1

Kaluhi Kaʻapana

ITE 320

Dawn Furushima

15 November 2019

Reading and Writing

The first chapter on reading begins with a quote that says, “[e]very act of comprehension

involves one’s knowledge of the world” (Aesbersold & Field, p. 65). I think this quote sums up

the importance of reading instruction, especially in a Hawaiian immersion setting. Much of the

stories and readings that occur require a certain understanding and worldview. Many times in

Hawaiian immersion, we read multiple stories throughout the student’s time in school because as

they acquire more knowledge, their comprehension and understanding deepens. These readings

were especially helpful to me because all my students are multilingual learners being instructed

in a second language. Most of the pre-reading strategies mentioned in chapter 4 ​Preparing to

read,​ I have seen my mentor and other Hawaiian immersion teachers incorporate into their

reading instruction. When my mentor does reading instruction, she first previews the text by

looking at the pictures, if any, then reading through the text to look through vocabulary. The

students talk about the vocabulary before going through the reading. A wondering that I still

have is, is it more valuable for the students to identify the new vocabulary or for the teacher to

give the students the new vocabulary?

All three of the chapters, written by Aebersold and Field (1997), had a focus on

comprehension of text when pre-reading, reading, and post-reading. The reading process, mostly

focused on building comprehension of the text, monitoring text comprehension, and adjusting
 2

reading strategies. Strategies, however should be taught explicitly through modeling and

top-down, bottom-up activities. One part that was specifically interesting was on page 103,

where a strategy is being introduced. The text says that one strategy for building comprehension

is looking at the relationship between sentences. Thinking about some of the moʻolelo (stories)

we read in my placement, this is an important skill to have in reading Hawaiian stories. It may

not be the same structure of transition sentences and other structural focuses, but there is often a

relationship between sentences that further elaborate on meaning. Often, Hawaiian stories may

have dual meaning, especially when they incorporate ʻōlelo noʻeau (proverbs). This skill of

looking at the relationships of sentences to build understanding may be a good strategy to focus

on with my students through explicit instruction. Post-reading is the step that I don’t often see in

my field placement. Sometimes my mentor will give the students comprehension questions, but

not always. Most of the time, there is some kind of writing assignment to follow the reading. The

chapter ​Review reading,​ mentions that comprehension questions could be asked before, during,

and after reading. I believe that this repetition gives the students a focus and stimulates their

thinking while they are reading, especially as multilingual learners. This is something that I

would like to try incorporating into my reading instruction, instead of introducing the

comprehension questions at the end.

Hyland talks about writing instruction for second language learners. I just started a

writing piece with my students. I ran into a little bit of a wall because they don’t seem to have

writing strategies that I had assumed they were taught. After going through the reading this

week, I changed my course a little bit and focused on outlining. From reading their pieces, it

seemd that they didn’t know how to focus their thoughts. This explicit instruction of
 3

brainstorming and outlining created a better flow of each paper. Not only was it more interesting

to read, but their papers were easier to read also. Hyland’s chapter 1 ​Writing and teaching

writing,​ states on page 4, that “[a]ccuracy and clear exposition are considered the main criteria of

good writing, while communicative content is left to be dealt with later.” After this writing

instruction, I have to say that I agree with this statement. It is difficult to read a paper that is not

organized and difficult to understand. Teaching the students how to structure their paper created

more rich writing. Once the student’s fixed their writing, I had them read it over again and add

more meaning to their writing. Another reason I think their first piece of writing was difficult to

read may have been because they aren’t linguistically advanced to clearly communicate complex

ideas. Hyland’s Chapter 2 ​Second language writers,​ states that second language learners have

“difficulty in adequately communicating themselves.” I believe that since my students only

speak Hawaiian at school, their low level of language affects their writing. They have a different

linguistic knowledge and therefore can’t communicate complex ideas as well as we would like,

as teachers.

Overall, I found this week’s readings very helpful. Reading and writing instruction is

actually what I have been reflecting on frequently because instruction in a Hawaiian immersion

feels like a whole new ball game. These readings gave me some enriching ideas for activities, as

well as confirmed some of my own instruction in the classroom.