In the spirit of blogging, I'm posting an article I wrote for our school's newsletter

The Best Way to Become a Better Reader is to (you guessed it) READ!

Do you feel like it’s a battle to get your reluctant reader to sit down and read a book for twenty minutes nightly? Chances are, he or she is not reading because he or she hasn’t found a book that they LIKE to read. I’m sure you have heard from teachers in the past that the best way to get better at reading is, by, well, reading. Here are a few other tips to help your child enjoy reading at home.

1. Choose books that children enjoy. Have conversations about your child’s interests on the way home or during any downtime. Make trips to the library on the weekend and pursue those interests. Books don’t have to be a certain level to be enjoyed. If a book is too hard, practice reading by alternating reading lines and help guide your child to the right word.

2. Make reading comfortable. Make sure there is a comfortable spot at home away from distractions like TV or video game systems. Fill this spot with pillows and a bookshelf.

3. Make reading a priority. Just like homework, there should happen nightly at an assigned time, preferably before television and/or before bedtime.

4. Wind down with a book. Story time is my favorite way to end the day, and a perfect way to say goodnight to your child.

5. Understand the Importance of Reading. Have conversations with your child that include reasons why you read today. You can start with simple things like “I read the newspaper” or “I wanted to see how to get home from work faster” and lead up to more complicated things. Share the titles you are reading for fun. Children are great mimes. If they see that reading is important to you, they will follow.

Having trouble choosing that first good book? Here a few great children’s books grades K-2. For a complete list of recommendations, go to www.ReadWriteThink.org and find “parent and afterschool resources.” Then find “Help a child choose a Book.” The complete list is found here.

1. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
2. The Mitten by Jan Brett
3. The Paper Bag Princess by Robert N. Munsch
4. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
5. Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish

Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen

Found this while researching activities and thought it would be a good motivational book talk before reading with students.

Lawn Boy Book Trailer
http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=76428&title=Lawn_Boy

(It wouldn't let me do the embeddable link, so I'm just posting the link.)

Copy and Paste into browser.

More Reading Madness!!!

Day 1
Book Talk for the Wednesday Wars
This book tells the fictional story of Holling Hoodhood’s seventh grade year. The book takes place in 1967, if it weren’t already catastrophe of a year with the Vietnam War in full swing; Holling has problems of his own. First, his teacher Mrs. Baker hates him and is determined to make him read (and like) all works of Shakespeare. Holling is convinced she is out to get him, with her pet rats in tow. Holling feels that he has to be on his best behavior because his success in seventh grade is closely linked with his the success of his father’s business. Join Holling on his journey to learn about himself, maintaining friendships, dodging proverbial bullets, and staying out of trouble (or trying to.) The Wednesday Wars is a Newbery Honor Book, and contains moments that will make you laugh and cry at the same time.

Pre-reading activity
Introduction: “I’m going to read a series of statements that you have to agree or disagree with. No one is going to judge you based on your response. The idea behind this is to get you thinking about the ideas in this book before we begin reading. If you like, there are times that you will be asked to share a moment where you faced a similar situation. You may share if you wish, but you are certainly not obligated to do so.”

Students will stand in a line in the center of the room, and listen to a series of statements. The statements will take the form of an anticipation guide, and when students agree with the statements they will move to one side of the room. If the disagree, they will move to the other side of the room. Statements include the following:
1. If you have ever faced a situation where you were conflicted about which side to take, move to your right. If not, move to your left. (Everyone comes back to the center after a few seconds of reflection.)
2. If you have ever been bullied, move to your right. If you have not, move to your left.
3. If you have ever been the bully, move to your right. If you have not, move to your left.
4. If you have ever felt a deep respect for another student, for any reason (you don’t have to share the reason) move to your right. If not, move to your left. (Pause for a moment of reflection, and ask anyone if they would like to share.
5. If you have ever had a respect for any adult (teacher, parent, other relative, friend, mentor, tutor, neighbor, etc.) move to your right. If not, move to your left. (Pause for a moment to share.)
6. If you agree with the statement “love and hate are not far apart” move to your right. If not, move to your left. (Pause to take a few defenses from either side.)

