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Helping Struggling Readers

In Social Studies I feel like it is often assumed that students have prior knowledge of some of the seemingly small details that actually are critical to the students understanding of the topic at hand. For instance, we might assume that when we are talking about the government, culture, and landscapes of Italy or Germany or Latin America for example, that our students will have some prior knowledge of some aspect of those places. But if they have never seen the Latin American languages, never eaten Latin foods, have never had any exposure to any Latin cultures, then they might not be able to compare and contrast those countries as well with Europe as some other students may be able to, putting them behind according to the GA Standards. Subjects Matter ch. 11 helped me to understand ways to combat this, starting with a culture of trust and honesty. If my students don't trust me or feel comfortable with me, they will be less likely to ask questions when they don't understand something. It is crucial to start there in Social Studies because of how much the subject is influenced by opinion and potential misunderstandings. Secondly, the idea of having students create their own questions before beginning reading is a wonderful strategy to not only help them develop critical thinking and reading skills but to also maintain the aforementioned comfort so that they don't become discouraged by a question that they may not understand. To further their knowledge, it could be beneficial to discuss students questions and answers as a class to encourage deeper thinking and potentially answer import questions some students had while maybe others did not. Overall I think all strategies mentioned would be greatly beneficial to Social Studies classrooms, however the two I discussed seemed most relevant to what I will be teaching and I hope to carry those and more into my future classroom.
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