The Evolution of Thought
Synthesizing: How Reading Changes Thinking
Purpose: To notice how our thinking evolves and changes as we read.
To make synthesizing understandable for our kids, we talk with them about how reading changes and add to thinking. The main purpose of reading is to add to our knowledge base, connect with new information, and be able to apply the new information. New information sometimes gives us new perspectives, a new angle into our thinking, and further insight.
Teaching: We need to ask kids to think about how their reading and learning is adding to and/or revising their thinking. We can suggest to students to simply start noticing their thinking before and after they had read or heard something. (Activities: Interactive Read-Alouds)
What does reading mean to you?
Synthesizing
1. Students become aware of when they add to their knowledge base and revise their thinking as they read. We look for evidence that students are learning new information, adding to their background knowledge, and changing their thinking.
2. Students synthesize information through writing. We look for evidence that students pick out the most information and merge their thinking with it to come up with responses that are both personal and factual.
3. Students use a variety of ways to synthesize information and share their learning. We look for evidence that students use authentic questions, inferences, and interpretations to synthesize information and tach it to others through a variety of projects and products.
Differentiation Suggestions:
(Strategies that Work)
"When kids actively use their knowledge, they create many different ways to synthesize and share it. When we go beyond book reports, all of our kids-English language learners, developing readers, students with special needs-have a much better chance at exploring and sharing their learning and teaching others about it. Giving them choices about how to organize and present their new learning to others insures that they are interested and engaged in the process. Kids love to create a variety of posters, projects, books, models, mobiles, murals, and so on to demonstrate learning and understanding."
Synthesizing: How Reading Changes Thinking
Purpose: To notice how our thinking evolves and changes as we read.
To make synthesizing understandable for our kids, we talk with them about how reading changes and add to thinking. The main purpose of reading is to add to our knowledge base, connect with new information, and be able to apply the new information. New information sometimes gives us new perspectives, a new angle into our thinking, and further insight.
Teaching: We need to ask kids to think about how their reading and learning is adding to and/or revising their thinking. We can suggest to students to simply start noticing their thinking before and after they had read or heard something. (Activities: Interactive Read-Alouds)
What does reading mean to you?
- Reading teaches you new information
- Reading takes you on an adventure
- Reading puts you on the edge of your seat
- Reading takes you to places you have never been
- Reading lets you picture stuff in your minds
Synthesizing
1. Students become aware of when they add to their knowledge base and revise their thinking as they read. We look for evidence that students are learning new information, adding to their background knowledge, and changing their thinking.
2. Students synthesize information through writing. We look for evidence that students pick out the most information and merge their thinking with it to come up with responses that are both personal and factual.
3. Students use a variety of ways to synthesize information and share their learning. We look for evidence that students use authentic questions, inferences, and interpretations to synthesize information and tach it to others through a variety of projects and products.
Differentiation Suggestions:
(Strategies that Work)
"When kids actively use their knowledge, they create many different ways to synthesize and share it. When we go beyond book reports, all of our kids-English language learners, developing readers, students with special needs-have a much better chance at exploring and sharing their learning and teaching others about it. Giving them choices about how to organize and present their new learning to others insures that they are interested and engaged in the process. Kids love to create a variety of posters, projects, books, models, mobiles, murals, and so on to demonstrate learning and understanding."
LET's BAKE!!!
Synthesizing is one of those "How do I teach that?" kind of concepts. Teachers should use something the kids could connect with. Synthesizing is bringing schema and mixing it in with the text, and adding a little more thinking, a little more reading, some talking, etc. It is just like baking a cupcake. By presenting synthesizing with the idea of baking a cupcake it would interest the students and also help them remember how to synthesize a text. When you bake a cupcake, before you bake, you gather the ingredients and then you predict what the cake will look like.
Synthesizing is one of those "How do I teach that?" kind of concepts. Teachers should use something the kids could connect with. Synthesizing is bringing schema and mixing it in with the text, and adding a little more thinking, a little more reading, some talking, etc. It is just like baking a cupcake. By presenting synthesizing with the idea of baking a cupcake it would interest the students and also help them remember how to synthesize a text. When you bake a cupcake, before you bake, you gather the ingredients and then you predict what the cake will look like.