Instruct students to go back to their seat and listen as I read aloud the first chapter of THE WEDNESDAY WARS. The idea behind the anticipation guide was to build motivation and get students familiar with what was to come. Ideally, this would be done while introducing a series of books for literature study and students would have the opportunity to choose from several of the books presented.

Read Chapter 1 (September) aloud
Pause and point out the following quotes:
“If you had been listening to my instructions, you should have been able to do this,” said Mrs. Baker, which is sort of like saying that if you’ve ever flicked on a light switch, you should be able to build an atomic reactor.”
Model thinking aloud at this with: “I love this quote because it says so much about how the speaker thinks. It’s so true as well. I love when characters in books tell you what they are thinking this way, because it makes the book seem more realistic to me. Do you agree with the quote? You don’t have to, but tell why or why not.”
“We spent the afternoon with English for You and Me, learning how to diagram sentences—as if there was some reason why anyone in the Western Hemisphere needed to know how to do this.”
Model thinking aloud at this with: “Again, I am getting a sense for how the main character thinks. This makes or breaks a book for me, but it doesn’t have to for you. It all depends on how you read a book. If you are looking for characters, you probably want to pay attention to what the characters say, if you read a book looking for plot, you probably want to look at what they do and how they act.”
“That’s how it is with people who are plotting something awful.”
Model thinking aloud with: “The author chooses to end this month with this statement, leading you to believe the worst and giving the reader a sense of dread for what’s to come next. What about it makes you want to read on? I want to find out what is about to happen to Mrs. Baker’s soldier husband in Vietnam, as well as what Doug Swieteck has up his sleeve. I want to find out why Holling is so nervous. Why do you want to read on? (Take suggestions from students, and write them on a chart. This chart will be referred to later when we answer some of these questions.)
Note: If students seem that they do not want to read on, note that they can probably have more success if they select another book from the selection. Literature studies are rarely successful when students don’t enjoy the book.

My co-workers know me too well...

At a ceremony at work earlier today, co-workers donated this book to the school's library in my honor, mostly because it seemed like something I'd like. I think I showed my true colors a little too well this year. I am Emily Dickinson. Introspective. Intelligent. Lover of words. Composer of poems. Lifelong learner of poems. Alone. That's perfectly fine by me. I'm glad I'm so transparent.

Reading Teacher Interviews (continued...)

And to be quite honest, they probably will continue for all of the summer...

I interviewed with my current school district for the Middle School Reading Teacher position and was asked the following questions:

1. Tell us why you are a good candidate for this position.

2. Describe the characteristics of an effective Middle School Reading Teacher (Coach.)

3. How have you been able to raise achievement in your classroom, grade level, or school?

4. What kind of assessments would you use to guide reading instruction?

5. Explain the role of talk in comprehension.

6. What strategies would be important in getting adolescent struggling readers engaged in reading? How do you get adolescent, reluctant readers hooked on books?

7. How would you collaborate with content teachers to help them get struggling readers be successful with text in their classrooms?

8. Tell about a time you have worked effectively with a resistant staff member or colleague?

9. What would you expect to see in a building as evidence that the school was moving toward an anti-racist model of education?

Do you have any questions for us?

I passed the screening interview, by some grace of God. How would you answer the following questions?

Update: I had my first school interview at Northeast Middle School today. I think I did relatively well. I am aware there are tons of thousands of candidates for this position out there. It sounds like my dream teaching position. 15-20 students on the caseload, lots of support, and total freedom to explore the curriculum. Nothing but reading instruction. If I don't get the position, there will be plenty of others, I'm keeping my attitude positive at this point. There will be other positions. I just need to start proving to myself that I am worthy of one of them!

Teaching Reading vs. Brain Surgery

I have to post this. I'm in school to be a reading teacher, and while reading something for class tonight, I ran across an article in which the author was comparing herself to a brain surgeon. She's a clinical psychologist, so her research is rather scientific, but it got me thinking. I posted the following in my class's reading response journal, but I'd like to get my blogger buddies' feedback. What do you think?



