Guiding Readers and Writers grades 3 - 6: Caleb's Chapter: Chapter 27-Understanding the "Tes...

Guiding Readers and Writers grades 3 - 6: Caleb's Chapter: Chapter 27-Understanding the "Tes...: "Chapter 27 of Guiding Readers and Writers underscores the necessity of interweaving test-taking strategies into the general curriculum. The ..."

Test - Candace

Chapter 18: Understanding the Reading Process

Okay, I have no idea how you all made such pretty pages for your chapters...I am just going to go for it in my grass roots, down to earth, scruffy way...here goes..

Chapter 18 in Guiding Readers and Writers is the single best chapter someone can read to get a BASIC understanding of the reading process. It is clearly laid out, well written, and theory rich. I use if often when working with groups who have little or no literacy background and need a beginning place. As I type this, I am thinking of the middle school folks who are working with content area teachers who need a basic foundation in the reading process. This might be a good one for all of you.

The chapter opens with a great quote from Marie Clay:

"I regard meaning as the 'given' in all reading - the source of anticipation, the guide to being on track, and the outcome and reward of the effort."

This makes me think of a story Cliff Johnson tells about Clay being asked in a conference why she didn't address comprehension in her discussion of the reading process. Clay didn't even know how to answer the question from the person in the audience because for her they are intimately linked. You aren't reading if you aren't comprehending!


On page 302, there is a wonderful resource to help you help teachers understand that real reading is not just about Reading the WORDS. Read the indented paragraph on page 302 and 303 and ask yourself what it is really about. You will be able to read all the words in the paragraph but (unless you've done this in class with me or someone else) you won't know what in the world the authors are referring to. Good thing to do in a PD session with teachers as you are asking them what is reading and what is their theory of reading...
The chart on page 303 is useful - An effective reader:

• maintains focus on meaning
• checks on understanding and print
• uses language strutures to anticiapte text
• processes print with fluency
• varies the rate of reading
• uses many different sources of information together
• has questions in mind
• attends to important ideas
• recognizes many words automatically
• uses a variety of strategies for solving words while reading for meaning
• extends the meaning of texts using synthesizing and inferencing skills
• integrates information.

This is a useful list when having PD sessions and viewing readers. Teachers can "see" and discuss these things as they happen or don't happen for the student. As she confers with kids, a teacher can be thinking of what the child is doing or not doing and teach into it. This is a very useful list for a beginning teacher who may not have a clue where to begin to support students as they read.

A great discussion of Sources of Information available to readers begins on page 304. Nice chart on 305 that is simple and defines what is meant by the 3 types of information:

Meaning

Language Structure

Phonologicial and Visual Information

So often, the first and third are given attention, but the second is like the step child - neglected and ignored. Most teachers do not think about the role of language structure in reading.

p. 308 has a nice discussion of parsing and phrasing language. The authors pull out a paragraph from a Harry Potter book and try to decide how the language phrase units occur naturally. This is a great thing to do with teachers. Give them the paragraph, have them read it in pairs, and have them decide where the breaks are. The authors give you their attempt at it. This gives teachers an understanding of the massive of tasks involved in learning to read. Kids have to understand where natural language breaks occur and read accordingly. Hard for us to teach kids this kind of thing!

p. 310 gives you some good info about Sustaining Strategies and Expanding Strategies. Sustaining strategies are those that allow a reader to read - to keep the train on the track and do something if errors occur. Expanding strategies are those that allow readers to go more deeply in text to understand print. Jessie and Sue's chapters go into detail about the following strategic actions for processing written text.

Sustaining Reading

1. Solving words
2. Monitoring and Correcting
3. Searching for and Using Information
4. Summarizing
5. Maintaining Fluency
6. Adjusting

Expanding Meaning

7. Predicting

8. Making connections (personal, world, text)

9. Inferring

10. Synthesizing

11. Analyzing

12. Critiquing

Each of the strategies is explained in detail through this chapter.