Liz Gregg EDUC 343 Monday

Chapter 1
Section Heading Ensuring All Students Read, Write, and Think Notes from the Text Middle School- 69% failed to score at the proficient level on the reading parts of the national report card. PP1P3 High school- 1 in 17 students can read & understand specialized materials. PP1P4 College- 45.2% of incoming freshman must take remedial English. PP1P5 A persons future depends on a persons ability to read, write, and communicate well. PP2P3 Challenges to Reading Effectively for Information By sixth grade, 75% of the materials used are informational in nature. PP2P5 Novels used in middle school and high school are mainly books from before the students life time. (THE CLASSICS) PP3P1 The lack of informative text may be the reason why students score lower than grade-level. PP3P3 My Response This is crazy, I didnt realize it was this bad.

I understand this, I couldnt read the specialized textbooks that well when I was in high school. I thought I was bad at English but I didnt have to take remedial English, this is outrageous. This is a given. To be able to write well a person must be able to read well and vice versa. This is crazy, no wonder no one wants to read. Informational texts are boing to most. Sometime these books are great books but sometimes it is important for the teachers to re-evaluate their book list because there may be better books then the ones they are reading. This explains a lot because informational text is harder but at the same time no one wants to read informational text.

Liz Gregg EDUC 343 Monday Common Types of Informational Text

Textbooks scaffold the information for readers. PP3P3

A major challenge in the classroom is that technology is changing faster than most teachers are learning it. PP5P4 Graphic Novels are a lot like comics but consist of one full story and are normally longer. PP5P5 What Are the Characteristics of Informational Texts? Informational texts and narratives differ by their tone, style, structure, feature, and authority. PP6P3 Exemplification texts describe people, places, or phenomena. PP6P5 Signal words are words that help identify opposites. PP7P1 Text Features Informational texts= text features such as content page, headings and subheadings, margin notes, bulleted items, diagrams, photographs, and an index. PP7P5 Text features make it easier to understand the information. PP7P5

Some textbooks do scaffold while some do not. For example, math textbooks scaffold the learning for readers but I dont see how a Social Studies textbook scaffolds the information. I can defiantly see this. I see this a lot even in my college courses.

I thought they were the same thing.

I didnt realize they differ in those ways. I just thought one was real and one was made up. Almost all stories deal with people, places, or a type of phenomena. I never heard of signal words until now. These would have made learning to compare and contrast a lot more easy. I remember learning about text features when I was in like 2nd grade when we were learning to reading non-fiction books. For children the pictures can help they understand what they are reading.

Diagraphs can expand a learners reading comprehension. PP7P5

Older learners use the diagraphs to see numbers and statistics in an easier way.

Liz Gregg EDUC 343 Monday Common Text Styles

Vocabulary is very important in science and normally found bolded in the textbook. PP8P2 History textbooks lay the information out in more of a journalistic style. PP9P2 In mathematical textbooks the text structure is normally sequential and structured to explain a procedure. PP9P5 Every source contains bias. PP10P2

I am pretty sure vocab is important in all areas and is normally found bolded in most books, not just science. This is true because as you read the book you its like the story is being told to you. I can see this. In math the book tells the topic then step by step instructions on how to answer a desire problem. This is true in every area, except maybe math. Everyone has a different story to tell. This is a good lesson for everyone to learn. Sometimes this is a hard thing to do. When someone tells you something, you expect it to be the truth. I think this is an important thing to teach children. Sometimes it is important to walk in someone elses shoes so that you can understand what they are going through. This is a great idea. It is important to use some primary sources such as diaries. These items allow the students to actually feel what someone is going through. This is a nice way to get the students involved, where they feel like they could do something to change the world, no matter how small.

Critical Literacy and Its Relation to Reading for Information

Critical Literacy involves students to examine material and situations in multiple perspectives. PP10P3 Disrupting the Commonplace. Looking at the work in different ways. (Ex:Homeless, disabled, and Senior citizens) PP10P4 Interrogating Multiple Viewpoints. Diary of Ann Frank PP10P5

Taking Action and Promoting Social Justice. PP11P2

Liz Gregg EDUC 343 Monday Supporting Reading for Information

Students must be taught how to approach different types of text. PP11P4 All content teachers are not reading teachers. PP11P4

I totally understand why this is so important. Not all text are created equal.

Developing Reading Comprehension

Comprehension Strategies: Questioning, summarizing, inferencing, self-monitoring, connection, predicting, analysis PP12P2 Reading comprehension does not just happen, it is developed by the activities that teach what good readers do. PP12P4 Building Metacognition to Develop Reading Comprehension. PP13P2 Students need modeling and scaffolding in order to become efficient readers. PP13P4

This is true, but students must be able to read the book in every subject so it is important to explain to the students how to read the book. These strategies help students understand the text.

Growing up it felt like the teachers just expected me to know, it didnt feel like they taught me what good readers do. When one thinks about thinking it helps comprehension because they come up with questions as they read. It is easier when you have someone to show you what to do.

Summary: In this chapter, it clearly states that reading comprehension is a complicated skill to learn, but must be taught in order to create better readers. There is many ways to teach students to comprehend what they learn. Some approaches to better reading comprehension includes: the use of informational texts, a abundant understanding of the different types of informational texts, the knowledge of the characteristics of each type of informational text and the text features found within them, and teaching students to read critically and think about what they are reading. There are many ways a teacher can help their students understand and comprehend what they are reading but it must be taught, not just expected.