I have said before that teaching is not like brain surgery, but I think I was thinking in terms of life or death. When I surgeon inserts a scalpel into my brain, s/he better be darn sure he knows what s/he knows what he is doing. I don’t want to end up paralyzed or worse. I never thought about educators being compared to brain surgeons, as the author in this case asserts, but I suppose in the long term a poor reading teacher can do much harm for a student’s self-esteem, job prospects, college prospects, and the like. In terms of quality of life, a bad reading teacher can have just about as large an effect as a bad brain surgeon. I never thought of this before, but am I pretty accurate here? Is this what the author wants us to think about? I agree if it is quality of life at stake. A quality reading program is essential, and by quality I mean one that fits the individual student, not a clinical trial of students and not a clinical trial of teachers.


Part II

With the knowledge that teaching reading is like brain surgery, I think I among others will be a heck of a lot more careful that I choose the program to fit the child instead of a clinical trial. The author of this article is a scientist, and while I respect that, I can’t say that science has a whole lot to bring to education. I know that our best practices happen when we use research, and you can implement a reading program based on what happened in a clinical trial. You can. Doesn’t mean you should take that as gospel and think about nothing else. Part of the reason why teachers have such a difficult job is the fact that they have to figure out what works for each individual student in their classroom. They have to figure out what makes that particular student tick. It might be the prescribed program. Perfect. It might be the prescribed program with additional reading material that matches the interests of the child. It might something totally different. A good teacher will pick up on what works for each individual student in the classroom and go from there. Clinical trials are a good place to start, but only to start. It’s good to look at research. It’s also good to know your students. Surgeons can say the same I suppose. Not knowing too much about the surgical field, I can say that before a surgeon operates, s/he better do an extensive work-up and pre-operative interview with me. S/he better know my pre-existing conditions and potential complications based on my health history. I’d expect nothing less from a reading teacher. Before prescribing a reading program for a child, I’m going to get to know what the child likes to read. I’m going to know reading level and grade level and strengths and weaknesses all around on that particular student. I’m going to know behaviors that trigger other behaviors in reading or other subjects. I’m going to know what time of day that child works best and who that child works with most effectively. That’s just good teaching. It sets teaching and learning up for success. I don’t need a clinical trial to tell me that, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.

Really cheesy poem

My classmates and I had to do something to synthesize the end of LANG 7802 and talk about reading strategies, so this is what we came up with. I thought I'd post it here for you dear readers to have a good laugh. If you say "what the hay?" that's fine too. It's pretty re-DONK-u-lous. Enjoy.

Twas the Night Before Wednesday

A Collaborative Effort for a LANG 7802 Final Project
by Cheryl, Cheryl, Kari, and Jennifer



Twas the night before Wednesday
And all through the school
Not a teacher was sleeping
They were all thinking about the 6 tools

The anchor charts were hung
In the classroom with care
In hope that their students
Would learn and be able to share

The students were nestled all snug in their desks
And were "MAKING CONNECTIONS" to a story that was being read
I started my lesson by modeling with a book
And I used many sticky notes and showed my students how they worked

"A connection" I said, “will help you better understand this story
So I'll jot down your thoughts and your personal experiences”
At the end of the story when we are all gleaming, I stated again
“Now you understand how connections help us construct meaning!"

More rapid than eagles their QUESTIONS did come
So I said, “This is great” and to the board did I run
“I WONDER,” I wrote in all capital letters
If you children can list all of your thought-provoking questions
“A question alone means you clearly understand
What you’re reading and how much you knew before hand.”

“Make sure you note too, the difference between THICK and THIN
For QUESTIONS do often have more than one spin”
I was excited because they were stopping to think
They realized their thinking could take more than one week
And then, in an instant, I heard it: the proof
“Dear Teacher, I WONDER, what do I DO with all this? Surely it can’t just go POOF.”

As I drew back my chalk to answer the student
I mentioned two more tools, visualizing and inferring
Let’s visualize, I said make a picture in your mind
To really make the author’s words come alive

Close your eyes and let’s think
How did the author describe that cold, snowy day?
Were the flakes heavy and wet, making mittens sopping wet?
Or were they fluffy and dry, all too eager to fly?

Were their feet stinging with cold?
Or sweating from the fun?
Were flakes pelting their cheeks?
Or were they freezing to their lashes?

Don’t forget about inferring
Let us read between the lines
We should make an equation
Add background knowledge and text clues to the nines.

