Construct Meaning

Introduction

Table of Contents

 Students find it difficulty to construct meaning through reading and writing. This has in turn influenced student’s performance. Most students perform poorly because they do not understand the content they are reading. Teachers have identified various   strategies that can be used to help students develop meaning. The strategies include fix-up strategies, question generating, Inferencing etc. The strategies can be integrated into a learning unit to help students construct meaning. This paper analyzes some strategies that can be used to construct meaning and how they can be integrated into a learning unit.


Discussion

There are many strategies that can be used to construct meaning. For example, Inferencing can be used to construct meaningInferencing refers to the process of   judging and concluding from a given text. The students are supposed to reason from the text given. Research has shown that Inferencing is the heart of reading. The researchers   argue that students learn how to construct meaning if they are taught how to make   inferences. This helps the students improve their ability to construct meaning when reading and writing. Inferencing helps students predict before reading and when they are reading. This helps the students to understand the text. Another strategy that can be used to help students construct meaning is question generating. The students are allowed to generate their own questions when reading. This in turn helps the students understand   the content they are reading.


The  two  strategies  will  be  integrated  by  including  reading  comprehension  section in  the  lesson  unit. Also,  by including reading activities in the lesson plan. The reading activities listed below will help the student   construct meaning (Beck, McKeown, Worthy, Sandora & Kucan, 1996).Moreover, the students can use monitoring or fix up strategies to construct meaning. In monitoring, the student is allowed to know when the text he or she is reading is not meaningful, or when it is meaning. Researchers   argue that monitoring   is an important step to help students develop cognitively. In monitoring, the reader is capable of identifying problems when reading and fix them when they occur. This   strategy helps   students   to construct meaning. Teachers   should   teach  students   how  to  monitor  what  they  are  reading   so  as  to   help  them   construct   meaning. There are various monitoring   strategies. For example, the asking oneself   strategy.


The student asks himself whether the content he is reading is making sense or not. Other monitoring strategy is rereading strategy, reading ahead   strategy and using a dictionary to look the meaning of words. Also,  it  will  be  integrated  by including  comprehension  reading  activities  like  graphic  organizers. The graphic organizers allow students to organize their readings well. They will be able to identify main points, characters etc (Beck, McKeown, Worthy, Sandora & Kucan, 1996).Additionally, there summarizing strategy has proved effective in helping readers   construct meaning. The strategy allows students to get important information from the   whole text. The students should be helped to develop this strategy when reading. Teachers should help students develop this strategy often. This is because the narrative text structure differs a lot from the expository text structure. Teachers should teach students how to summarize the important points from the main text when reading narrative content. Also, they should be taught how to summarize when reading expository   content. In   narrative content, the students should be taught how to focus on the grammar of the story and the map of the story.


In expository content, the students should be taught how to identify the main points. In  this  case, the  teacher  can  use  summary  activities   to  help  students  construct  meaning. The  students  will  be  required  to  read  a  story  and  summarize  the  main  points  and  share  their  work  with  other  students. It  will  be  integrated by  providing  activity  sections  in  the  lesson  plan (Beck, McKeown, Worthy, Sandora & Kucan, 1996).Further, teachers can use directed strategy to help the student construct meaning. The teachers are supposed to provide students with the necessary instructions so as to help them construct meaning. Different students need different instructions. So, the teacher should provide the instructions according to students needs. The teacher should   introduce the strategies at the time of authentic literature. For instance, the teacher can introduce such strategies during reading or writing. This will help the student improve his   or her capability to construct meaning (Tompkins, 2010).


