Chapter 2 - When Kids Can't Read

"Cognitive Confidence allows students to comprehend texts, monitor their understanding, determine meaning of words, and read with fluency. Social and Emotional Confidence allows students to be willing and active participants in a community of readers, read for enjoyment and information, and have a positive attitude toward reading and other readers. Text Confidence allows readers to develop the stamina to continue reading difficult texts and find authors and genres that interest them" Page 18

I noticed the chart over the Confidences Readers Need. This chart seems to go hand in hand with my field experience. Today in our class, the students were working on fluency and building their reading stamina. They use a program on the computer that reads the story to them, then they must read it out loud. They are tested on questions about reading passage, their expression as they read and words they miss while reading out loud.

One student was ready to test so I listened to him read his passage. He is a very fast reader and he didn't hardly make a mistake so I know he has Text Confidence. We went back and reviewed his questions about the passage and he has trouble recalling information from the passage. He flew through his reading and did not allow the information to make it to his brain. I know now that he struggles with Cognitive Confidence.

So, we went back to the passage and I told him to slow down and don't worry about the timer, just read it again. It was a huge difference than the first reading! We went back to his questions again and this time he could answer them.

Literature Circle Response – Oddly Normal

First off, I loved this book! I think it’s a good book for struggling readers and normal readers. It is entertaining and a really excellent story. I think this is a great book to use in literature circles because there is so much to discuss, from the plot, characters and illustrations. I think we can all relate to Oddly in our own way.

This was a really good experience for me. I have never read a graphic novel before and I have only participated in a few literature circles. So this was good practice! I enjoyed discussing the book with other members of the circle. Everybody had their own opinions, some liked it some hated it. I really wish I could have done literature circles when I was in middle school and high school. It helped me understand the book better. Others would bring up parts that I overlooked or details I had missed. It gives you a much better sense of the book.

Chapters 2 and 3 in Building a Knowledge Base in Reading

Chapters 2 and 3 both had so much valuable information in them. These are the things that stuck out to me the most.

“Langer identified classroom practices for adolescents that parallel Cambourne’s conditions for young adolescent readers:
1. Teachers treat all students as capable envisionment builders with important understandings and potential classroom contributions to classroom discussions.
2. Teachers assume that questions are a natural part of the process of understanding new material. Rather than an indication of failure to learn, and that questions provide productive starting points for a discussion.” (Page 27)

I thought these two were the most powerful of the four classroom practices. I think students are a lot smarter than their teachers give them credit for. I think they should have the opportunity to engage in higher level discussion. Some might participate or not, but at least they have can be potential classroom contributors. I can remember in school when any student had a question; we had to save it until the teacher was finished with the lecture. By the time she was finished, we had forgot the question. I think all teachers should welcome any questions from students at ANY time during a lesson. If that student has a question, more than likely other students will have the same question.