Article & Chapter 10 Reading

“Focus on the Essentials of Reading Instruction”

By Alan M. Frager and Elizabeth A. Frye

            I found that the article was a nice condensed version of a lot of main topics that we have discussed throughout the semester thus far.

I enjoyed the emphasis on finding meaning in the text, oppose to learning the text. In my own experience, I would entirely agree that while I read, I make my own connections, oppose to when someone simply tells me what the book says. Thus, I believe that the practice of silent reading at ones’ own pace, and bring able to go back, and re read when necessary, is ideal.

Oppose to the contrary of Round Robin Reading. This article was spot on with its’ account of RRR. I was always trying to calculate what I would be reading, and I would get nervous anticipating my turn to read. It is definitely not an ideal way to find meaning from text.

Activating prior knowledge is also crucial prior to diving into text. Having a purpose and knowing what one is looking for will give much more meaning to the reading assignment. I may not have realized the importance of establishing purpose, going through vocabulary, or providing a motivating activity, prior to reading. However, I really do believe this could make a significant difference.

Then article states that good teachers release the responsibility onto their students gradually. Last summer, at my teaching internship for Breakthrough Saint Paul, this was heavily stressed. There was quick review of day before, instruction with “say, see, do” cycles every five minutes, structured practice, guided practice, and then independent practice at home. This structure was wonderful at keeping the students involved and allowing me to constantly assess comprehension.

Lastly, and what I find most challenging, the article states that the best teachers are able to anticipate questions and various reader responses of their students. As I am just beginning to teach, I find this difficult. I can anticipate certain common mistakes, but I am always surprised on what I didn’t forecast happening!

Chapter 10 Reading: Studying Text

This chapter begins by placing emphasis on how the structure supports comprehension and what is retained. The interrelationship between the headers, graphs, charts, pictures, and so on, add to the student’s reading experience. Prior to this reading, I would’ve simply thought to encourage students to utilize all parts of the structure in ones’ reading, and to not overlook the importance of reading the headers and analyzing the figures. However, I was intrigued by the example of the History Teacher’s explicit strategy to approaching the reading. When I was pondering how I could scaffold and demonstrate reading for my students, I was unsure how to break it down to be most beneficial. I was unsure what “teaching students to read text” would really look like. This example set forth was extremely helpful! The High School Civics and Economics Teacher, David, has his students go through and read and write down all the headers in the chapter they’re about to read. This becomes the outline of their notes, and then allows the students to absorb what the topics of this reading will be. Then, the students are to read all the bolded words in the section, and find the unfamiliar words in the glossary. This is extremely beneficial for students to dive into a reading with the meanings of the terms in their minds. This will allow students to grasp fuller understandings and they’re reading the text and not necessarily trying to learn new vocabulary while learning the lesson that the textbook is setting forth. David also emphasizes the importance of using the visual clues to also aid in comprehension. His process for reading also involves reviewing notes with a partner in order to check for understanding and discuss toward deeper understanding. All of these are wonderful ideas, and also gave a nice picture of what this type of analysis can look like in ones’ classroom.

I have always been into writing beautiful notes and highlighting them. I actually enjoy writing notes and making them visually attractive. Thus, I often forget that figuring out structure and organization for note taking is not an instinctual task for everyone. This chapter provided an abundance of information of how one can organize information, or structure ones notes. They present the idea of graphic organizers as a study strategy that can help dissect important parts of texts and identify their relation. There is the classic outline structure, which I learned in middle school, involving roman numerals, capital letters, numbers, and then lower case numbers. This is rather standard, but the text also provides examples such as a Venn diagram, comparison-and-contrast matrix (target concepts on top – attributes down the left), problem-and-solution outline, network tree (network of relationships – superordinate to subordinate concepts), and series-of-events chain (linear procedure), (329-330). There are also several interesting note taking strategies mentioned, such as reading logs, annotations, t-notes, and Cornell notes (record, questions, recite, reflect, review) (339-345). Introducing these methods may take some time when done appropriately with proper demonstration and practice, however, if students understand these methods, and have the choice during readings of what type to use, that can be well worth the time. It also may be beneficial for a teacher to comprise a sheet that describes all of these methods or has examples. This may even be something the students could help comprise. None-the- less, I was overwhelmed by the number of strategies, but at the same time, excited about all the various methods that could be utilized to find a deeper understanding of the text.