Instructional Conversation

 I found the instructional conversation to be a very pleasant experience and I am very excited to try them in my own classroom one day! Sadly, as a pre-service elementary teacher, I truly believe that many students are still not exposed to enough instructional conversations, and are in classrooms that are very teacher centered rather than student centered. In Claude Goldenberg’s article, Instructional Conversations: Promoting Comprehension Through Discussion, he argues the same points as I do, saying, “Yet teaching aimed at these important goals is presently most notable for its absence from U.S. classrooms (316).”

I was very lucky in the sense that the group of students that were assigned to my small reading group are, overall, very eager to participate during discussions. I will give you an example of a conversation that took place but first let me give you a little background knowledge of the scenario (this was included in my paper):

Megan, Sierra, Carter, Dave, and Kumar are in third grade and assigned to my small reading group. We meet as a group Monday through Friday in the morning for about twenty to thirty minutes. All five students are in the middle of their class when it comes to reading and writing; they are not struggling readers, but are also not considered advanced (or proficient) by any means. This group overall does pretty well with fluency and comprehension for third grade, but could improve with overall reading strategies and digging deeper into the text.

The book that we are currently reading is a scholastic book titled, Cat and Mouse in a Haunted House. My classroom teacher assigned this book for us to read in our small group. If it were my own classroom I would select a more meaningful story that was based off of my students’ needs and interests, but in practicum I do not have a lot of say in the matter. My group of students seems to fairly enjoy the book, however, because it includes a lot of humor and is even suspenseful at times. Our group meets in a separate room (in the library) where it is quiet and we can form our chairs into a circle. The students are used to working on mini lessons that tie into the story and partake in many group discussions. For this particular meeting, my classroom teacher wanted me to emphasize and discuss the skills of predicting and making inferences

Talking points

This chapter is called Mouse Bones and Rat Skeletons.

Carter- “A huge copper pot hung inside the fireplace. It had a picture of a snarling cat engraved on it. I looked closer and noticed a strange white object lying inside of the pot.”

Kumar- I think I know what’s going to happen next* like what’s going to be in the pot. It’s a bone!

Me- Kumar tell me more about that. What led you to make this prediction?

Kumar- Because I remembered the title says Mouse Bones and Rat Skeletons and it says, “a strange white object lying inside of the pot.”

Dave- And there’s a picture of a bone right on top of it!

Me- Wow we have some really fantastic points here! Kumar and Dave made an educated prediction based on the clues and evidence in the story. We have talked about this before, and how to use things such as book covers, chapter titles, pictures, etc. to make predictions.

Megan- I know *--- I mean this one time I saw a real bone before. There was this animal and it was dead next to the park because it was like run over and stuff and me and my friend went right up next to it, and um it had white stuff in it and my friend told me that was the bone!

Sierra- And we saw owl bones in class remember when Ash/

Dave- Nah that was owl palettes! Not bones

Sierra- then Ms. Hooker showed them on the computor

Me- Sierra and Megan I like the way that you just made a text-to-world connection. This is a strategy that many good readers use to better understand the book.

I could not believe how thoughtful some of the talking points were, especially for third graders! The only thing that I would make sure to change for next time is to not chime in as often, and let the students continue to talk.