Inferring is like predicting
And drawing conclusions
Why did the author write what he wrote?
“What was his purpose?” I wanted them to note.

My students were imagining
And examining the lines
And soon I knew I had nothing to dread
For images and inferences danced in their head.

I spoke not a word, as I walked into the room,
Melissa said it was important, I asked, “Important to whom?”
She said, “Well to me, it helped me discover
There’s more to the book than what’s on the cover!”

She sprang to her feet and ran to the wall chart
And said “It’s all about facts, questions, responses, now therein lies the art,”
To understand what the author intended to get into my head
I have to determine the importance in text, just like you said!”

The teachers sprang to their cars at the end of the day,
Making sure all the students were on the bus that day.
We heard them exclaim as the drove out of sight,
“Happy reading to all and to all a good night!”






My contribution was the 12 lines of questioning strategy. Pretty sweet.

And then Cheryl's husband chimed in with an unpublishable last verse that I thought was pretty funny as well:

I've done so much work
For this damn reading class
That by the time I walk out of here
You can kiss my sweet (you know what...fill in the blank)

What do you think?

More school

Since I'm on a roll with my assignments, I might as well post chapters 4-6 of that book you readers liked so much, right? Ha! I'm going to post it anyway. Chapters 7-9 are coming tomorrow. I don't work Fridays, so I'm going to spend all day cranking out the last three chapter summaries for this Saturday, my last day of class for LANG 7801 at Hamline University. In two weeks I'm up for LANG 7802: Literacy in Grades K-6 with a different professor. I'm looking forward to the change. I need to keep things fresh to avoid getting myself into another rut. Here you go:

Chapter 4: The Presence of the Past (Using Schema to Understand and Remember)

Summary

The authors begin to explain what schema is with a short introduction from Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. They take turns discussing how they personally responded to the passage and what it reminded them of in their own lives. They explain that schema is nothing more than capitalizing on the known before diving into two portraits of classroom teaching where the teachers focus on this strategy in their classrooms. One of the teachers they follow for an eight-week schema unit is Debbie Miller. The other is Kathy Powell. Both are primary grade teachers in the Denver area. Both use the “Gradual Release of Responsibility” model for their schema units. The schema strategy studies involve four phases in both classrooms: planning, early, middle, and late. These are explained in a useful table on page 76. Both teachers model thinking aloud as a way to tap into student’s prior knowledge frequently and believe that good literature is vital to teaching the strategy of thinking aloud. The authors include a useful table about how to choose a good think-aloud text on page 81. Finally, in true Keene and Zimmerman form, they list a summary of what proficient readers do in bullet point form as it relates to schema and using background knowledge to remember what is read.

Personal Response

Reading about Debbie Miller’s classroom in this chapter is absolutely inspiring! Hearing about good teaching practices while using excellent literature in the classroom to inspire young minds is what I aim to do as a reading teacher, so it’s always nice to read about someone doing just that. I got many good ideas from Miller as to using the language of schema strategy in the classroom whether it is writing it down on a chart or just addressing it orally to students. I know from previous educational experiences that Miller is a teacher that spends months establishing the culture of her classroom, and I think that is essential to solid reading teaching. She would not have been able to have those discussions without that structure in place. It seems daunting now to think about spending eight weeks on a schema unit in a classroom, but the results that Miller was able to achieve are incredibly rewarding. Also, Miller emphasized author schema as a strategy, bringing together books of similar authors for students to study so that when they read a book with that author, they will know how to go about thinking about their reading. I never realized how much what I know about a particular author influences my reading as well. I will definitely use these author studies in my practice as well.
Chapter 5: The Art of Discovery (Questioning)

Summary

This chapter begins with Susan Ludvigson’s poem “Inventing My Parents” and an immediately following reflection from the authors on the questions asked while reading the poem. The authors point out that questioning is really just a quest for more information and that it along with the other strategies in the book is essential to reading comprehension. The authors quote research that states children who struggle to read don’t consistently ask questions as they read. The chapter also follows the middle school classroom of Julie Melnyk as she uses Chris Van Allsburg’s The Wretched Stone to teach questioning while reading. The authors then follow a primary teacher as she leads her first-grade class in the practice of questioning while reading using reading and writing workshops. Both teachers use authentic literature and model thinking aloud to formulate questions before asking them to generate their own questions on their own books. Both teachers use the Gradual Release of Responsibility model for strategy instruction. Both teachers use reading and writing workshop as an essential part of their strategy instruction, and a crafting session plays a huge role in the writing workshop. Finally, the authors discuss the culture of the classroom and how to set expectations during an open reading and writing workshop, including crafting sessions, invitational groups, and reflection sessions.

