Chapter 9 post

I have always liked learning new words, and I believe that many students across the achievement spectrum enjoy vocabulary acquisition. When I went through school I remember this one teacher I had that made us write a word 20 times, then the definition 20 times, then 20 different sentences with the vocabulary word in it. Back then I though t that the teacher was doing this because she hated us, later I realized that repetition is the key to memorization. I would never use repetition to solely teach vocabulary though, I would prefer to let my students choose their vocabulary word from the text, but that is assuming that all students do their reading (a lot don't). I liked the idea study words, don't memorize, because a student can memorize the words and the definition for a week, then forget everything once the test is over, that is why I remember the vocabulary words that I use, not the ones I memorized to get good grades.Teaching word parts and different suffixes is important too, when a student knows the Latin meaning of certain parts of words they are on their way to mastering the English language. Today I went to my students study hall for field experience, we studied math, then finished by preparing for his upcoming vocabulary test. WE had fun studying for vocabulary, and I take credit for this, I made it fun by explaining how mastering the English language will allow for him to shock people with his repertoire of words, but I also made explaining every different word fun for him. I used all of the words in funny contexts, and gave his suggestions for how to use the vocab words in class to impress. To my surprise my student actually got interested in using these new words for his advantage, that made my day that he got excited about something I was teaching him.

Chapter 8 post

The idea of post reading strategies is unique to education because of the wide spectrum of what people will take from a text with them for the rest of their life. I like the idea of scales because of how it gets the student to feel associated or involved with the text. When a student places their opinion on the scale they are joining a team of people that feel the same way they do; this is a great way of covertly teaching students to stand up for what they believe in. I also think it is very benfical that they grade the student on how well they defend their argument, this will force students to learn the art of the spoken word. I personally think that debate skills should be stressed more in language arts classroom, because it is one's ability to make their point, convince and orate that lends to one's success. Also, I think it would be great if students were advanced enough to at the end of the book figure out the scales on their own, to show that they understand the different perspectives that people might have about the book, and the underlying questions the text begs. Somebody Wanted But So Seems like it would definitely teach the gist of a story but would go no deeper than the surface level. I think the It Says I say exercise would be great for getting students to think critically about characters motivations and help them make inferences about the text. My own feeling is that after a text is taught the teacher should give the student reasons to remember the text and inspire the students to look for the morals and situations from the text.

Chapter 7 post

This chapter was very interesting to me because I at field experience I see teachers using a couple of these different during reading strategies.The chapter starts off talking about kids who 'just don't get it' and then talks about a teachers who tells the troubled student to be more like the students who are good readers. I think it would have been to show the troubled reader a good response to a given question to give them some ground work for what is expected, but to have the two smart kids lecture the bad reader would not have good results for the troubled student. It would leave the bad reader felling like he is less than his or her classmates and could lead to the smart kids developing an inflated ego. I know that the say something approach doesn't work, today at field experience a teacher had the students get in groups to read and discuss, they didn't even read, they talked girls and sports, I got my student on track though, and explained to him not to distracted by idle chit chat and shooting the shit, but to rather keep his eyes on the prize, and how an education is the key to success. He bought it. The telling students to go talk about a reading in small groups is putting too much responsibility on the student to think critically in many different ways about a text. The teacher should lead or at least start and guide the discussion to ensure that students are gaining valuable experiences. I think the rereading technique is very valuable to students, I had to learn this for Shakespeare and coming to college level classes. But the rereading depends a lot on whether a student is a dependent reader, I will always try to teach my students first off to become independent readers.

Chapter 5 post

Chapter five gave me some great ideas about how to get students to realize that they are making inferences and how important inferencing is to comprehending a text. Since people make inferences all the time in everyday life they probably aren't aware of their inferencing when reading. In the case of young people, they need us to fine tune their inferencing and help those along who cant make the connections. In life the ability to realize what motivates people, and understanding peoples actions around one makes one more likely to succeed. As a teacher I will explain to my students how being able to inference a text is like being able to read people, in a social manner, this should get all students immediate attention. I liked the list of what and how skilled readers make inferences, I wouldn't put this list on my classroom wall and say "be like this", but I would keep it as signs to look for and behaviors to encourage. I suspect that pages 69 through 71 are teaching gold. Particularly, I remember teachers doing #2 when I was younger, that is read very intriguing passages from a book and have the class discuss what they thought was going on in the passage, then reveal the answer. But my favorite was the 5 minute mysteries, the teacher would read it aloud and the whole class would try to figure it out, every one got involved, even the bad kids. I was enlightened by # 4, when for the first time I realized that while I read ahead of the book I was teaching, I should use what I was reading currently to create some discussions that would correspond throughout a text, so that my teaching of the text had a clearer focus and 'came together' at the end.

