History Teachers

I had one of my more challenging training sessions last weekend. I was training a group of history teachers in Florida. My focus was on the importance of using reading strategies to better understand history content. Sometimes history teachers really know their content well but were not really trained in how to teach students how to read. They assume that the kids already know how to read.

I usually show a video of a fourth grader using the Big 5 reading strategies: Predict, Summarize, Context Clues, Main Idea, and Author's Purpose. Usually teachers love the video. This was the first time a group of teachers really reacted negatively. I felt like leaving.

The main complaint was that they thought the student using the strategies during her reading would distract her. I did explain that the school did later stop having students use context clues in the middle of a paragraph for that very same reason. Then when I had the teachers "try it" they mostly changed their mind and saw the value. Even the teacher that was the most critical changed her mind after actually doing it herself.

I think the lesson for me is to really get people to experience the Big 5 first themselves to really appreciate how much this type of interactive reading experience improves comprehension before sharing it as a strategy. Lesson learned!