A Powerful Question for Third Graders

In this article in The Reading Teacher, Illinois teacher Kristen Marchiando says that when she and her third graders are looking together at a book, asking the simple question, “What do you notice?” is a wonderful way to sharpen students’ observational and reading skills, put them in the driver’s seat, and create countless teachable moments. When she first asked the question, students homed in on details of book illustrations, but soon they were noticing details in the text: “In no time, they were making observations about everything from interesting vocabulary words to fascinating figurative language,” says Marchiando, “from the description of a character to bold words and other text features.” Asking the question day after day led to conversations about authors’ choices, which naturally applied to students’ own writing as the class looked at writing samples projected with a document camera – details, tone, voice, organization, word choice, and so on. Asking the question also allows Marchiando to get a quick assessment of student understanding – “I am constantly jotting notes about how I want to extend the learning that began in their noticings or to improve their understanding of an idea,” she says. But more important, she continues, “my students are driving their own learning. They aren’t simply responding to questions or paying attention to what I have mentioned. These children are just as instrumental in directing our discussions as I am.” And of course, students also learn from each others’ comments and ideas. 

“The Power of Student Noticings” by Kristen Marchiando in The Reading Teacher, April 2014 (Vol. 67, #7, p. 560), http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/trtr.1252/abstract

From the Marshall Memo #535