Final Reflection

Now that the semester is coming to a close, I am excited to go on winter break and be done with all of my boring classes...except this one. I honestly really enjoyed the class. Despite it's length, it always went by very fast for me. I enjoyed that we always did different things, and looking back, we did have a lot of work to do in this class but I didn't mind doing it because it was all different and we had a nice heads-up to when everything was due. I enjoyed the book-pass, when Dr. Pytash would read some of her favorite books to us, Kylene Beers' book, and learning how to teach well. I learned so much from the text and from the class that I feel a lot closer to being ready to teach. I also really enjoyed reading a lot of young adult literature, because it's my favorite. I am excited to have most of the same people as well as the same professor next semester. If our next class if even remotely similar to this one, then I am excited. 

Chapter Fourteen: Finding the Right Book

This chapter provides us with tons of information on helping students find good books. I particularly like when Beers mentions "book-talking", which is providing hypothetical questions about the plot, or even reading the first chapter or two aloud for the students to hear. This is what Dr. Pytash did, and what made me become obsessed with The Hunger Games (as well as put many of the other novels on my Amazon wish list!). Also, I don't care how old you are, being read to is still interesting and important, that is, if the person reading does not just drone on in a monotone voice and show no excitement. When Beers mentioned reading aloud to students, it made me think of a teacher at Firestone who read 'Dr. Heidegger's Experiment' to her class. She was moving around the room and basically performing for the students. They would laugh when she was being silly, and they would even pay attention and appear engaged. I don't think you should read everything out loud to your students, but every once in awhile give them a break and let them just listen.

Chapter Thirteen: Creating the Confidence to Respond

I really liked in this chapter how Beers made the text relevant to the students. Instead of providing worksheets or answer logs about what the text meant, or what it was supposed to mean, they let the student decide. By asking "What do YOU think..." instead of "What happened in the story that caused..." you are allowing the student to interpret the text the way that they perceived it. This is very important to me. I want the students to feel connected to the text in any way that they can. Like Chris Tovani's videos mentioned, you need to be a selfish reader. You need to take what you want or need from the text, and not what a test tells you to take. This is one good reason why varying the types of assessment you use after reading is important. If the student has to answer questions to a test that are basically just there to prove that they have read the book, then they probably are just going to memorize the character names and the plot. If you provide them with either a different form of assessment or with questions like Beers suggests, they can SHOW you that they read the text through their personal connections and answers. These questions that she included in the text are definitely something I will take with me when I teach.

Chapter Ten: Fluency and Automaticity

While reading Antwan and Sophie's parts, I can easily say that fluency is something you might not know you have. Antwan thought that just because he could read the words, he was a good reader. He obviously comprehended what he was reading too, even though he thought both the children at the park were boys. He was able to understand what was going on, and he read all of the words properly, but not very fluently. Sophie on the other hand, had a hard time pronouncing things and she did not comprehend what she read very well at all. She thought there were many children at the park, when in reality there were only two. Due to the fact she was still struggling with decoding, the odds of her being fluent in her reading if she can not yet decode the words are very slim. Antwan should be able to improve his fluency soon, since his comprehension is at a good level. I just thought it was interesting how different the two of them read, and how fluency did not matter to them. Antwan thought he was a 'good reader' because he could say all of the words. The more a student reads, especially at a younger age, the better their fluency will become. This is another reason why having students read more and more out loud or even silently will help them improve their reading; especially their fluency.