Understanding Blackacre—Literacy: Reading at Blackacre

Reading at Blackacre

Read Aloud
Using the natural settings at Blackacre to provide context clues for reading aloud offers many possibilities. Some examples are as follows:

Locations at Blackacre		Related Read-Aloud Books
200-Year-Old Barn		Barn Dance, John Archambault
Jackson’s Pond		All Eyes on the Pond, Michael Rosen
Forest		The Man Who Planted Trees, Jean Giono
Meadow		The Other Way to Listen, Byrd Baylor
Quarry		Follow the Drinking Gourd, Jeanette Winter

When preparing students for a Read-Aloud experience at Blackacre, choose a location that reflects the content or setting of the book selected. Guide students to create a Word Wall that describes or name objects in their surroundings.

When introducing the book, ask students to predict what the words on the list might have to do with the story. Encourage other predictions about the book.

During the reading, students:

connect with prior knowledge.
discuss unknown words.
adjust predictions.

After reading, students:

reflect on the message.
discuss and identify the main idea.
compare predictions with outcome
reflect on their location at Blackacre and tell how it is like (or different from) the location in the book?

Shared Reading
Shared Reading offers a risk-free environment for the uncertain reader. This component includes reading with students from big books, charts, or student reproducibles. Textbooks also can be a shared reading experience with the teacher reading and discussing concepts before students are asked to read on their own.

At Blackacre, Shared-Reading opportunities include reading and writing nature poetry. Chart paper can be used to copy poetry for the shared reading. For example, “Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices” by Paul Fleischman contains poems that celebrate nature and can be used for choral reading, for call and response reading, and by individuals or in groups.

A lesson that might include Shared Reading could start with reading a poem about nature, identifying the various sensory descriptions and images created by the words. Students could then hike and interpret their surroundings, using all of their senses to create a strong visual image. Finally, students could create a poem to share either individually or as a group (Shared Writing). This writing then becomes additional material for Shared Reading.

Guided Reading
Guided Reading involves students reading materials on their instructional level, with the support of their teacher. Students need to be intentionally taught reading strategies and to be given time to share how they use those strategies.

Blackacre provides opportunities for the support of Guided Reading through related experiential learning. If the book Little House on the Prairie is being used for Guided Reading, exploring the pioneer farm and learning firsthand about daily life 150 years ago gives students the chance to use vocabulary from the Guided-Reading and to strengthen their comprehension of the historical context.

Similarly, informational reading in the areas of science may be supported by scientific investigations at Blackacre, using vocabulary and concepts being taught through Guided Reading. For example, After using
A River Ran Wild by Lynn Cherry as Guided Reading material, students perform a stream study, apply new vocabulary, and connect the experience to the Guided-Reading lessons, increasing the depth of comprehension.

Self-Selected Reading
As students build reading skills, they need the opportunity to practice with material that is of interest to them and at a level that builds fluency. Teachers monitor books selected by students to make sure the text is appropriate to independent reading levels.

The literature links provided in Understanding Blackacre allow the teacher to follow up the Blackacre field study in the classroom with related reading. Students may use book buddies, story maps, conferences, or retelling as a way of connecting of the Self-Selected Reading to the Blackacre experience.

Word Work
Student work at Blackacre is embedded with vocabulary and concept development related to the learning experience. As students use the Blackacre Student Journal through the course of the field study, this vocabulary is recorded or added to the Word Bank in the back of the journal. Through this process the student creates an individual Word Wall that can be used in follow-up activities and writing in the classroom.

There are many other possibilities for Word Work at Blackacre. As you plan the field study, identify vocabulary you would like for the students to learn and use as they engage in the activity. As a part of the student preparation before you come, introduce the vocabulary. This gives students a head start on incorporating the language into their work once they get to Blackacre.

These suggestions represent some possibilities for using Blackacre as an impetus for teaching reading on a variety of levels. As you think about how you can best use the Nature Preserve or Pioneer Homestead, look at the standards you are currently addressing in all academic areas. The Center for Environmental Education staff will work with you to develop plans that support content areas and literacy.

Environmental education does not only represent content; it also is a process of approaching the complete curriculum (see definition of environmental education,
p. 14). Taking the work done at Blackacre back to the classroom to apply in producing meaningful outcomes requires that reading and writing be an integral part of
a day at Blackacre.

Reading: The Wisdom of Children’s Environmental Literature
The Project Wild Annotated Bibliography of Children’s Environmental Literature (K–12) lends itself well at all levels to comprehension work. A particularly useful tool is the Wisdom Strategy (developed by Barbara Inman, a classroom teacher from Washington, D.C.), which is applied to children’s environmental literature.

This strategy involves reading aloud a book that teaches a wisdom. Inherent to environmental literature at all levels is a meaning or a wisdom. Using this literature not only provides material to work on comprehension, but frames the lesson as authentic learning, extending the Blackacre experience to the classroom.

The teacher gives students some examples of wisdoms or lessons that books teach. Then the teacher asks students to listen for the wisdom of the book he/she reads aloud. The first time the strategy is done with students the wisdom needs to be obvious. The teacher posts a piece of chart paper with the title of the book, the author, and a small illustration in the middle of the chart paper. The teacher gives the wisdom the first time and encloses it in quotes and puts his/her name underneath. Then the teacher asks students to share a wisdom and, using a different colored marker for each child, lists the student wisdom in quotes with the child’s name. Then, even struggling readers can easily reread their own wisdom, or another one that had meaning for them. Extensions can include the following:

Further discussion of the book and its lessons
Locating the part of the book that caused the student to think of the wisdom
Students’ writing their own wisdom stories

There are several categories of children’s environmental literature (go to Wild About Reading) enabling the teacher to select the content that supports the student work done at Blackacre while developing comprehension skills.