NEVER FORGET 9/11 My grandson was here, such a beautiful child, Such innocence in his eyes and always a smile. Suddenly he gazed up at me, With that look that spells curiosity, And though he was only seven, He asked, “Grandpa, were you here on 9/11?” “Of course, I was,” I replied, Remembering those who died, Honoring, as I will always, The heroes that rose on that day. But suddenly it occurred to me, That those who weren’t alive to see, What happened on that awful day, Might let those memories fade away. I wondered if years from when the towers fell, There would still be those who would remember and tell, How when they destroyed our twin towers, We became united in our finest hours. How we joined our hands and voiced our prayers, For those who had died or become heroes there. How we joined together in our grief, Praying as one for relief. How an act of hate made us all friends, How in freedom’s name we refused to bend. So I sat my grandchild on my knee, And began to tell 9/11’s history, For as the years go racing by, And new towers rise to the sky. 9/11 must always be, A symbol of the strength of our liberty.
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SEEING WHAT WE READ
My goal is to help every parent and teacher who reads this to explore a strategy I used to help hundreds of underachieving students improve their comprehension skills and learn to enjoy reading without painful drills and a cycle of failure. Give it a try. It worked for me. Reading requires us to use our comprehension skills and add our imagination to fill in the gaps that cannot be supplied by the author. A movie lets the director and cast do most of the work for us. Reading requires us to become active partners and visualize not only what the author is supplying, but also what he isn’t. You can be ‘lazy’ while watching television or a movie, but you must be actively involved to fully understand what you are reading. It is this active role which may explain why to the ‘good’ reader the book tends to be better than a movie. But how can this help us with the under-achieving reader? THE ACHIEVER VS UNDERACHIEVER READER I always loved reading because I was successful at filling in the gaps that can’t be completely ‘fed’ to us by an author. As an author myself, I count on the reader’s imagination to bring my characters, locale and plot elements to life. In a movie, or television program, we sit and basically accept what we are given, although we may use what we are ‘fed’ to anticipate the ending, as in guessing the end to a mystery. We don’t need to visualize much because it is all on the screen for us. In observing my struggling students, I became convinced that what may define the difference between a ‘good reader’ and a ‘bad’ one (I hate that term but use it for convenience) is that the ‘good reader’ can fill in these gaps because they actually ‘see’ what they are reading. This ability to ‘see’ what we read is visualization. CAN VISUALIZATION BE TAUGHT? It is the missing ‘sense’ I believe every child can learn to use to become a successful reader. It is like a vitamin V for reading and all areas of learning. It was this belief that children who can ‘see’ what they are reading will achieve success, and like reading, that changed my entire approach to teaching and which if you teach your children may help them succeed without you spending one extra dime for expensive teaching materials. What is strange to me is that we seem to recognize instinctively the importance of visualization in teaching subjects like math and science. Experiments in science, using pizza slices in teaching fractions, are just two examples of how we try to involve student visualization, and even physical learning abilities. We also ask them to ‘see’ word problems. In some cases, we ask them to ‘draw’ the problem before solving it. I think we assume every child is born with the ability to ‘see’ what they are reading, but some of our behaviors may actually work against this important skill. I can’t remember any teacher guide or work book page that dealt specifically with teaching a child to ‘see’ what they read. Visualization isn’t the focus of reading skillbooks (workbooks) or texts, and may not only be the sense we often neglect, but sometimes inadvertently extinguish in our well-intentioned efforts to teach our children to read quickly and complete tasks on time. Our kids are in such a rush to finish their ‘work’, and we value speed so highly, that only those with the ‘gift’ already use it automatically. VISUALIZATION: THE NEGLECTED SIXTH SENSE To put it simply, if I can teach every child to visualize, ‘see’, what he/she is reading, shouldn’t comprehension increase? If a child can’t ‘see’ – let’s call it “V”- if a child can’t ‘V’ what they are reading, how can they understand it and enjoy it? In more practical terms, how can they pass comprehension tests? My hypothesis became: teach a child to ‘V’ and comprehension should soar. That simple objective was the lightning bolt that changed my methods of teaching forever. I want every child to be successful so I am hoping sharing my secret reading strategy, maybe not so secret, will be of help. Have a great school year and send me your comments and ideas.
MY SECRET READING STRATEGY A SIMPLE DISCOVERY I was in a movie theater when I heard a woman echo my feelings by saying, “The book was better than the movie.” I had always wondered why that seemed to be the case whenever I read a book and then saw the movie. It never occurred to me that this could be the clue that would change reading instruction, in fact all instruction, for me, and that I would use this simple discovery to help thousands of students in my sixth grade classes and even in my college courses for future teachers. WHAT WAS THE DISCOVERY I asked myself why I often felt the book was better and came to the conclusion that reading got me more involved. I had to ‘see’ what the author was describing rather than having it ‘spoon-fed’ to me on a screen. In other words, in reading, I am forced to visualize what the author wants me to see. It hit me like a bolt of lightning that what may define the ‘good reader’ from the ‘bad reader’, the ‘achiever’ from the ‘under-achiever’ is that the better reader is able to ‘see’ what he is reading. This seems so obvious, but I had never seen this in any basal reader or workbook. I wondered if so-called ‘under-achieving’ readers could be taught to see what they were reading. I made this my new goal in reading instruction and that changed everything. It takes some restructuring of your instructional philosophy, but you don’t need new books, expensive machines and no batteries are required. Good readers do this automatically, but even they seem to benefit when they understand the process. I used this simple goal to help countless sixth graders, some reading as low as second grade, to become better, sometimes avid readers, and sincerely hope it helps you help your children. I truly believe getting kids to ‘visualize’ what they are reading and learning can be highly useful in all areas of learning, but is essential to help ‘under-achieving’ readers. Next week: How to Teach Visualization |