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Science teachers should check out this YouTube video for some really cool ideas on how to get your students to better understand difficult academic material. This middle school science teacher, Peter Hill, has a couple of cool techniques on how to make reading comprehension easier for his students. Science teachers should check out this video because it shows a science teacher collaborating with an English teacher on the best way for students of different reading levels to understand the same article or passage. Other content area teachers should check out this source because it also shows a good pre-reading activity and a technique to keep students focused while reading. 109 words

I never considered that when I am reading a paper or article and I don’t understand it, it is because I either haven’t triggered the right “key” for my pre-existing schemata, or I don’t have any prior knowledge to the subject area at all. I blew my mind when the text gave an example of not understanding a text, triggering a schema, and instantly understanding the text. This made me realize why when I was in grade school I was so lost when the teacher assigned us to read a chapter before leaning about. I guess teachers assume that students have some sort of previous knowledge that would help us understand the textbook, but really I was just reading and nothing was clicking.  If teachers would teach a basic level of a subject and then assign the readings, students’ comprehension would soar beyond what was possible in the traditional technique. And going even further, if a teacher were to take time and decode complex texts in class with small group lessons where the students ...

I chose to read "Oh, the THINKS You can Think!" by Dr. Seuss. This was a fairly short book in length and required a lot of imagination to capture the entirety of what the author was trying to convey. I chose to present the material in a monotonous tone to achieve a more soothing telling of the story. My hope is that the gentle tone of my voice would allow a child to fall asleep quicker, if the intent of a bedtime story is to ease the transition from the real world into the unpredictable and exciting world of dreams. One could imagine that falling asleep to hearing the crazy and fun world of Dr. Seuss could foster the environment for a very similar type of dream. How exciting! 129 Words