Personal Response

The authors make a point that resonates with me deeply when they talk about people who never ask us questions about ourselves and how we take this personally. They say that these people are people that we don’t make friendships with because we feel like they don’t care. They turn to mere acquaintances. I’ve never thought of before. Questions are just so vital to human existence, when we don’t ask them, we feel that we are being neglected. Questions are things that I thought were natural, just not to children. Because questions are so natural in teaching, I think it has become too habitual and teachers (like myself) often forget to ask real and thought-provoking questions. I’m learning through my work with the AVID program that children have to be taught to create higher level thinking questions and they need explicit instruction on how to do this. I use cue words, words such as “hypothesize”, “compare and contrast”, and “analyze” just to name a few. I’m sure there are other ways to do this though. I also use a lot of the thinking aloud strategies with questioning that the middle school teacher in this chapter does with her students. I think questioning is one of my strengths when it comes to teaching strategies, just because it’s something I do so naturally. Where I fall short, however, is the talking about the strategy itself. The middle school teacher in the chapter says specifically, “I realize that when I ask these questions, they play a very specific role. They help me get grounded in the story. The questions pull me right into the story and make me want to find out more.” This is something I think to myself, but not something I have been saying out loud. I will change that from now forward in my personal and professional practice because I have learned from the reading that this is important for students to know so they don’t protest by saying things like, “why do we always have to ask so many questions?” (I’ve had students say this to me too.)

Chapter 6: Creating Meaning (Inference)

Summary

The authors begin with their usual piece of text and reflection based on the strategy focus, this time inferring. The authors state that “when we’re considering the most effective ways to teach inference, we must begin by scrutinizing how we infer. We need to be aware of our thinking, so we can be as explicit as possible when describing to children how we infer in lessons.” The authors also state how important it is to listen to an inner voice and trust that voice when making meaning from reading and how readers need to know that they aren’t “wrong” in their inferences if they are different from those of their classmates. The authors stress the importance of conferring in strategy instruction once again. A useful table that I know I will refer back to is that on page 160, telling me how to instruct careful book selections for students. The authors do their usual following of a two teachers during conferences with students, and are painfully careful to listen to both student and teacher during the conference.

Personal Response

I like the way the one of the authors describes inferring in this chapter. She states that “I trusted that listening to my inferences would help me understand. I didn’t always read this way. I have had to work hard to make myself a more aware reader, one who thinks about her thinking as she reads. I have moved from a passive to an active stance.” I like this series of statements because I think many students are similar, from what I’ve observed. Again, I think it is important to implicitly tell students that they are thinking about their thinking as they are reading, and this is not something that I thought about before reading this book. I do a lot of questioning when reading myself, I don’t trust myself or my inferences a lot of the time, so this strategy is one I’m going to have to work a little harder on if I’m going to teach it effectively.

Major Learnings

A major part of what I learned this week would be the fact that it is preferred for teachers to use the big words such as schema in front of their students, even as low as second grade. It seems to be that when students know what you are teaching and have a firm grasp on why they need to know what they need to know, they are more active in their learning. I don’t think I would have thought to use the word “schema” when addressing a group of seven-year-olds, but after reading this I just might. One of the teachers in the case studies uses the phrase “your very important job when I’m reading” and I will use this in my practice because I know believe it is important for students to know what the goal is before reading.

