Final Reflection

I really enjoyed this class, although I think the class time is to long most of the time. This class, along with Principles of Teaching, were my two favorite classes this semester, which is a relief because I usually find my education classes are a bit of a waste of time. I love that Dr. Pytash read aloud in almost every class and I'll definitely have to read at least some of those novels. I liked being introduced to different reading strategies and will definitely use at least some of them in my future classrooms. I can't wait until I can help students find books that they enjoy and seeing their faces light up when they get involved in a story because I feel like then I'll be a successful teacher.

Chapter 14: Finding the Right Book

This chapter had a lot of information in it about helping students finding books they like to read. Beers gives tips about finding great fiction and non-fiction books. She again stresses that students learn about reading by doing it, not just learning about it, which is why having SSR or going to the school library is so important. I really liked her suggestions of having a "good books" box and found it really interesting. That seems like a great to figure out what types of books reluctant readers enjoy, as seen in the example with the girl who always choose mysteries. I really enjoyed this chapter and loved George's little crack at the end.

Chapter 13: Creating the Confidence to Respond

This chapter is about increasing student confidence so that they are willing to learn. While we may admit that a text is hard, we shouldn't say to our students that it's so hard we'll skip it. I think that we should be realistic about our texts and tell our students something along the lines "Yes, this text is pretty hard. But if we work together, I'm sure we'll be able to handle it." Something that tells the student, yes, this text is hard but it's not unattainable. Also, another important section was about making sure the students know they belong. The teacher and the students should know each others' names because this help creates a sense of familiarity. As Beers points out, it's easier to critique negatively the unnamed student, but when we know that kid's name is Joe, then we are more likely to realize that this student is a person as well and deserves respect. Beers also stresses the importance of connecting students with the right book. While a student may have a positive attitude toward reading but don't seem to read a lot, they may simply have not found a book that interests them.

Chapter 10: Fluency and Automaticity

This chapter mostly concerns itself with, as the title suggests, fluency and automaticity. Automaticity, in this situation, is when students can recognize a majority of words with little or no problems. They have seen the word so often, they see it as a whole and not in separate units, as seen in the example of /window/. Fluency comes out of automaticity and is when a reader is able to read the text smoothly and at a good pace with good phrasing and expression (i.e., not in a monotone with tons of pauses). This ability develops as students begin to recognize more and more words and don't have to spend time sounding out the word. Beers also discusses how to measure fluency, such as oral reading rates which is not always useful, simply because there are so many different factors that can affect the student's reading, such as the content. Obviously, since the content is new and may be more difficult, most people will not be able to read it as fluidly as something they have read before. There is also the silent reading rate, similar to that "test" we took in class where we read a passage, counted the number of words we read in a given time, and then recalled information from this passage.

Chapter 9: Vocabulary

Vocabulary is so important to learn and teach but it can be such a pain for both teacher and student. Most teachers rely on simply giving lists of words and definitions to student for them to memorize and this is most likely the worse way to do it. Instead, we should encourage students to learn vocab by introducing different ways. This chapter discusses a few different strategies or tips for teaching vocab, such as word tree, Words Across Contexts, or even how to use context clues (something we've all learned about) in a different way

I liked the Words Across Contexts strategy the best and feel like it could also be used for homophones. I think this is also something that could really make a student interested in learning vocab because if they are coming up with their own examples, then they will most likely remember the word better.

Chapter 8: Extending Meaning

One of the strategies I really liked in this chapter was retelling. I never thought about it before, but it would be easier for some students to understand a text if it is in a different form. I guess this is what I do when I'm faced with a difficult poem that I know I will have to be able to discuss. Usually, the first time I'm reading that poem, I get so involved in how the line breaks effect the poem that I miss the point. So I start over and read the poem as if I'm reading prose to get the overall meaning first. And then I go back and look at line breaks or capitalization, or whatever. I also liked the strategy "Most Important Word." This was sort of like what we did in class where we picked one word to describe our book and then connected that word to images and themes.

Overall, this chapter was about how to help student keep thinking about the text, even when they are done reading it. The chapter gave a few different strategies, such as retelling, Most Important Word, and repeated a few from previous chapters.

Chapter 7: Constructing Meaning

Again, this chapter is about how independent readers actively construct meaning from a text while dependent readers don't. In order to help dependent students learn how to do this, the book introduces many reading strategies. Some of the strategies are common ones that pretty much everyone knows: rereading, questioning the text, etc. A few many people have probably done but didn't know the name of the strategy, such as "Say Something" or "Think Aloud." I hadn't actually heard of "Say Something" before, but after reading the description, I've realized that use this strategy a lot, especially when I get lost in a text.

As with other strategies discussed either in the book or in class, we need to model often how to use these strategies and how to use them effectively. If you tell a student to reread, he or she may do it. However, if the teacher doesn't explain why to reread or give a prompt such as Mr. Bell does in the example, then the student is most likely just wasting time by moving their eyes back and forth.

