Chapter 5 and 10 Catching Readers

In chapter 5 of Catching Readers Before they Fall, I agree that reading and writing to children, with children, and by children in every day is important because it gives them the practice they need as well as the modeling they need. I also liked that the author added in the importance of the considerations for scheduling groups together and tells how that can be done in the classroom. It is also nice that they made a section for "Putting it all together in a typical day". I know that will be helpful to use as a guide later on in my classroom.

In chapter 10 I liked that the authors stated how conferences are much more helpful to the students than answering questions are about a story. It gets them thinking more critically and can help the teacher have a better idea about where the students stand in their understanding of the text. The grids they give us in the book will also be very helpful for me in the future as a teacher.

Chapter 4: Beyond "Sound It Out"

                                                     Chapter 4: Beyond "Sound It Out"

      While reading chapter 4, I was interested that the authors pushed straying away from the regular approach of having students sound out a problem he or she does not know. The three "Balances of Sources of Information for Word Solving", Meaning, Structure, and Visual, make a lot of sense to me as useful sources. These are three things I use when I read, so when the chapter mentioned how these three things will help children, I thought about my own experiences with reading and how they also help me to make sense of what is happening in what I am reading. 

       It was also very interesting to me that most words actually do not work when trying to use the "sound it out method". The statistic they gave of the words that do not actually work with that method was surprising to me and I did not actually believe it at first. After they gave a few examples such as "said, night, and know," I began to think of many more words that would also not be very easy to sound out. This chapter was helpful to me and I think I will come back to it when I have my own classroom because it gives many options and techniques of what to say to help struggling readers when they are stuck on words or misplace words with other words. 

Blog 1: "What really matters: Kids need to read a lot

When reading this article I thought a lot about the class I student taught in during my senior year of high school and during cadet teaching last year during my sophomore year of college. Thinking back to that class, the teacher always added in reading time whenever she could for the students. Whether it was during silent reading time, small groups, or as a class, the students always had time throughout the day to read. This article made me realize how important individual reading really is for each student. With all of the research that was brought into the article, it would be hard to argue otherwise. My initial thoughts about some of the things that the author said, though, were that they were a little unrealistic. The main thing that is coming to mind is how the author said that all of the clerical work could be taken care of before school starts by volunteer parents. It would not only be hard to get volunteer parents for every day of the year, but also many parents are already rushing to be able to get their students to school on time. I think it is a good idea in theory, but it sounds like it would be a very difficult task to accomplish.