Additionally, including phonic development strategies can help students construct meaning. The readers should be taught how to identify different words and sounds. Most of the students learn how to read through reading. Phonic can help students construct   meaning when reading as the reader knows how to pronounce words. Most strategic   readers decode words that are printed as a process of constructing meaning. Also, vocabulary and comprehension reading strategies can help the students construct meaning. Research has shown that there is a strong relationship between vocabulary   and word meaning knowledge and the capability of students to construct meaning. Students    should be taught how to identify vocabulary related to a text before reading. This will help the student understand the text when reading and develop meaning. The teachers   can help the students use dictionaries to identify the meaning of words in a text. In addition, the teachers should use comprehension reading strategies like building background to help the students construct meaning (Saskatoon public schools, 2010).


The teacher should help students connect prior knowledge and current knowledge through building background. This will help the student construct meaning as he will be able to comprehend the text. Teachers should   provide   direct instructions in vocabulary. This  helps  teachers   teach    few   vocabulary  and  their  meaning   so  as  to  help  students    construct   meaning. The   teacher   should teach   students   how to decode   words independently   and infer   their   meaning. Hence, thins will help students   develop meaning independently.Consequently, study   strategies   and skills   can be used to help students   develop meaning. Study  strategies   refers  to  activities   that   students do  in order  to   remember  information  , organize  and  locate  it. For instance, students   can use   table of   content or an outline when writing. Also, the   students   can use   strategies   like K-W-L to read a   text. The   strategies   help students   remember the text being read. In this   case students can use   comprehension and vocabulary development activities. The  students  will  be  required  to  list  words  in  a  paper  together  with  their  meaning  and   read  it  to  the  class. Then  the  class  and  the  teacher  will  determine  if  the  student  is  wrong  or  not.


This  will  help  the  student  identify  meaning  of  the  various  words  in a  comprehension. The  four  strategies  above  will  be  integrated into  the  lesson  unit  by  providing  a  section for  comprehension  reading, vocabulary  development, phonic  awareness and  activity  section (Saskatoon public schools, 2010).activity  is  asking  students  to  write  a poem  using  the  words  identified. This  will  help  the  students   identify  the  words  and  their  meaning  when  writing  a  poem. This can be used together with phonic activity. Also, the  teacher  can  ask  students  to  cut  pictures  that  relate to the words given and  place the pictures alongside each word. This will help the students have a deep understanding of the words and their meaning (Saskatoon public schools, 2010).strategy is   responding   to literature. When students respond to literature   they learn how to relate their prior knowledge with the ideas in the text. This process helps students from different backgrounds to give their views about the reading, hence helping them construct meaning. In  this  case  the   construction  of  meaning  is  said to be a  transaction   between the content  and  the   students. The test will involve reading comprehension etc. The students can use broadcasting activities to present the story.


The  students  should  pretend  to  be a  broadcaster  and   broadcast the story  to  other  students. This will help students give their views and understand the story (Saskatoon public schools, 2010).The students will be measured using summative assessment. Students are required to sit for a test so as to determine if they are able to construct meaning. The student’s   performance will be monitored regularly. For example, the teacher will  monitor  the  students  as  they  read  comprehensions  and  retell  the  story. Then   record the student’s performance. Also, the teacher will monitor the students as they carry various activities like writing a poem, listing words and relating them to pictures. The teacher will use techniques that cater for students differences. For example, the  teacher  will  use  visual  and  auditory  strategies  when  teaching  and  evaluating  the  students. This will help the teacher caster for student’s differences (Tompkins, 2010).


Conclusion

Teachers can use the activities and strategies listed above to help students construct meaning. Also, the teachers should monitor and assess the student regularly to determine their progress. This will enable the teacher provide instructions to students who need further assistance.


Reference

Beck, I., McKeown, M. G., Worthy, J., Sandora, C., & Kucan, L. (1996).

Questioning the author: A yearlong classroom implementation to engage

students with text.ElementarySchool Journal, 96(4), 385-414.

Northwest Regional Educational

Saskatoon public schools. (2010).Instructional Strategies Online.

Retrieved   from http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/pd/instr/strats/readmeaning/index.html

Tompkins, G. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced

approach (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall. (Chapter 2)





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