Classroom Connections

A lot of what I read about this week with teaching reading strategies also holds true with just plain good teaching strategies. Know your students and what they know so that you can activate the right schema for the book or lesson you are teaching. Listen to your students and their responses when you are reading so that you know how to correct thinking and redirect conversation as needed. Come prepared to the classroom goes without saying. The most powerful classroom connection however comes with the thought that reading is synonymous with thinking and doing. There needs to be a system in place in a classroom so that students know that the culture of that classroom is a thinking culture. Students and teachers alike need to be held accountable for their thoughts and this takes time to build this classroom culture. This is what I will strive for in my future classroom and all other educational experiences that I come to before my own classroom. There is no one way that does this. There are strategies that the authors suggest and I will use thinking aloud and model taking notes with the best of them.

One of my assignments

In case any of my readers was interested in what I am devoting my life to so diligently over the next year and a half. I thought I would post a sample of the work I am turning in to my graduate program for an additional license in K-12 Reading.

Enjoy!

Additional chapters to come later

Part I: Written Analysis of Professional Book Chapters 1-3
October 21, 2008

Keene, Ellin Oliver and Susan Zimmerman. (2007). Mosaic of Thought: The Power of Comprehension Strategy Instruction, Second Edition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Purpose

After reading Hutchins and Zimmerman’s 7 Keys to Comprehension: How to Help Your Kids Read It and Get It! and working with fifth graders on reading comprehension in the past year, I realize I need to become more skilled at teaching comprehension strategies. I want this book to become the first of many in helping me build a “comprehension curriculum” for teaching reading. This book seemed like the perfect anecdote to help do exactly that.

Chapter 1 Summary

In “Creating A New Mosaic,” the authors challenge teachers to think differently at how reading comprehension is taught, creating the image of reading comprehension as a mosaic. Each piece of information gathered from reading is a tile that adds to the mosaic of information in a student’s mind. With each discussion, a student will piece together a different meaning from the text. The authors introduce themselves as authors of the first edition and tell us how they became interested in the area of comprehension strategy instruction, explaining how too many teachers become reliant on book lists and word memorization, creating a culture of fluent readers but readers that can’t understand what they’ve just read. The authors list the teachers they worked with in their research, and inspire practicing teachers to go beyond traditional methods of teaching reading to inspire future generations of students to read, re-read, invent, explore, question, and imagine while they are reading. A think-aloud while reading-aloud strategy in a fifth-grade classroom is modeled. Because this is the introductory chapter, the most informative content comes from Figure 1.1 on page 14 detailing the seven meta-cognitive strategies that will later be explained throughout the book: Monitoring, schema, questioning, determining importance, inferring, using sensory and emotional images, and synthesizing.

Personal Response

I very much agreed with the idea that reading is an action sport because all the action takes place in your mind. I think it is important that students be taught to think about thinking that takes place while reading. I also liked the connection that looking is synonymous with reading, as the authors introduced with the poems at the beginning of the chapter. I have books that I read and re-read and gain something from each reading. The authors make a valid point with the idea of a “gradual release of responsibility from teacher to student.” I know this is what I struggle most with when teaching reading to older elementary students. The idea that you give them a book and expect something to catch on doesn’t work all the time. I agree with the statement: “It’s not enough to put books in the hands of children and check in once in a while.” Although time spent reading is crucial to learning to comprehend, it doesn’t mean that the strategies involved in comprehension are always second nature to those students. I have also taught students who do nothing but imitate my thinking when they were not confident with their own thoughts about the book we were discussing.



Chapter 2 Summary

“Changing Times” begins by differentiating comprehension instruction from comprehension assessment. The authors define comprehension instruction as instruction that actively engages students in asking questions, summarizing and synthesizing text, and identifying important ideas. The authors then go a step further to define proficient reading as reading that involves using more than one strategy at a time. They state that children should move effortlessly from one strategy to the next without prompting if they are a proficient reader. The second half of the chapter engages readers in a question and answer session about comprehension strategy instruction. Key questions include: “Why do we need to teach comprehension strategies,” “is there an order to how they are taught,” and “what is the best reader’s workshop structure?” The authors make a distinction between strategy instruction at the primary and intermediate levels. They say that primary students should be taught monitoring, using background knowledge, questioning, creating mental images, inferring, determining importance, and synthesizing while intermediate students should be taught that but in a different order. Intermediate students should learn monitoring, using background knowledge, inferring, determining importance, synthesizing, questioning, and creating mental images. Finally, the authors state the reader’s workshop that best supports comprehension instruction has three components: large group meeting time with a think aloud, a long period of time for independent reading where the teacher moves around to conference individually, the formation of needs-based groups to address specific learning needs, and a time for reflection with other students.

