Small group learning leads to big lessons

Though the groups were small, the impact was big — for both the Bloomsburg University education majors and Benton middle school students.

A class of soon-to-be student teachers spent an afternoon this spring leading small group interactive learning activities with several Benton seventh graders, teaching them some helpful reading strategies to use across subject areas.

Afterwards, the seventh graders then took their turn and graded their college counterparts from Beth Rogowsky’s class — Teaching Reading in the Content Areas (grades 4-8) — with feedback on lesson delivery.

“I was most eager to teach them the Think Aloud reading strategy, as it’s a fantastic tool to guide students through the text as they read,” said Taylor Prehotsky, middle level education major with an emphasis on language arts. “My students were able to express their ideas, while actively reading a piece of literature.”

Partnering with local schools for k-12 teaching experience is a priority for Rogowsky, associate professor of teaching and learning.

“In this class, my students were taught different strategies to help increase reading comprehension across the content areas in grades four through eight,” Rogoswky said. “My students then planned for 30 minutes of small group instruction using those strategies. I was able to partner with Benton, who provided us with their seventh grade class during a free period. This truly was a class to practice experience for our preservice teacher candidates.”

During her Think Aloud exercise, Prehotsky said students create notes on the page during the process of reading.

“My students highlighted meaningful lines in the poem, asked questions, noted their interpretations, and paid close attention to key vocabulary and figurative language,” Prehotsky said. “When we verbalize our own opinions, comments, concerns, questions, and ideas, we’re allowing ourselves the opportunity to deepen our comprehension of a text.”

According to Prehotsky, it’s important to teach students to understand how they can use reading strategies. By doing so, she said reading becomes less of a task and more of an enjoyable opportunity to learn from the text.

“Students have so much potential, but sometimes it takes a very special teacher to show them how great they can be,” Prehotsky said. “I’ve always wanted to be an educator, and I know that teaching can impact the lives of so many bright young minds. Bloomsburg has taught me I’ve chosen the perfect career path. Teaching is more than instruction; it’s shaping students into life-long learners who love to discover and strive for success.”