Chapter Five

When it comes to inferences, it is important to realize what they are.  Through these chapters it has become obvious to me that in order to become an effective teacher it is important for us to reflect on our own learning and realize what we do. This will in turn aid our students on what we expect them to do when it comes to reading. Some of the suggestions that Beers uses for how to help make inferences section, I found to be helpful, such as doing think aloud exercises with the students. However, when she discusses using a comic strip or cartoon as an aid I found this to be something that I think would be focused for younger children. Granted Beers states that when students do not understand a cartoon, “Most often, students bring in political cartoons” (71). While I do think having the students challenge themselves would be beneficial; it would definitely take some time to get to that point, making sure to establish a strong sense of inference first. As I do my readings, I try to think about and consider the students that I intern for at Bristol Central and what would work for them.  

I think that for these students, using more literature that appealed to them, such as music lyrics, would help them greatly. I believe that using this type of reading would get them engaged and then would get them to create their own inferences and meaning of the words. Furthermore, I think it is important to remember when it comes to students making inferences that they will create those implications based on their own background knowledge and things that they can relate to and have seen before. I make it a point to stress to my students that the beautiful thing about reading is that everyone interprets and infers meaning differently and that as long as there is evidence supporting that point, it is possible.

Chapter Four

It is always important to remember that when it comes to teaching students, one has to be specific. I learned this fact the first day of my internship when I was asked why the student had to do the work. A simple “because I said so” does not suffice with students and it should not. This same attitude should be applied when teaching students comprehension and understanding of reading. I enjoyed that Kylene Beers discussed how vital it is to be specific when asking students questions such as, “what is the main idea of the story?” Granted, it was kind of hard to follow her during the paragraph of questioning and re-questioning, but there was value in the advice she was giving. When it comes to the student mind, it is crucial that we, as teachers, model what we want the students to do as well as using different strategies, such as the think aloud, to demonstrate to the students what it is that they are looking for and what it is we want them to say.

I was pleased when Beers brought up the constructivist teaching theory; it reminded me of my Current Instructional Trends class.  In that class we focused on the different teaching theories and how as a teacher you must pick one to abide by, but at the same time you can incorporate other strategies if it fits the lesson that you are teaching. I found that Beers touched upon this when discussing her take on the constructivist theory and how she also adopted the teaching strategy of being direct and explicit in her modeling of the reading strategies. Also, the discussion she had with Kate hinted toward the fact that lecturing the students, the rote instructional theory, although easier, is boring for both the teacher and the student. I enjoyed that this difference was brought to light through the very specific discussions that were written between Kate and her students and Kate and Kylene Beers.

Culture of Reading

In my classroom I hope to create a safe environment for my students in which they feel comfortable reading. In order to accomplish this I plan on putting up quotes on the wall of different poetry and music so that way the students feel connected to reading and also so that they realize the impact of words and language on their everyday lives. In addition to this, I hope to create a library of different books for the students that will be dived into section by author and genre so that way the students, if they find a type of book that they enjoy, can pick another book to read that maybe they would not have thought to read. I believe that it is important to establish a sense of community and comfort for the students so that they will feel good about reading. I think that perhaps by having a couch or pillows or some kind of reading corner will help to create this type of comfort and community that I want.

I have also found in my internship that it is necessary now to explain to students why they have to do things and why things are important in their lives. To do this I plan on explaining to students why reading is so important and incorporating other media and forms of reading into my classroom so that they will realize why knowing how to read and enjoying reading is so vital to their everyday lives.

Chapter Two

Chapter Two focused on what makes a struggled reader; I could not agree with what Kylene Beers wrote more. I think that it is important to allow students to realize that mistakes are not failure and they are not something to throw in the towel for. In order to succeed, one must make mistakes so that he/she may learn from them and learn the correct way to accomplish a task. It is important to instill this in students, especially since the main reason why their confidence usually gets shattered is because they make the association that mistakes are failure. Lack of confidence in a dependent reader not only causes the reader to not enjoy reading, but causes him/her to have issues when it comes to “comprehension, vocabulary, word recognition or fluency and automaticity.” (17) These issues can carry over later on in life and may create concerns in other aspects of the student’s life; hence why creating independent readers who can use tools and strategies to cope with struggles is key.

When Beers discussed how she, herself, was a struggled reader when reading Beloved and her VCR programming manual, I thought about how important it is to show your students that you struggle too. I know that in my internship, students constantly complain to me that they think that teachers hold themselves on pedestals, so I think it is definitely a necessity to acknowledge to your students that you have struggles in reading as well. I once covered a class with students whose reading levels were at sixth grade, instead of being able to read like the sophomores they were. I had them read aloud, and allowed them to sound out the words; which seemed to work. I myself began the reading, and stumbled on some of the words (as most do when reading aloud). I really believe that this helped create a safe environment for the students and that once seeing my struggle; they realized mistakes are natural and that sometimes reading slow and right is better than reading fast and incorrect.