We started a new reading book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rat's of NIMH. A great book that I've read before, and now I'm teaching my reading group.
I have fifth graders, but I have a homogenous low level reading group. My students have trouble with vocabulary, going deeper than the surface and literal meaning of anything.
They are eager and sweet, and their answers funny and exhausting at the same time.
It's really hard to get even a few pages done.
And reading strategies ... well they don't really work if your whole knowledge base is is all off. Heck, we hardly made it passed the cover.
Me: What do you see?
S: a rat!
Me: Are you sure it's a rat?
S: Yes, because it's in the title.
Me: Is it a male or female?
S: A male, because he has a beard!
Me: That's fur. All mice have fur.
S: But it looks like a beard!
Me: Those are whiskers. They all have that too.
S: But it could be a beard.
Me: Where is she?
S: In a barn!
Me: So where is the setting?
S: In a barn!
Me: I was looking for farm, but moving on...What genre is this book?
S: (blank stare)
Me: What type of book - fiction, non-fiction..
S: historical fiction!
Me: Who is the author?
S: There is no author!
(after some discussion on the problem, setting, etc.)
Me: Let's make a prediction about the story.
S: There's going to be a fire!
Me: No, not a wild guess, a prediction based on something I just read or something you see.
S: There's going to be a tornado!
Me: based on what?
S: The white background.
Me: Is that what a tornado looks like?
S2: Yes!
S3: Yeah! And she looks scared.
The characters is wearing a shawl, standing with her hands together holding a package. No wind. No tornado.
Their imaginations are wild and unhindered. It's one of the great parts of being a kid. You come up with wild and baseless ideas because you can. Your mind doesn't need to pause and look for evidence or logic. Boring! It's running free! Maybe this is the trade-off when I teach them logic and reasoning. They lose their exuberance.
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