Blog 1

Shameeka Spann

Text Choice: Catching Readers Before They Fall

            The chapter I chose for this blog was chapter 5 titled, A Comprehensive Literacy Framework. According to Johnson and Keier (2010), traditional read alouds are read alouds in which teachers model what language of books sound like, what loving a book looks like, and what being lost in a book feels like (Johnson and Keier, 2010).  Interactive read alouds are when teachers read text with a clear instructional purpose, engage students in conversation before, during, and after the read alouds (Johnson and Keier, 2010). Johnson and Keier (2010) state that during interactive read alouds, teachers model comprehension strategies such as, making connections, activating prior knowledge, and questioning. In this text, one thing that stood out to me was the classroom situation about the importance of reading to children. The authors discussed teacher Katie reading the book Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse, and the connection one of her students made with the read aloud and the book Where the Wild Things Are. Although she did not plan for her students to make a connection, one student made a connection on his own based on a previous strategy lesson. This actually reminded me of my students during traditional and interactive read alouds. My students have made amazing, unexpected connections during the stories with topics I taught during Science and Social Studies. Some days we were focusing on another strategy, but they still understood how to make connections. I was very impressed with them, and their excitement as they shared the connections. One special statement in this chapter that stood out to me was, “All kids need to be read to, but it is especially beneficial to struggling readers” (Johnson and Keier, 2010). This statement is very important to me because I agree with it, and based on observations of my students I know it can be true.  Reading to children is very important because not all children come from a home environment in which they have adults to read to them.  During this reading, the following statement taught me more about shared reading than I knew before, “The shared reading experience provides a time for struggling readers to try reading strategies, or build concepts within a safe environment and with the support of the teacher and other readers.  One strategy I plan to use during my shared reading is modeling for students the questioning strategy, which was explained in the text. I also learned in this chapter that for guided reading, the book introductions should include a lot of social interactions and conversations. I would like to end on this final statement about the importance of guided reading, “Remember we are teaching the readers, not the book” (Johnson and Keier, 2010).