The Importance of Pre-Reading

My honors American lit juniors have a wide range of abilities. I'm only a week or so in, and I already see the struggles I will have with differentiation. Though most of the students hold their own in discussion, when it comes to reading and writing a lot of them tend to shut down; what aggravates this is that in class discussions, I can scaffold and redirect conversations to help students along, but when the students are doing individual reading and writing I can't get inside their heads to provide support.

One of my mentor teachers has offered two pieces of excellent advice. First, she told me to give the students worksheets or pre-reading primers to help guide their reading and writing; without the concrete support of directions/questions/prompts, the students tend to feel overwhelmed by even seemingly simple tasks. Second, she suggested that I use paired feedback to build student confidence in their work. It's less threatening for students to talk and share with one of their peers than with an entire class (or their teacher, for that matter).

I have immediately found that class discussions following think/pair activities are much more fruitful, and that the quality of student responses increases dramatically when they are given more structure and support by way of a worksheet. We know the value and importance of scaffolding, but I, at any rate, didn't really understand that scaffolding isn't just a verbal exercise; we have to scaffold students' reading, writing, and discussion.

Also, teaching is so much fun! Just thought I'd share my thoughts on that...

- O+B