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
- Solving words
- Monitoring and Correcting
- Searching for and Using Information
- Summarizing
- Maintaining Fluency
- 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.
Journey, Reading this chapter is like coming home to my roots! For those of us who have been trained in Reading Recovery and taught Guided Reading, this chapter like our Bible, outlining all the basics of the reading process.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this chapter would be a great resource for introducing teachers to the foundations of the reading process.
The point you make about our 'neglect' of the Structure cue rings true with me. I don't remember focusing on structure much in my initial RR training, years ago, but was made more aware while training last year. At first I thought the TN emphasis on structure was primarily because of the poor language structure that many of students come to school with and their lack of exposure to 'book language', but now realize that any structure that is 'foreign' and would impede comprehension should be addressed.
I 'made a connection' with the importance of sturcture and language when I recently read Cold Sassy Tree and found it difficult to transition between my northern language structure and the common southern vernacular used in the text. It took more effort on my part to not only 'read' the structure but also to understand the usage.
Journey, thanks for your insightful summary of the chapter. I believe this chapter will also become the foundational piece of my PD and coaching that focuses on reading at the MS level.
ReplyDeleteDuring our MAX training we used a brief reading selection for teachers to demonstrate the difference between simply decoding the text on the page and actually reading for understanding. Teachers were able to read and answer worksheet-type questions teachers typically ask students to complete, but due to the unfamiliar language they had no real understanding of what the paragraph was really about.
I love that so much of what I am reading in this book supports and reinforces what we started this year with our teachers with the MAX strategies. Finally some PD that will be used a foundational piece for years to come. The teachers at the MS level will be thrilled!!!
I find this chapter in this book interesting and very valuable for middle school teachers. Most of our students read between 3rd and 6th grades so it is very relevant to our needs.
ReplyDeleteOn page 302-303 the table on an effective reader gives me much information on what teachers actually need to be doing while teaching reading. "We want students not only to understand what they read but also to enjoy texts, interpret texts, and apply their learning from reading to other areas." That sentence says so much to me. We must be teaching students how to bring existing knowledge into their reading and making connections inorder to be effective readers.
I was under the intrepretation that oral reading in class should not be done. I know that teachers need to read aloud to students but "round robin" reading is discouraged.
I can relate to the Venn Diagram on page 307 "Constructing Meaning from Sets of Knowledge". Reading is socomplex and involves so many strategies. Figure 18-4 on pagew 310 looks at all the different strategies for comprehension.
I will definitely use this chapter with the MS teachers so they can understand the significance of a teachers role in guiding our students to becoming better readers.
Understanding that reading begins and ends with meaning is the first step in understanding the reading process. Elementary school teachers are forced to begin the reading process with decoding the words on the page in combination with developing meaning of the text. By the time students make it to middle school, the majority of them can read the words on the page but many have a difficult time with comprehension. Figure 18-1 on page 303 summarizes what effecive readers do to process what they are reading. Our middle school teachers really need to stess each of these in order to help our students process the challenging texts of the middle school curriculum.
ReplyDeleteI believe that modeling effective reading strategies for our students is a very beneficial way to encourage our student to read effectively. Fountas and Pinnell state, "when teachers read aloud to students, they demonstrate what it means to enjoy literacy and model important uses of literacy."
I know we talk about MAX teaching strategies on almost every blog, but most of the time this is the connection that we make to what we're learning. Many of the MAX strategies enable our students to connect, infer, summarize, synthesize, analyze, and critique. In our departmentalized classes, our teachers can use these strategies to encourage our students to construct meaning from the text.
The PD suggestion on pgs. 320-321 would really help our teachers understand just how complex the reading process is. We should ask our teachers to participate in this activity to enlighten them, so that they would see the importance of engaging our students in meaningful activities to improve reading.
I think back to Dr. Doug Beuhl when I read these blogs. I think about his topic of background knowledge and levels of literacy. Middle school students should be performing at "Disciplinary Literacy" which is using reading as a central tool to gain knowledge. Students must have background knowledge or they cannot make inferences, creat mental images, etc.
ReplyDeleteHe also talked about types of knowledge. For example, 1) Topic Knowledge-a reader's background in and experiences with a particular idea or concept; 2) Domain Knowledge - A reader's understanding of the language and thinking typical of an academic discipline; 3)Knowledge of Text Structure - A reader's ability to perceive relationships that interconnect information and ideas.
Cindy, reading your post made me think of a statement for D. Beuhl's book, Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning. Beuhl says, "Our students are expected to read from an impressive array of texts on a daily basis in our classrooms. It is sometimes easy for students, and their teachers, to lose sight of why they read. Students do not read to complete assignments. They do not read to be prepared for tests. And they do not read to meet standards. They read to understand."
ReplyDeleteBeuhl goes on to explain what we all know, "students do not regularly exhibit proficient reader behaviors with school reading tasks". As we have said before, MS folks have missed the boat on helping students practice these behaviors on a day to day basis.