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Synthesis blog #3

Chapter six in “Subjects Matter” does a great job of explaining how we as teachers should most effectively use a textbook. I can remember so many teachers that would just assign a chunk of reading and as a student, it never engaged me in the text and I never wanted to read what was assigned.  As teachers, I think it would be much more beneficial to only assign reading that has purpose and is relevant to your teaching. Often times, when kids don’t like to read, it’s because they don’t see the purpose in it. We are doing a disservice to our students when we present our subject matter in a boring, monotonous way. Another point I liked is that as teachers, we need to be empathetic to our students. This applies in so many ways but specifically, I think it is so important to put ourselves in the shoes of our students when assigning reading. What takes us twenty minutes to read could take our students forty five minutes. Whatever we assign, we should always take this into consideration. Also, when it comes to assigning reading, we should always give tools to help our students: whether that be pre-reading, or guided notes, or another resource.
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Comments

  1. Kyle TsuchiyamaSeptember 18, 2018 at 8:07 AM

    I agree that it is super important to engage your students in their textbooks and readings rather than just assigning them readings. Students need to be given a structure to lead up to their readings as well as direct them through the reading. The guided instruction can help them understand and interpret the material better than going in blind. 59

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  2. JoshSeptember 19, 2018 at 8:50 PM

    I agree that it is so important for students to see some kind of purpose in what they are reading! I remember mindlessly reading textbooks and wandering why I was even doing it in the first place. We need to make the reading assignments relevant to the class and engaging to the students so that they are actually benefitting from it.

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