This chapter is great for explaining how important it is for students to read and write individually. This chapter really inspired me to research many ways in students work individually and how it helps them succeed and grow as students.
In this post, you will find information that I have researched as well as my own view on this chapter.
What I have taken in from this chapter is that students need to express their skills by reading out loud and working with different venues to express themselves. "Children learn that their own words matter by participating in a quality writing program that is based on the understanding that writing like reading is a process in which language is the foundation..." (Johnson, 430). In addition, with practicing the English language through writing and reading, students can transform into interested readers and listeners. By working individually with reading and writing, students can learn the traditions of literature and learn to be a part of the the world by relating through literature in the community.
The following are reasons describing the importance of independent reading and writing.
To enhance fluency.
Fluency is an essential part of successful reading. Fluency is based on automaticity (a reader's ability to recognize words automatically). If children are to become both automatic and fluent readers, they need practice. Preparing to read a text aloud expressively provides children with the time and means to recognize words automatically and to read a text with a high percentage of accuracy. When children practice by engaging in repeated oral readings, their levels of fluency increase significantly (Rasinski 2000; Martens 1997).
To strengthen comprehension.
When children use techniques for expressive oral reading, their comprehension of what they are reading dramatically increases. Since fluency is closely tied to comprehension, when children become smoother and more accurate readers they will also become more knowledgeable ones. By practicing a text, children will become more familiar with its words, sentence patterns, and organizational structure. Once children become familiar and comfortable with a text, they are then in a position to make discoveries about the different kinds of meanings (both denotative and connotative) that may emerge from their interaction with the text (Apol & Harris 1999). Because they are approaching and envisioning reading anew, children who know how to read expressively show a greater understanding of the texts they have chosen to read (Davis 1997).
To develop critical reading skills.
For children to read expressively, they must make conscious decisions about how to read and what they should emphasize while they are reading so that they can effectively communicate both the surface and deeper meanings of a text. For instance, if children are to read and communicate both the denotative level (content) and the connotative components (emotions and attitudes) of the opening line of Robert Louis Stevenson's "My Shadow" ("I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me"), they must decide what the text is literally saying and what emotions are being implied. Once children have decided what emotions and attitudes are being implied, they will have to decide how to use their voices to communicate those emotions and attitudes (Popp 1996; Barton & Booth 1990). By reading and expressing two levels of the text at once, children have necessarily engaged in critical thinking: they have examined and analyzed the text, made inferences, drawn conclusions, and have made informed decisions about how to vocally communicate those inferences and conclusions (Richards 2000). In this way, children who learn to read aloud expressively will become more sensitive to the workings of print language and will gain insights into what they are reading (Martinez, Roser, & Strecker 1999).
Additionally, when children gather in their reading response groups to rehearse their readings and gain feedback from their peers, they learn how to use critical listening to critique one another's readings. As they give supportive and helpful feedback to each other, children learn that texts are open to interpretation and negotiation, and that meaning is a matter of how one analyzes and performs the text (Enciso & Edmiston 1997).
To develop other important reading skills.
When children prepare to read expressively, they will develop competence in grammar, memory, attention, sequencing, and understanding cause and effect (Healy 1990). Reading well takes time, focus, and attention; and if children are going to read aloud well, they must give the requisite time, focus, and attention to prepare the text. As children prepare a text for oral reading, they will gain a greater understanding of how grammatical and rhetorical structures (sentences, stanzas, and paragraphs) work and how the sequencing of words and ideas plays an important role in the delivery of meaning (Hancock 2000).
To help struggling readers.
When struggling readers learn to use expressive oral reading skills and apply them to something they are going to read aloud, they become stronger readers. By rehearsing their readings through repeated practice, struggling readers improve their accuracy and word recognition abilities (Morado, Koenig, & Wilson 1999).
Additionally, as struggling readers read aloud, they can more effectively monitor themselves. As they read, they can listen to discover if what they are reading "sounds right" and if it makes sense. Moreover, they can also record their readings and listen to themselves; in this way, they can locate areas that need improvement and work on them. By monitoring themselves as they read aloud, struggling readers become more fluent and more confident readers (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn 2001).
To build confidence.
When children read with expressive skills, they will also develop more confidence in themselves as readers. No longer limited either to rapid word-calling or to stumbling over print, children will discover that, with practice and guidance, they can become more fluent, purposeful, and effective readers of the kinds of print material that had previously frustrated or befuddled them. And with repeated success, their confidence levels will rise (Davis 1997).
To facilitate collaborative learning.
As children gather together in small groups—Reading Response Groups—to practice their oral readings, they receive feedback from the other members of the group. Through the exchange of ideas about the practice readings, and through the critical feedback that they give one another, children enter into collaborative learning. As children work to assist one another to become stronger expressive readers, they work together to increase the purposefulness of learning: how to connect with one another and how to connect new skills to texts they are choosing to read aloud.
I would incorporate individual reading and writing in the classroom and use many of the techniques that I have outlined above. By using other methods of organizers and methods such as reading response journals, we can transform our classroom into learn portals for our students to succeed.
You can follow the links below to find lessons using the methods I have summarized above.
http://www.fcrr.org/assessment/pdf/smallgroupalternativelessonstructures.pdf
Online literature discussion search:
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/thoughtful-threads-sparking-rich-1165.html
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