Chapter 9 Vocabulary: Finding Out What Words Mean

The title really says it all. If you don't know what a word means good luck figuring out the sentence or in a bigger picture the book.  Part of reading is to develop our vocabulary, the more words we know the easier it is to convey exactly what we are thinking.  So what do we do, each week assign a new list of words for the students to learn and then give them a test on the words and they either learn them or they don't.  Well it turns out there is actually a lot more to it then that.  The chapter gives you eight different suggestions to help with the learning of vocabulary.  Students must understand the importance of vocabulary and the part it plays in everyday life.  Even as I sit here and write this blog I am trying to think of varied word choices to sound less repetitive and in turn more intelligent.  The words don't need to be bigger or more complicated just specific.  The more closely a word identifies your main ideas the better.
Along with each suggestion the chapter also gives you a lesson on how to implement the suggestion into your classroom.  It cannot be stressed enough how helpful this book will be when I am actually in a teaching environment.

Chapter 8 Extending Meaning: After-Reading Strategies

During-reading is not the only important part of understanding the text.  After-reading strategies are just as crucial.  The text gives us a pretty thorough list of what to do after the text is finished being read.  The list doesn't leave much out from what I can tell and is quite helpful.  I especially like the Somebody Wanted But So strategy.  Any activity that allows the students to figure something out for themselves is a good thing in my opinion, especially when each answer is going to be different from everyone else's.  But the other strategies cannot be ignored, much like I said in my last post everyone learns things in a different way and the strategies in this chapter offer a wide variety of strategies, I'm actually really impressed with some of them and how someone was able to come up with the idea.  Like with text reformulation, I'm sure a lot of people do this when explaining something, but I would never have thought of it as a reading strategy. Some of these ideas just come naturally, but when you read about them it helps put them into more of an educational perspective.  It helps make them easier to explain and you actually know what it is you are trying to teach.

Chapter 7 Constructive Meaning: During-Reading Strategies

While a student is reading they have to do more than just be reading.  Thinking about reading is just as important.  Often times when I am done reading something I can't remember what I just read, As an experienced reader I can only imagine what this would be like for someone without much experience.  I already know what I did wrong and how to fix the problem but for new readers like I'm sure a lot of my students will be this is a more difficult task.  That's where during-reading strategies come in.  All of these strategies are important to know and teach, but instead of just assigning one type I think students should be made aware of all of them and then be allowed to choose which one works best for them.  This helps them learned about what they are reading and about themselves as learning which is also very important.  That might be an information overload, but everyone has a different way of doing things and they need to know all the available options.  For me rereading is usually enough but for some its doesn't change no matter how many times they read it, so the think-aloud strategy might be better for them so they can actually hear what was going on.  No two students are alike and I think this chapter does a good job of offering alternative ways of thinking about what we are reading.

Chapter 5 Learning to Make an Inference

I think a good way to start off this chapter was with the quote "If I was so good at making inferences, I wonder why it took me so long to figure that one out?"  Teachers need to know about making inferences just as much as students do.  Teaching is all about solving problems with no where near as much information that is needed to solve the problem.  If as teachers we are not able to do this how are we supposed to expect students to be able to do it.
Inferences are really important especially in higher grades will it is more necessary to read between the lines with the literature.  To me it is also one of the most interesting and imaginative parts of Language Arts, there is no right or wrong answer as long as you can support it.  I'm sure some of the things the students come up with will seem ridiculous until they explain themselves.  It's almost like making the story personal and more important to yourself, you've been given clues and it's up to your deductive reasoning skills to solve a mystery that is the story.
For teachers this means looking below the surface of our students to try and understand what they are thinking.  Inferencing skills are invaluable, being able to use them in almost any situation.