Chapter 6 post

Out of the five different pre-reading strategies that chapter six covered I believe that using anticipation guides and that idea of getting students to really think hard about the issues and themes of a certain book before you even let them know they are going to be reading that certain book is the best way to mentally prepare and motivate students before they read a text. I don’t know if high school students would go as far as to physically make an anticipation guide, but covering the concept of an anticipation guide in a class discussion among mature students getting ready for college seems like a better way to make that student want to read the text. I also liked the plain old idea of activating prior knowledge, when I was reading the different strategies for activating prior knowledge I remembered how I was taught by language arts teachers this way. I did not like the idea of a K-W-L chart, first of going over what students have already learned seems redundant, and when a teacher asks a student what they want to learn that’s like putting the student behind the driver wheel, a teenage student is in need of guidance, the teacher should have clear sub objective and main objectives before they go into the classroom, when ever a teacher asked me what I want to learn from this book I would usually not care, the only valid part of the K-W-L chart is asking the student what they learned. Probable passages are a great tool for young students; it really puts the whole story in perspective and was quite helpful for me personally as a young student. If a teacher tried pulling a tea party in one of my classes in highs school we would have not talked about the text at all, we would have goofed off, the idea sounds very unappealing to me, you don’t give the student enough info at the beginning and then say go talk to other students who are just a s confused as you about some broad topic.

Chapter 4 post

This chapter had some good ideas that I hope to use one day when I become a teacher (God willing). The note at the beginning of the chapter to George illustrates a common action that I saw in the public schools, how teachers would sometime explain the answer to a question, but not how one could mentally go about figuring out the answer on their own. Also, the list of strategies for teachers to use to teach comprehension made a lot of sense to me, particularly comparing and contrasting, connecting to prior experiences, questioning the text, and recognizing the author’s purpose. When I read the Direct Instruction vs. Scripted Instruction part I was originally drawn to say that I would never use scripted instruction and that spontaneous teachable moments were better, but after I reflected on it I came to my senses and remembered that the ‘truth is always in the middle’ and that as smart as I think I am, I can and should always learn from others. As for near the of the chapter when they start talking about how as a teacher one might have to sacrifice teaching their content to teach reading and comprehension, but my thought was that the first duty of a English teacher is to make sure their students can read written words and comprehend the work of those before us.

Chapter 3 post

The most important concept in this chapter (to me, at least) is glossed over quickly on page 29, the idea that students need social and emotional confidence to be great readers and writers is an altruism in my life. I personally didn’t start comprehending literature until a teacher gave me confidence. My academic confidence has fluctuated over the years, and it seems that the more confident of a student I am the more I ‘get’ the material and the better I perform. Also the idea at the very beginning of the chapter is a worthwhile interaction to explore, it shouldn’t just be flattery or being kind when teachers are telling a student that they’re doing something well, they should be giving very specific complements that show the student what they are good at. When someone points out my flaws I usually try to fix my flaw, but when someone points out something I do well I excel at that task, and when a teacher gives a student a specific complement about something they do well that teacher is giving the student a fuel to perceiver through a tough text or get through any challenging academic task. The Instructional Plan for George was an amazing teaching tool that the author or someone created for a struggling reader and his parents, when I saw that table/chart I thought to myself “this is what teachers are for”, it perfectly points out what George can’t do and how the teacher and parents would jointly try to help him, this teaching tool is so strong because it acknowledged that learning isn’t solely dependent on the teacher and what happens in school, that in fact good students start at home and with their parents.

Chapter 2 post

Chapter 2 was a very realistic and honest assessment of how students view the act of reading. The act of physically being able to read or sound words out versus being able to comprehend texts are two very different things that yield very different results. I spent my whole life up until my senior year of high school only physically reading the words in books; it wasn’t until we read Of Mice and Men that I truly started comprehending the words of a text. That was the beginning of my transformation from a dependent reader to an independent reader, and it took nearly 18 years, I had had hundreds of books put in front of me before, and I struggled through them reading the words at face value and not comprehending. The idea in the book that once students can read, they will want to read is idealistic and not reality, you have to give students a reason beyond their grade for wanting to read, you need to show students that knowledge is power. As for George and his not getting it, I don’t think that a teacher who responds to student’s questions with another question is really doing their job, I understand getting a student to look into their own issues and making them self-reliant learners, but the teacher might have to spend some extra time with George or get him a reading tutor, but don’t just keep giving him questions when he’s struggling.

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