Shared Readings: Modeling September 30, 2009

Modeling for your students is key in whatever you do, not just reading. If you want your students to understand why and how to do things, you must show them and not just tell them. By modeling you help them understand visually and mentally what you want them to do. This article focuses on four major parts where modeling is key: comprehension, vocabulary, text structures, and text features.  These four can easily be completed and explained to students by simply modeling. For instance when a teacher is reading to his/her class  out loud, he/she should not speed read, or skim the passage, but read at a normal rate, just like you would normally, because not only do you read that way, but your students do to. Teachers do not have to stop and ask questions the whole time they are reading. When students read, they don’t do that..they just read! So model that to them, show them that you can read text without having to constantly stop. My favorite thing that was pointed out in the article is the use of echo and choral reading. This concept was driven into my brain all last semester in my reading class, and it has stuck with me since. Using these two, no single student is pointed out, the class reads as a group, therefore if you have struggling readers, they don’t feel left out or embarrassed because they do not know a word. It allows everyone to participate and enjoy reading time, which as teachers that is one of our main goals. Model to students that by looking at the title of a  book, captions or illustrations, can help them better understand the text they are about to read. Let your students read the back cover of books so they can have some knowledge and understanding of what they are about to read. Modeling is a great way to make teaching easier for you and learning easier for your students.

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