Strategy 5- Diverse learners

Definition: On page 51 in Meltzer's text it states that, “to help students learn more from texts, instructors should explicitly teach the “decoding” of discipline-specific text type.” This includes the forms and the patterns of writing something that a mainstream student is already used to but something that a diverse learner may not be used to. There are also text features like, graphics, chapter headings, glossaries, and chapter summaries that can be very useful for diverse learners if they knew what they were for and how to use them.

I believe this strategy of decoding and helping students understand should be used in almost all occasions. Often times as described in Meltzer's text, teachers tend to assume that everyone knows how to use a glossary or what to use it for. We tend to forget to remind students that they find specific topics with the index and so on. This is because we are in a "mainstream" classroom in which sometimes diverse learners are ignored because standards are set lower and believe they will never learn these things. I believe this is one of the easiest things to do for all students because it is basic knowledge, that if repeated it won't hurt anyone, but reinforce it. Not only teaching that glossaries exist, but also that there is a pattern usually to stories; beginning, middle (plot climax), end. Although it would also be important to point out that not all text follow this same structure. An example of this would be when my cooperating teacher introduced the textbook the class would be using for the year. She made sure to go over different repeated activities they would see and the extended glossary of words they could potentially have problems with. She indicated where they could find a short summary for a couple text that students might have the most difficulty with. I believe this was helpful because she had at least one ELL student in her class and maybe they knew these existed, but maybe they didn't. So going over the different features of the textbook they will be using for the whole year would be helpful for all students and would not be singling out any particular group.