Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Page 169 “Does the student have a skill he is not using when he reads? If so, how should I mediate learning so that he incorporates the skill, using his strengths?

I always consider the student and his reading strengths when considering what approach to use to help him with his reading deficiency. Building on the strengths theyhave gives them confidence.

Page 173 “Writing and reading are supportive processes that can enhance each other. Writing about what was read facilitates reading. … Writing also facilitates reading because it reinforces the constructive process. Reading and writing require similar processes: “

I think that students can respond to what they read at any level. Even in kindergarten and grade 1 the students can read their short books and write in a reading notebook something about what they read. It can be Today I read _____(insert title)_ . It was about __________________, or Today I read_____(insert title)__. My favorite part was ___________________. This can get more complex the higher their reading level is. But I definitely like to use a reading notebook to respond to their reading in.


Page 174 “Social interaction facilitates reading, therefore, because it provides a vehicle for talking about the strategies, plans, and processes of meaning construction. In other words, thinking about what is read is facilitated by conversations that encourage students to elaborate and explain their thinking. Within the social situation, the teacher also explains and elaborates on her thinking.”

I try to celebrate reading as often as I have time for. The students will write a response to what they are reading in their notebook, and I will pick a few to come to the rug and sit in the “author chair” and read what they wrote to the class sitting on the rug being their audience. They can talk about why they wrote what they did and discuss the book. I don’t give them very long usually a minute or two at most. I then let the “author” chose one or two students to give them a response about what they liked or didn’t like about what they wrote in their notebook. The students enjoy this.

Page 177 “As they read, effective readers remain tentative and revise their predictions frequently, using a variety of reasons for their revisions. They intertwine the sources of information for revision and the strategies for revisions. .. These actions are called monitoring reading.”

This is a strategy that I use with my students. We are always making predictions and then checking our predictions to see if they need to be changed. I have always said to the students, “if you were going to write the next part, what would you have happen in this story/” then they understand that a prediction is never wrong, and they are more confident in discussing what they would do if they were writing the next part. I get very good predictions. We discuss why we make the prediction that we did also.

Page 192 “In explicit instruction, the diagnostic teacher precisely states what is to be learned and models the thinking process that accompanies this new strategy or skill. Students are given reasons why the new strategy or skill will help them read better. Minilessons are constructed to show them how to use the reading strategy or skill, with the teacher modeling the steps of the task.”

I do use explicit instructions in my teaching when I am tutoring below level students in my school. I start off with the minilesson on what it is that we are trying to accomplish, and then model it for them. The rest of my time with them, is them showing me how they can apply it to the reading.