Goal 12 - Heinemann€¦ · of Information skill Who is this for? Strategy Each member chooses her or his best thoughts on sticky notes and stacks them in a pile on an individual

324 THE READING STRATEGIES BOOK

Goal 12

Supporting Students’ ConversationsSpeaking, listening,

and Deepening Comprehension

• Why is this goal important?Book clubs and partnerships play a crucial role in supporting student comprehen-sion and also in making the reading process a social one (Nichols 2006). When kids talk well about books, the conversations can be invigorating, engaging, and enlight-ening. When they don’t go well, kids get bored and off task and time is wasted. What most kids often need is instruction into how to talk well, period, and also how to talk well about books.

There are two sides to the productive conversation coin. First, students need to have a hearty repertoire of conversational skills. Second, they need good stuff to talk about, meaning that their comprehension of the text and the depth of their thinking can impact the conversation.

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For more information about this Heinemann resource, visit www.heinemann.com/readingstrategiesbook/

325Supporting Students’ Conversations

Some of the conversational skills that students will need to practice, in a loose order from those that are most basic, beginner, and crucial to those that are for more experienced conversationalists:

•Active listening—when students hear a thought, they need to understand it and process it. Then, they need to reflect and respond to what they just heard.

•Body language—it’s respectful to show you’re listening and that you care, with your eyes on the speaker and body oriented toward the others in the conversation.

•Staying on topic—instead of just waiting your turn to share what was already in your mind, it’s important to listen and say something relevant to the topic “on the table.”

•Conversation-worthy topics—students need to consider what is worth talking about because it’s interesting or important, and what might be less conversation-worthy because it’s obvious or off topic.

•Elaborating—strong conversation needs to be about more than just reading off of a sticky note. Children can learn to add on, defend, and explain their thinking.

•Respectful language—people want to feel heard, so even when a child wants to disagree, there is a way to do it that values what the person before them said, and a way that shuts down conversation or makes people feel hurt.

•Accountability—good conversation is accountable to both the book (citing places or parts that fit with your thinking) and the group (referencing what others before you have said).

•Balance—we want to be sure the overtalkers are aware that sometimes their voices need to fade out, just as much as the quieter students need to chime in.

•Keeping conversation moving—although we want kids to stick to the topic, we don’t want the conversation to become redundant. Knowing when we’ve said all there is to say and having the knowledge to move things along is important.

•Questioning—questions can help to invite elaboration from a speaker, clarify someone’s points, or even invite in a quieter voice.

•Stamina—it takes time to build up to having a long, meaningful conversation. Often it’s a culmination of mastering many of the other skills on this list that provides that stamina.

•Flexible thinking—children should come to a partnership or club expecting (or hoping!) that their minds will be changed or they’ll think something different by the end of the conversation. This requires them to be flexible, ready to accept new ideas and try them on for size.




•Debate—when everyone agrees about everything, it’s hard to get the conversation to a new place or to bring about new ideas. A little healthy disagreement or proposing a “devil’s advocate” idea can spice things up.

•Empathy—it takes a certain maturity to consider someone else’s ideas, especially when that person comes at something from a different perspective. Students need to learn to put themselves in the shoes of another reader to consider their ideas seriously.

• how do i know if this goal is right for my student?

Listen to your students’ conversations about books—whether in a whole-class con-versation, literature circles, or with a partner (Daniels 1994; Calkins 2000). I find my listening is most focused when I take notes. For me, it’s most helpful to transcribe what I hear and to analyze each turn kids take in light of both conversation and com-prehension skills (see Figures 12.A and 12.B). When you determine that the content of the conversation seems to be causing the conversation to fall flat—most likely this will be the case if the students are overly literal and are only retelling the story—then you may find help in Chapters 5 and 6, which focus on strategies to support compre-hension. If you feel like conver-sational strategies would be the best help, you’ll find plenty of ideas within this chapter.

Figure 12.A One way to take notes during conversation is to have an identified spot on your note page for each speaker and keep track of who is speaking. On the other side of the page, write shorthand notes to capture the essence of what each student said.

Figure 12.B Some teachers prefer to take notes during conversation by dividing a page in half—one side for notes about conversational skills (strengths and needs) and the other side for comprehension skills (strengths and needs). This type of note taking requires more in-the-moment processing on the part of the teacher to translate what students say and how they say it into skill names you’d write down on the page.



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Strategies for Supporting Conversations at a Glance

Strategy LevelsGenres/ Text Types Skills

12.1 Listen with Your Whole Body any Any Active listening, body language

12.2 Listen and Respond any Any Active listening

12.3 Invite Quieter Voices any Any Balancing conversation

12.4 Say Back What You Heard any Any Active listening

12.5 Taking Turns Without Raising Hands any Any Body language

12.6 Level-Specific Partner Menus any Any Varies

12.7 Keep the Book in the Book Talk F and above Any Staying accountable to the text, staying on topic

12.8 Super STARter Jots J and above Any Determining importance, conversation-worthy topics

12.9 Conversation Playing Board J and above Any Talk stamina, staying on topic

12.10 Sentence Starter Sticks J and above Any Talk stamina

12.11 Keep the Line Alive J and above Any Elaborating, staying on topic

12.12 Taking Risks with Gentler Language J and above Any Offering new perspectives

12.13 Talk Between and Across Any, but probably best for J and above

Any Talk stamina, comparing and contrasting

12.14 Conversation Cooperation L and above Any Cooperating, collaborating

12.15 Say Something Meaningful M and above Any Active listening, staying on topic

12.16 Try an Idea on for Size M and above Any Thinking flexibly, empathizing

12.17 Challenge Questions M and above Any Questioning, debating

12.18 Moving On to a New Idea M and above Any Keeping conversation moving

12.19 Determining the Importance in Another’s Ideas M and above Any Determining importance, staying on topic

12.20 Power Questions M and above Any Questioning

12.21 Bring on the Debate O and above Any Disagreeing respectfully

Supporting Students’ Conversations



Hat Tip: Donna Santman, personal communication


Decoding, using Structure as a Source of Information

skill

Who is this for? Strategy Each member chooses her or his best thoughts on sticky notes and stacks them in a pile on an individual square of the playing board. One member selects an idea and places it in the center. All members of the club think about, focus on, and talk about the idea in the center. Move on to a new idea when there is nothing left to say about the one in the center.

Lesson Language Create a playing board with a spot for each club members’ stack of sticky notes and a square in the center. The first person takes his or her best sticky note, reads it, and moves it to the center square. The idea in the center is now “in play.” All club members try to focus on talking about the one idea that is “in play” for as long as possible. When it feels like the idea is talked out, then a different club member takes a new idea from his or her pile, reads it, and moves that one to the center so that it becomes “in play.” If at any time someone forgets about what the focus of the conversa-tion is, you can look back at the center of the playing board for help.

Prompts•Check the center of the board.•(Tap or point to sticky note in center.) Does what you just said match this?•Good job sticking

to the topic.•Do you think we can

keep going with this topic or is it time to switch to another one?

12.9 Conversation Playing Board

J and above

any

talk stamina, staying on topic

levels

Genre / TexT Type

skills



Documents

Goal 12 - Heinemann€¦ · of Information skill Who is this for? Strategy Each member chooses her or his best thoughts on sticky notes and stacks them in a pile on an individual