This may come as a surprise to some educators, but reading and writing are interactive subjects. That means they are meant to be done with others and in an environment that is not solitary. Sure, we may read or write by ourselves. I love curling up with a good book on a day that my husband takes the boys to do some “men” things. The joy of reading and writing comes in sharing that experience and discussing the book or writing.
Children need rich experiences in reading and writing. The more exposures and practice they get, the more they will view themselves as readers and writers that have meaningful purpose. Routman suggests a simple solution to finding texts that are at the children’s levels- have them write their own text. I do this a lot with my primary students as a way for them to take ownership of their reading and also to practice reading their writing to build fluency. It is evident that the student’s writing most likely represents the quality of reading that they do.
Writing can be such a powerful tool for responding to reading. When teachers give assignments that require thoughtful, deep reflection about text, they are helping the students to better synthesize the information they’ve read. Students need to spend more of their time reading than writing about what they’ve read though. Routman says, “writing makes us think harder.” When students are asked to write summaries, they demonstrate their understanding through the writing that they craft. Teachers cannot just expect that students understand how to summarize, so as with anything, it takes explicit modeling.
Great Quotes from this Chapter:
• Pg. 120- Stephen King, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around those things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”
• Pg. 123- Gary Paulsen, “The most important part of writing is to read. I tell young people, ‘Read like a wolf eats, read when they tell you not to read, and read what they tell you not to read.’”
Some questions to ponder about this chapter:
• Do you use Accelerated Reader at your school and how does it impact students’ motivation to read and respond?
• How do you connect reading and writing?
• What process do you use to teach summarizing?
• How do I assess reading comprehension?
• What different ways do I allow my students to respond to texts they read?
Shauna,
ReplyDeleteI used Accelerated Reader in the district where I last taught. I was perfectly fine when I found that my new district did not have AR. I noticed that many students would not want to read a book if it did not have a colored dot on it. Also, as a first grade teacher I spent a lot of time typing in book titles and helping students with words they did not know. This allowed for little time to actually hear my students read and talk about the story. What are your thoughts about Accelerated Reader? Great question!
I remember in grade school our school adopted Accelerated Reader. I was not the best reader in my class, in fact, I was a kid that went to Title 1 reading in third grade. I HATED AR! It was awful, you had to meet a certain number of points and take tests over each book, you couldn't checkout the books that you really wanted to. My list was limited. AR followed me through high school and I still didn't like it my senior year! I am sooooo glad that the district that I teach in does not agree with AR at all!
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