Well, it seems only fitting that we were reading Satchel Paige during the week of "Jackie Robinson Day!" Its funny how these things all tie together sometimes. I really loved this different approach to "reading to learn" as I often find that students have a lot of trouble transitioning from narrative texts to informative texts. I thought this book would be a great in-between book to get used to reading for information while still enjoying a story. It doesn't hurt either that the book seemed really short, and that there are pictures throughout the book which would make a reluctant reader "excited" to get started. I am a huge baseball fan, and was excited to read this book, especially with the relevance of Jackie Robinson day and the history of African American's and segregation even when it comes to sports. I think this style of text allows for the author to really emphasize different things using different fonts, and size fonts, as well as what to put into pictures. As far as using this book in the classroom, I think it would be so important to use in conjunction with a social studies class where you can get background history to go with the story. This novel will just help the history come to life. I was thankful for the introduction and the information at the end of the story to really get a full picture. This is definitely a book I will recommend to future students, and would like to work collaboratively with my social studies teacher to implement it into the classroom.Saturday, April 14, 2012
Satchel Paige
Well, it seems only fitting that we were reading Satchel Paige during the week of "Jackie Robinson Day!" Its funny how these things all tie together sometimes. I really loved this different approach to "reading to learn" as I often find that students have a lot of trouble transitioning from narrative texts to informative texts. I thought this book would be a great in-between book to get used to reading for information while still enjoying a story. It doesn't hurt either that the book seemed really short, and that there are pictures throughout the book which would make a reluctant reader "excited" to get started. I am a huge baseball fan, and was excited to read this book, especially with the relevance of Jackie Robinson day and the history of African American's and segregation even when it comes to sports. I think this style of text allows for the author to really emphasize different things using different fonts, and size fonts, as well as what to put into pictures. As far as using this book in the classroom, I think it would be so important to use in conjunction with a social studies class where you can get background history to go with the story. This novel will just help the history come to life. I was thankful for the introduction and the information at the end of the story to really get a full picture. This is definitely a book I will recommend to future students, and would like to work collaboratively with my social studies teacher to implement it into the classroom.
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I am so pleased you noticed it was Jackie Robinson day on Sunday, Katie! I was also pleasantly surprised to find out this fortuitous connection.
ReplyDeleteI do agree there are obvious content connections to social studies content for your students, but do not underestimate the potential this work also has for teaching students new reading strategies (how to read imagetexts).
PS How is your own girls' season coming along?
ReplyDeleteDr. Jones, you're right! The more I was thinking about it, the more I thought of other instructional strategies they can use. In school today we were talking about the dreaded DBQs (document based questions) that are in the common core for social studies now. Some of the documents that students are given are political cartoons or pictures, so this would be a great way to introduce how to read image texts and practice with this strategy in an authentic learning environment. It can also teach them how to look at pictures in informational text books and use them to learn information.
ReplyDeletePS my team looks pretty good this season! We have our first scrimmage on Thursday, so we will really know how we are doing compared to other teams soon! Thanks for remembering :o)