choice; however, NO TEXTBOOKS, nothing for homework/classwork — ONLY for enjoyment.
I learned about FVR through my new life in TPRS (sorry for all the acronyms): Free Voluntary Reading – from what I can gather, it’s basically the same but I have decided to define differentiation on it for myself: SSR is still “SILENT” reading – totally immersing oneself in reading ALONE for personal concentration – getting into “one’s own world” – IN SILENCE. For what I consider FVR, I let the kids pair up, choose a book from the classroom library, and share it and try to figure it out with their partner. Now, my classroom library is mostly picture books from Scholastic’s Club Leo (their Spanish book club), so they are books that the kids loved as children …..Clifford the Big Red Dog; Magic School Bus; Teacher from the Black Lagoon, etc. as well as LOTS of picture books of animals. So they laugh together and reminisce about the books and try to figure out meaning together.
I do one or the other every day for 10-15 minutes (depends on whether or not I need to be “left alone” for a few minutes -haha! – in which case they can work together.)
I like that there is no one answer. I like that we are just all trying to figure out what is best to do mostly by the seat of our pants. I like that there are no experts. I think that the cult of the TPRS expert is a bad thing, bc it makes people think that there are those who can and those who can’t, as if it is a talent thing. We can learn to teach this way by keeping on doing it, trying for it, trying hard, and our students can learn from us if we do that, whether we are an expert or not. No experts. Just a bunch of crazies facing shoulder to shoulder together in the same direction trying to not let their fangs show. Ragers. TPRS ragers. Pissed off teachers who want to make a change and don’t let acronyms and the “right way” get in their way too much.
Ben and mb, thank you for the clarifications. I know this works because I experienced it at conferences. I suppose it’s like slacklining… it’s much harder to do than it looks! TPRS looks deceptively easy to do before you get some skills under your belt. Right now, I’m still practicing how to balance on the slackline (metaphorically speaking). The kids keep asking me about tests, grades, and wanting to take notes during TPRS. Today is day 4.
I went to an AVID conference this summer and we learned a lot of activities, like
Socratic circle.
If anyone here has used AVID-recommended strategies with TPRS, I would love to hear about it. I was thinking of using Cornell notes with a story, not with notes, where students could write the main points of the 3 locations as notes, then in the margin, write questions and in the bottom, write a short summary of the story. Maybe level 2 or 3 could do that, since it involves output. I want to incorporate at least one AVID activity each week, to get the kids moving around and to provide variety, but I want the activities to work with the CI, not be a waste of time.
I also thought it was interesting in AVID they have a 4-step reading process:
pre-reading, vocabulary building, interacting with the text and extending the reading. I think that also makes a lot of sense for us with our need for vocabulary building in a World Language.
During AVID they said in order to retain information, two things are important: interaction with the content and repetition, and I thought that sounded just like TPRS.
Could someone describe exactly what “Socratic circle on metacognition discussion” would look like? Although I’ve never used it, I have some idea of how a Socratic Circle works. I thought it always revolved around a set text, though.
I use the term loosely and want to target the ability of my students to talk in a group in English in response to a set of questions at the end of most classes about what they just experienced as a learner in my class that day (metacognition). I want them to become aware of what they are doing in class primarily as listeners and readers and I want them to be able to articulate that to the rest of the people in the room.
Obviously, with the quick quizzes and dictations and other things we do to end our comprehension based classes, time is limited, but there are a few of us in this group who are putting a high priority on this process this year, on the days we choose to do it.
As a result of discussion we had here in the spring, Clarice and jen and I and other will expect our sstudents to be able to comment on the their own relationship with the content of the posters on the resources/posters page of this site at the end of any given class.
Those posters are:
https://benslavic.com/Posters/metacognition-poster.pdf
https://benslavic.com/Posters/student-reflection-checklist.pdf
https://benslavic.com/Posters/rigor-poster-french.pdf