Learning Blog #2 -Chapter 3: Preparing to learn! :)

Chapter 3 all about Preparation for Learning.  This includes strategies for overcoming obsticles while teaching, preparing lesson plan materials, and ways to make learning productive.

Determining prior knowledge is very important, espeically when teaching reading.  First off, you need to be able to pick out stories and activites that are not too hard, or too easy for hte student.  You want the activity to be challenging enough to keep engaged, but not too challenging that the student becomes frustrated.  Also, students with more prior knowledge are more likely to be able to make guesses, or come to conclusions on stories because they have some background knowledge.  

When learners cannot find relevance in a selection, they lose interest and ignore it, therefor not learning it.  So, it is important teachers are aware of their students' knowledge so they can build on what they know and extend on it.  Limited prior knowledge is when students have at least some prior knowledge about most topics, even if it is relating their own life experience with something they are learning in a text book.  For instance, they may not know why World War 2 was fought, but they do know what it is like to be in a fight with somebody.

Schema Theory is a statement that says all knowledge is seperated into different units, within these units is schemata, or stored knowledge.  Learners can benefit from Schema Theory by learning to move new chunks of information from short term to long term memory, or connect information with something they've learned from the past.

Incorrect Prior Knowledge is also common with young student readers.  For instance, just because a student knows what St. Matthew's island is an island, they may connect that with a tropical island, when it is infact off of the coast of Alaska.  This could present problems with learning because some students will not understand certain things cognitavily that words can have more than one meaning or spelling, and it may conflict with something they felt they strongly knew, and refute the new material.

Prelearning Concept Check
Is a way of showing new vocabulary to students, and also allowing the teacher to find out how much the students know about the chapter.  For example, if the students are reading a story on Shapes, you can list all shapes you will want them to know, then have them put a check, plus, or 0 for how well they feel they know it, and you can work on ones the majority of the students do not know first.  It is a very good pre-lesson measureing tool to create a baseline of prior knowledge.

Story Impressions:
Is similar to prelearning concept checks, except the student uses the important key vocabulary words from the story and use them to make predictions on what will happen in the text and in what order, which helps with reading comprehension and time-lining, being able to order a story based off of their own knowledge.

KWL
Know, want to know, and think they know charts are very popular in all school ages and populations.  It is divied up into 3 columns, K (What the student KNOWS) W (what the student WANTS to know) and L( What the student did learn).  It helps the teacher and students determine prior knowledge, and models as a strategy for reflection after the reading has occured so that you can compare what the student knew, to what the now know.

WIKA
(What I Know Activity) is very similar to the KWL charts.  in the end, the students use what they already know to create questions based on subheadings, and make predictions on what they think they will learn.

Rewriting Texts:
Sometimes when a student is struggling to comprehend or read a text, making the sentences different lengths, changing the vocabulary, and text structure can help the student.  When introducing new text, teachers may use writing texts to make it easier for the students to understand important information.  Rewriting does have a few drawbacks, it takes time, and teachers are already crunched for that, so the teacher must weigh carefully if it is worht it for that student, which most hte time it is because rewriting can allow the teacher to restate ideas in their own words, keep it to the point, underline important words, and highlight what the teacher feels is the most important concept.

Graphic Organizers 
Are well supported ways to aid in organizing students' thoughts.  It allows readers to on their own connect thoughts, ideas, and connect old knowledge with new knowledge.  They also identify supporting concepts, list all key terms that reflect important concepts, connect thoughts, show relationships, and diagram ideas.

Anticipation Guides
Anticipation Guides are used to have the students anticipate and predict what the content will be, and what it will be about.  Students who see anticipation guides tend to become interested and participate in lively in the discussion, which will motivate the student, also, students enjoy argument and structured guides leaves room for students to choose sides, lastly, students can learn to predict outcomes which is good for the mind.

Factstorming
Is a way of determining student's prior knowledge and to build background.  The whole class can participate together at once, the teacher will ask students to say anything they can think of about the topic, and the class will then discuss each point.

Analogies
Analogies are similar to previews, they begin with a connection point to the readers' background.  It is an excellent tool for content reading.  The goal is to get the students to connect new knowledge with existing knowledge.  They can do so in groups or individually.  The students can list similarities in two subjects, and compare like and unalike things.

In Summary:
The whole chapter noted the importance of students' prior knowledge in reading, and necessary ways to build on prior knowledge throughout reading lessons.  The chapter discussed many different strategies, and worksheets teachers and students can use, and how to use them.  It discussed that graphic organizers are the best ways and have many varities for students to organize their thoughts and make connections on their own.