Personal Response

This chapter explained strategy instruction so that it was better for me to understand than the first chapter. I’m looking forward to reading further because I still feel like this is rather introductory material. The distinction between primary and intermediate elementary grades is informative because that distinction is based around what students are exposed to during high-stakes standardized testing. The question about whether or not students should be exposed to strategies one at a time or in an integrated fashion is also interesting. I work as a member of an AVID program being piloted at four different sites in grades 6-8. (AVID is a program for grades 6-12 that teaches reading strategies, study skills, and organizational habits needed for success in college.) I work along side teachers with different philosophies in this matter. At one site, I am seeing teaching of just one strategy at a time. This week it was questioning. At another site, the teacher believes that all of these should come together at some point and hands his students a passage to read with little instruction of what to do while reading. From my observations as a tutor, I noticed that the students given the one-at-time strategy instruction grasped it faster and were able to understand the reading better that the students that were not given reminders of strategies. Of course there are other factors involved and I am in no way saying one method is superior to another. I’m simply connecting what I read this week to a classroom experience, and it will certainly be interesting to follow these classes over the course of the year with the knowledge gleamed from this chapter (and in this course and program).

Chapter 3 Summary

“Mindful Reading” was about monitoring and revising comprehension. It began with an essay full of pitfalls for comprehension and one of the authors reflects on her reading process of the essay with a particular emphasis on her monitoring for meaning. She models how she does this by writing what she’s thinking as she reads. It is explained in this chapter that monitoring is the umbrella under which the other comprehension strategies fall and that each of the strategies can be considered a type of monitoring. The chapter then allows the reader to visit the classrooms of two teachers, a high school teacher and a second grade teacher. The chapter details what kinds of instruction these two teachers give to their students about monitoring for meaning while reading, everything from what they say to what they don’t say and let their students figure out on their own while reading. The second grade teacher gives an example of a conference she has with one of her students. Finally, the chapter ended with a summary of what proficient readers do, in bullet point format.

Personal Response

The key statement for me in this chapter was one that came after the example high-school lesson: “If we can understand the more subtle features of the reading obstacles themselves, the solutions we teach will be more effective and tailored.” This is something that is incredibly difficult to do. The chapter pointed out for me, that teaching reading is more about listening to students than it is about teaching vocabulary or phonics. The teachers that were observed were careful with their approach, and did not correct their students when reading aloud unless it conflicted with that individual student’s meaning of the word. I can only hope that this will be me in the coming months or years. I can only hope that my teaching brings me to situations where I’m able to conference one-on-one with students and really hone in on their level, skills, and interests. The teacher in this chapter “gave her students a glimpse into the vast array of ways they can repair and revise their comprehension once it has broken down” and “gave them tactics to revise and repair comprehension to more useful situations.” This is precisely the way I already approach tutoring reading, so I hope that I continue to grow as a reading teacher with every student I tutor and every piece that I give my students to read.

Major Learnings

I think that the connection made most frequently while reading was that to teach reading I have to be a careful reader myself. I have to be aware that I am employing those skills while reading so that I can model them in a think aloud for my students. This is something that takes practice! I don’t always dive into a newspaper article and say “Ok, what is my purpose for reading this today?” I don’t always pick up the book I read before bed and say, “Let me think about why the author wrote this or what this word means.” Maybe I will from now on. Maybe I should.

Classroom Connections:

Seeing as how I work with a program that teaches reading strategies, I will definitely use the monitoring strategies I learned about this week while reading in my everyday practice. Lately when I sit down with a student my first question is “What are you having difficulty understanding about the article?” I have found this is often too broad of a question and leads to much more frustration than it is worth. The third chapter has given me more examples of things I can say to a student during a conference than just that. I will definitely use more modeling in my teaching practice, such as the modeling that the high school teacher did in the third chapter. I liked “I’ll give it one more sentence,. Often when I’m really overwhelmed, I find that if I just read one or two more sentences, things start to become clearer.” I liked that this is said out loud because I would ordinarily think that but not say it.