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.

checking how this works

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