Chapter 9: Vocabulary: Finding Out What Words Mean

When I began to read this chapter, I laughed to myself several times because I found it to be quite relatable. Vocabulary lessons were given in a way for the students to memorize them for a test and forget them as soon as the test concluded. Beers introduces us to more effective ways to teach vocabulary. These lessons are proven effective because it helps students actually learn words, ways to use them and most importantly remember them. As a teacher, it takes more than supplying a dictionary to your students for them to actually acquire the knowledge we sent out for them to learn. By engaging our students in vocabulary activities we are enabling them to construct their own meaning of words and consequently they have a greater chance of remembering and utilizing the words. 

Chapter 8: After-Reading Strategies

For most teachers, it is common to assess students' comprehension after reading a text. In this chapter, Beers emphasizes the importance of after-reading strategies. These strategies can be used to enrich students' understanding, while clarifying all misunderstandings. As a teacher this would be a good way to help students who struggle to construct meaning and make sense of what was read. The activity that most stood out to me in this chapter was the "retellings." Retellings is way to have the students actually come up with a summary of a text, but it has them organize the plot, characters, themes and details of the story. For dependent readers, this activity can be vital for their comprehension and interpretation. The activities and tools that Beers includes in the chapter are all quite interesting. They are active ways of getting students engaged in a text and it also sparks interest and conversation. These strategies are ways to steer away from traditional teaching and allow students a chance to do something different and unexpected. 

Chapter 7: During - Reading Strategies

I found this chapter to be quite intriguing. As a reader, I find myself re-reading texts, taking notes and doing anything possible to ensure I am comprehending the text, in which I am reading. While reading this chapter, I was enlightened to the fact that I had been utilizing reading strategies all along. I also was enlightened to know that dependent readers lack these skills. I can recall being in middle and high school and the teacher would assign independent reading in class. Most of the time it would be until a bulk of the text is read before we would even begin to discuss the happenings of the book. For dependent readers, this is a major problem. If we as teachers wait until a text is read before we actively engage our students, we have lost some of our students and their comprehension of the text is obsolete.

Beers tells us that it is vital to talk during texts to make the invisible processes of comprehension visible. She goes over three primary during-reading strategies. The first strategy is say something, the second strategy is rereading and the third is think-aloud. Out of these three strategies, I really like the first one. I do not know how many times I was independently reading a text, but my mind was just not connected to what I was reading. For this first strategy, instead of students reading independently, they are placed into small groups where they will take turn reading aloud. Periodically, while they are reading, they will "say something." This is a way for students to make comments, predict and ask questions. Vygotsky would agree that is an effective strategy for students because they are constucted their own meaning through social interaction. 

Chapter 5: Learning to Make an Inference

From a teacher's standpoint there were several things that stuck out to me in this chapter. At the beginning of Chapter 5, Beers included a vignette illustrating an experience she had early in her career with a student. She asked her student to a question based on an inference and quickly realized she had never taught her students how to draw inferences. Beers states, "You can't teach someone how to make an inference. It's inferential. It's just something you can or can't do." I honestly do not agree with this statement at all. Like everything we have learned up to this point, by giving our students explicit instruction we enable them to learn in capacities that they once were not able to. Readers who struggle to comprehend text, rely primarily on trying to decode it and if the literal meaning is not there, it is hard for them to find meaning. This is where making inferences comes into play. As a teacher we must directly model how we want our students to make inferences. As we read along, I can highlight pronouns and other clues that give our story meaning and substance.