Chapter 9

The beginning of this chapter described my childhood: new words on monday, memorize during the week, fail test, forget the few definitions I even remembered. The suggestions given were very logical things I think every generation of teachers may think as they go into the field and then forget. During the first suggestion, it seemed completely ludicrous to me to think these teachers didn't realize how overwhelming and unnecessary the words they were giving were and that they didn't notice they honestly didn't think the students would use them. They knew it was about teaching to a test, but seemed to ignore it. Maybe our generation of incoming teachers is the first to realize this, but I doubt it. There seems to be such a ridiculous disconnect between being a teacher and being a student and teachers don't take into account what it's like to be the student.

Chapter 8

Chapters 6, 7, and 8 have followed in perfect sequential order: pre, during, and post-reading. Chapter 8 continues Beers' wonderful use of real life examples and useful strategies to actually help students after they've read. She starts with talking about scales. The best part of this strategy, to me, is that you can't be wrong if you have a rationale. It will show if the prior strategies paid off to see if the students are understanding the text. Then she gets to a strategy to help summarize that goes "somebody" -> "wanted" -> "But" -> "So" -> "Then."

(Thursday, October 14th edit: hahaha! we used this in class today, professor. I see you've read the textbook. =P)

She then spends time on Retelling, Text Reformulation, It Says-I Say, and a bunch more wonderful things. The set up of the book is becoming easily recognizable; which, while nice, makes it hard to talk about, because I feel I'm just regurtitating to you "hey, this is what she talked about and it's cool." As an INLA major, of course it's cool! I want to do this for the rest of my life

Chapter 7

The very first paragraph shows there is something very, very, VERY wrong with reading classes right now. The fact a student could simply think "They just read it. and then they answer all the questions. That's what makes them good readers, because they can answer the questions." School and life are about KNOWLEDGE, not a test. And the title of that beginning section is one of the truest statements I've heard: "You mean you Make It Make Sense?" Yes. Yes you do. Meaning is not implicit in language. We create it. That's a basic philosophical concept of language. Words are arbitrary, and we shape them to our societal meanings. When you read a piece, you take what is presented and create your own world out of it.

The strategies presented are great ways to make sure students are actually comprehending and thinking critically on their own. Not just answering the questions. Nothing is more aggravating than knowing students seriously think that school is just about answering questions. That is not knowledge.

Chapter 5

Sometimes, the best part of this book is realizing how difficult something that comes so naturally is. An inference is the next critical step in thought, but it can definitely be really difficult for kids. The visualization on page 64 really showed how complex making an inference actually is. The classroom examples she gave easily showed the difference between answer that a student who is getting a lower grade gives versus a higher grade student. I think the biggest thing I learned was that inferences ARE a difficult thinking process that not everyone grasps.

Also, the use of cartoons and bumper stickers was great. It's relatable, and funny. It forces the student to understand the "why" of a natural reaction (laughing), which is important. A lot of people will react to things in life, and not understand that very vital "why" of the event, and this helps them have that critical thinking and become better at inferring.

Chapter 6

As most of us in this class are future English teachers, we are also natural readers. With this comes our desire to predict what is going to happen next in a novel, or really any life situation. We are natural "front loaders." We are future thinkers because we want to know what happens next. Chapter 6 focused on this. From engaging students before they even read the text, to continuing to anticipate the next move, it's all about teaching kids to think in advance and hypothesize the next move. What i think it awesome about this idea is that it's not only applicable to reading, but is a valuable life skill that can easily be taught through reading.

Chapter 4

Scripted Instruction. What a terrible idea. Reading about this almost infuriated me. The concept basically states to memorize a set of instruction and to regurgitate it to your students and they will understand and to just push on. Last time I checked, education had to deal with human beings- not robots. With a human being, emotions and difference in intelligence levels come into play and the ability to comprehend comes in different forms. There is not 1 right way to teach all people in one classroom, so to theoretically "script" your classroom is as bad as having all of education become standardized. The personalization and one on one attention needed just isn't there in a classroom like that and it completely ignores all classroom management and varied teaching approaches understanding that students are all at different levels and come from different backgrounds. There is never a reason to treat a classroom like a theater and just ramble off some memorized words for the students to memorize themselves and then call it a day. That is not knowledge in the least bit.

Chapter 3

I've always been told there is a who, what, where, when, why, and how to every situation. Chapter 3 is the WHY [students can't read] and the HOW [we can help them]. The author once again used George as an example, and also talked about another student, Amy, who really hates reading and finds no interest in it. The format of the chapter was nice and started with the problems, and then gave a nice chart on ways to assess them on page 27. Using all this information we can then decide which type of assessment is best for our students.

Chapter 2

The biggest point I got from Chapter 2 was that students who can't read aren't always in the stereotype. They don't always look disenchanted and not paying attention or seem to have wandering eyes during class. Sometimes you have to think about the fact that the student who is paying the most attention, with the widest eyes and seems genuinely intrigued that may not even be able to understand the material he or she is supposed to be reading. It then talked about turning dependent readers into independent readers, which is a very valid point. A lot of students will just go look at Sparknotes for the answers, but if we can get students to actually read and comprehend for themselves, let alone ENJOY it, their reading abilities will get better from it.

Chapter 1

This chapter was the perfect way to open the textbook. Not only did the author reassure the reader of "Hey, I'm afraid of writing this textbook because I don't want it to be boring" and began to talk about the very fundamental premise of teaching reader: the ones who have trouble. She uses a student named George as her example who really struggled with reading. She used George to illustrate that there are several different reasons why a student may not be able to read and easily intertwined the "meat" of the text into her example. To me, this made it an easy read and I expect it to continue to be one. It wasn't difficult to comprehend the points she was trying to make and she wasn't using overly 'scholarly' language to try to teach us something. By bringing it down to a realistic level, it showed her care for making sure we knew what we needed to and how to apply it.

Saying Hello

This is my blog for Teaching Reading with Literature for the Fall of 2010 at Kent State University.