Reading Manipulatives

As we are focusing more on manipulatives in Math, it makes me think of Tanny McGregor's launching sequence from her book Comprehension Connections. It is interesting how often what we are learning about instruction in one subject transfers well to the other subjects. Starting with something concrete in Math helps students visualize, connect and explore. So, why wouldn't it be the same in Reading?! I am beginning to really understand the term "best practices".  Just has the strategies we learn for our ESL students are actually beneficial for all students, the things that work well in a particular subject often times work well in all instruction, regardless of the subject. Makes our lives as educators a little more simple...let's take advantage!

The Importance of Manipulatives

The Proper Use of Manipulatives in the Math Classroom

Tammie Jacobs, M.Ed.

Visit any math classroom today and you are sure to find shelves filled with a variety of objects. Some of these objects will be as commonplace as buttons and sticks, while others may include counting frames and Cuisenaire rods. Objects used by students which enable them to actively learn a concept are called manipulatives.
The use of manipulatives in the classroom has been studies for years. Research journals print glowing reports of the success of teaching math with manipulatives. Many teachers obtain manipulatives for their classroom, but their students fail to achieve the promised success. The problem lies in the teacher not knowing when and how to use the manipulatives.
Manipulatives are frequently used only for counting in the lower grades; however, this is a very limited use. Manipulatives are important to all students, kindergarten through high school. The younger students will need more time and activities with these concrete objects, but students of every age will benefit from them.
Another common use of manipulatives is with the remedial student who does not understand a concept after the teacher has explained it several times. Manipulatives are important for the remedial student, but not as a last resort. Manipulatives need to be an integral part of every math class, not merely a remediation technique. A builder does not wait and use his nails after the boards of his house are collapsing. Instead, he carefully hammers each nail in a strategic place to give the house stability and strength. If manipulatives are used correctly and frequently, students will have a strong conceptual math foundation.


Manipulatives should be provided when a new concept is introduced to students and when reteaching is necessary. A perceptive student may not always need manipulatives to be successful, but they will enhance his understanding of the concept. For those students who do not understand the concept when it is introduced, using manipulatives when reteaching is important. Often these students are given more and more practice, when they really need reteaching. (I.e., a student who does not understand the concept of renaming one ten as ten ones will not benefit from being assigned extra subtraction problems for practice. This student needs reteaching using a bundle of sticks, Cuisenaire rods, or an abacus. After the student understands the renaming concept, he can them benefit from practicing the process.)
There is a variety of different types of manipulatives that students can use. Classification skills can be learned before a student is able to count. Given a bag of buttons, a student can sort them according to color, size, or shape.
Geometric shapes are easily learned if a student is able to feel and count the edges of cardboard and foam shapes. Later the student can make his own shapes by gluing toothpicks onto paper. With manipulative activities like these, it won't be long before the kindergarten student will be identifying pentagons and octagons.
Many students have a difficult time understanding fractions. It is important for students in the early grades to cut and color parts of a whole when naming or adding fractions. It is just as important for the older student to manipulate fractions when multiplying and dividing them. Before multiplying 1/2 x 1/3, let the student fold a paper into thirds and color two- thirds of the paper. Then re-fold the paper into halves and color one-half a different color. The overlapping colors will be the product 1/6. This activity will help most students understand why the product of two fractions is smaller than one or both of the factors.
Manipulatives are important when you teach for the understanding of math concepts. They are the concrete objects you provide in order to transfer understanding to the abstract level. Don't place them on a desk or table and wait for a student to discover what to do with them. Demonstrate the manipulatives letting the students use them while you teach. Provide specific activities so your students know how to use the manipulatives by themselves. Manipulatives can be a valuable teaching tool if they are properly used.
Reprinted from Balance, a publication of the School of Education, Bob Jones University. Used with permission of Bob Jones University. Please write BJU Press, for permission to reproduce this article.

The Fab Four!

 

The entire second chapter of the book "Reciprocal Teaching at Work; Powerful Strategies and Lessons for Improving Reading Comprehension" by Lori D. Oczkus can be found for free online (http://www.reading.org/Libraries/Inspire/03-507_Chapter02.pdf).

 

Here are a few highlights that I thought would be helpful for some of you guys wanting to get started:

 

How to Begin Using Reciprocal Teaching

With Your Students

One of the burning questions teachers often pose is, Should I teach

all four strategies before I put them together in a reciprocal teaching

lesson? This is a natural concern, as most students are not yet proficient

in any of the strategies, and it seems daunting to expect them to use

all four at once. However, studies suggest that teachers may introduce

all four as quickly as possible to benefit from the power and research

behind multiple-strategy instruction (NICHD, 2000; Reutzel et al.,

2005). Therefore, you do not have to wait until students are completely

competent or familiar with each of the four reciprocal teaching strategies

before you jump in and begin using them in lessons together. In one

urban school in which I worked, we introduced the strategies for just

a few days each and then taught guided reading groups using the Fab

Four. After three months, the struggling fourth graders moved from

reading at a second-grade level to their own grade level.

 

TIPS!!

• Write the four strategies and if you wish the starters on a board or

chart.

• Use the posters, icons, or Reciprocal Teaching Dial

• Have students create a "4 flap book" and laminate it (then they can write with Expo markers) or on sticky notes and re-use it again and again!

• Use a prop and/or puppet for each strategy

• Give students the bookmark with the question stems provided to help scaffold.
Here is a link that Danielle found if you want to check out this one: http://m.readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/reciprocalteaching_bookmark.pdf

• Teach students hand motions for each of the 4 strategies so you can quickly signal to them what to discuss during turn and talk. Also, the "leader" of a Book Club would know when someone needed something "clarified" as they saw the signal, and so on.