Reading for Understanding Summary

Reading for Understanding

Reading instruction is too often thought of as a development of simple to more complex tasks. While I agree with this to a certain extent, there is much more to reading than just that. First, the reader needs to play the proper role when reading. Next, there must be a purpose set to read. Finally, two key ingredients to successful reading and comprehension include using prior knowledge and cooperative talk about the text among peers. There are various ways to achieve these significant pieces. I will later inform you of these helpful activities. Lastly, I will tell you how important the teacher’s role is in all of this.

There is more to reading instruction than just developing phonemic awareness and concepts about print, phonics and decoding skills, comprehension, and being critical of text. One important factor to reading instruction is the four key roles of classroom literacy programs. First, there is the code breaker, which is when the reader recognizes letters and has decoding skills. Next is the meaning maker. This is when readers participate in understanding and composing meaningful texts. Third is simply put, text user. The text user uses the text. Finally, the text critic critically analyzes and transforms texts. While it is important to be knowledgeable and use each of these roles, the competent reader is one who recognizes that according to the occasion certain resources will be the key role and the others will play supporting roles.

It is also important for the reader to have a purpose for reading. For example, some purposes are set for academics, student interest, and motivation. Providing the reader a purpose sets them up for mindful engagement. Mindful engagement is reading for understanding. It includes both motivational and cognitive aspects of teaching and learning, and the individual and social faces of reading.

Scaffolding is the first step in learning well. First, prior knowledge should be incorporated in building new knowledge. Next, this knowledge should be organized. Finally, learners should monitor and reflect on their learning. All these steps aid in reading comprehension.

Vygotsky’s work incorporates that talking about ideas helps people organize and clarify their thinking and develop conceptual frameworks that make further learning possible. This is an essential role in reading for understanding. There are many activities that assist readers in the important social scene. One of my favorites is called Book Club. Book Club is defined as highly engaged talk about literary texts. It provides the opportunity for differentiation. It includes teacher instruction, reading, writing, literature discussion, and group reflection and sharing. A major component involves students working on their own. Rather than the teacher being the leader, book club is a student led group during which students discuss ideas that arose during their reading of text and writing in their reading journal, ask questions of each other to clarify points of confusion, themes in text, make connections between text and lives. Vygotsky suggests that talking things through, internally or aloud, actually helps people learn by helping them organize and manage their thought process. A positive outcome from Book Club is confidence. Another activity is called Shared Inquiry. Shared inquiry is when students read a shared text, record reactions, questions and points of confusion as they read. Then, the teacher or students pose questions, students discuss text, using evidence from text, and finally they respond to the text in writing. Shared inquiry emphasizes inferential reasoning, questioning, and student to student talk. Inclusion of writing helps to organize and push thinking about text. Shared inquiry increases student ability to read for meaning. Another activity built upon talking is Instructional Conversations (IC). The objective of conversations is to use the class discussion as a forum to bring ideas to light and to refine them through collaborative consideration. Conversations are about relevant ideas/concepts, focused, responsive to students’ input, and encourage a high level of participation. IC’s encourage students to construct knowledge collaboratively, beginning with what is known. Higher order talk increased engagement, which can lead to better comprehension. Lastly, an activity that my district highly participates in is Integrated Instruction. It can create an engaging and authentic context for literacy learning and can invite meaningful involvement in reading and writing.

Lastly, the teacher plays an important role in reading for understanding. It is important that the instructor resist traditional roles and assume supportive roles, such as a model, coach, and facilitator. For example, in IC, rather than the teacher posing questions to find out how much they learned from text, guide them toward considering many aspects of important concepts and ideas reflectively. This promotes greater attention to reading for meaning and shifts classroom focus to coconstruction of ideas among readers. One activity a teacher can do is Guided Inquiry Supporting Multiple Literacies (GIsML). During this, teachers establish the classroom as a community of inquiry and engage students in cycles of investigation guided by specific questions. Another role thing the teacher can do is In-Depth Expanded Applications of Science (IDEAS). It typically engages students in reading activities after hands on activities, to ensure “that students had the learning experiences needed to make critical reading more purposeful” (Romance & Vitale, 1992, p. 547). IDEAS students consistently display significantly more positive attitudes and self confidence toward both science and reading. I really like the design of IDEAS. It allows the students to have a hands-on opportunity, allowing them to discover, then ask questions, giving them a purpose to read.

In conclusion, reading instruction has changed throughout the years, and will continue to do so as long as we can continue to research in order to improve ourselves as the educator and student. As in the past, the teacher’s role was to share all their knowledge and give the answers that were to be memorized. Now, we model the language of academic discussion for students by clarifying, mediating turn taking, and probing students to think even more deeply. We give the students the opportunity to share their thoughts, questions, etc… When students are able to discuss their thoughts and questions in a meaningful and purposeful way, it is all around beneficial. It enables them to organize their thoughts, scaffold, make sense of their learning and reading, and connect their learning to themselves and the world around them. Reading should not be an isolated, disconnected activity. It should be a tool in which learners are able to actively find out about. “For stimulating tasks to have lasting effects on motivation and comprehension they must be connected conceptually to further knowledge” (Guthrie et al., 2006, p. 234).