I also agree with the book on the idea that some of the texts we read in school should be reread in a later grade. As we grow and mature, we start to view the world differently and this can also change how we read the book. We're doing something similar in my English Studies class. My professor had us chose one text to use for the entire semester, forcing us to read the text through different criticisms and with each new paper I write, I find something I didn't notice before. Or I think about a character differently. I definitely think that rereading is one of the most important strategies because it can be so effective...if you use it correctly.

Chapter 5: Learning to Make an Inference

The title of this chapter pretty much sums up what the chapter is about: making inferences and how we can help our students learn how to do this. I guess on some level I knew that inferring was something we had learned at some point in our educational lives, but I never thought about it like that. To me it was something that I just happened to pick up and kept doing, so this chapter helped me really realize that some student can't do this.

The example in the book really illustrated this. The one class who didn't struggle with comprehension made plenty of inferences that came directly from the text. However, the other students who do struggle with comprehension weren't able to make inferences about the text as quickly and when they did get around to it, they modified their answers with phrases like "I don't know" or "this is stupid." It almost seemed to me like the second group of students probably could have made the inferences but they were afraid of being wrong.

This says to me that not only do we need to show student how to make inference by modeling the process for them, but to also show our students that whatever inference they do make might not be wrong, so long as they can support what they are saying with examples from the text.

Chapter 6: Frontloading Meaning: Pre-Reading Strategies

As teachers, we have to introduce new texts to our students all the time and not every student is going to be excited for every new piece. If fact, we would be lucky to have even a couple of students eager to start something brand new. However, if we can pique their interest before actually starting the text, perhaps we can get more students eager to read for fun and not just because it's assigned.

One thing we can do is build anticipation. Independent readers already do this, but we need to encourage dependent readers to do this as well. Looking at an interesting title or summary always makes me more eager to read than a book that looks boring. I've never done an anticipation guide like the book talks about, but I did have a high school teacher who would do something similar in our class. While it wasn't about the literature, he would ask us difficult questions similar to the ones in the book where there wasn't one answer. We had to examine our beliefs in order to answer the question. While I liked what he did, I think I would also use the anticipation guides because it seems like an interesting idea. We can also do KWL charts, which I don't personally like but do work.

Chapter 4: Explicit Instruction in Comprehension

Chapter 4 continues the theme of making independent readers out of dependent readers, although this chapter focuses on improving comprehension levels in order to do that. Instead of just telling our students what they should be doing, we need to model what they should be doing. While we're reading aloud, we should predict what is going to happen, summarizing, comparing and contrasting, and etc. We should be doing all the things we want our students to do, but we can't just tell them this. We have to show them how to do this by doing it ourselves and explaining what we are doing.

I think teaching comprehension skills is important and should be something we do. In the long run, if our students have a strong comprehension skills, teaching them the content will be that much easier. While it would be harder for us to do both, in order to best serve our students, we have to be able to teach both.

Chapter 3: Assessing Dependent Readers' Needs

In order to help a dependent reader, we first need to be able to figure out what the student is having problems with. Is it problems with recognizing words, figuring out what an unknown word means? Is the student slow at reading or does he or she have problems keeping the order of events in order? There are of course many more problems a dependent reader may have, but once we recognize what those problems, whether it's one or many, we can then figure out how to go about helping the student. We can help students recognize sight words more easily, give them flow charts to fill out while they're reading, how to think aloud while reading to figure out what is going on, and etc.

Going back to Chapter 2, we can also teach these struggling readers what good readers do: rereading, using prior knowledge, questions the author's purpose and point of view, and etc. I really liked how Kylene Beers points out that reading is an active process because it is. If you just read the text without thinking about it, then the words are just there. It's only when you pay attention that meaning is found within the text and this is what good readers do. This is what struggling readers need to learn in order to become independent readers.

Chapter 2: Creating Independent Readers

Simply put, I think this chapter could be summed up with "read between the lines." As teachers, we have to listen to our students. We have to listen to not only what they're saying, but what they're not vocalizing. Many people struggle with asking for help, often because of a previous attempt for help was denied or weren't really help. Because of this a student may not come to us and say "I can't read this word," or similar phrases. We have to use our knowledge to figure out what the student needs help with and how to get them that help.

I feel like the other important part in this chapter was the section on changing dependent readers into independent readers. We may dream of having perfect readers every year in our classes, but this, obviously, won't be the case. And even our best student may struggle with a certain text because it's not what they are used to. Being able to pass on reading strategies to all students, but most especially the struggling readers, will help out students immensely and will make us good teachers. Although rereading is a valid strategy and works for many students, we should also be able to teach students cognitive skills, how to approach a text positively, and help our students find books that they will enjoy.