Chapter 5&10: Catching Readers Before They Fall

Chapter 5, A Comprehensive Literacy Framework, talked about the several different ways to read to, with, and by children as well as writing to, with, and by children. The book provides such sufficient examples that are going to be extremely helpful as we move forward with out classrooms at University but mostly as we move toward our future classrooms.

I think one of the big things that the chapter stresses is the need for flexibility from the teacher in these areas. One of the first things the authors discuss is that although all are necessary in the day, it's important that you know not all deserve equal time. It varies and depends solely on the needs of the students. The need for flexibility is reiterated through out the entire chapter. The teacher has to be flexible. Sometimes students need different things at different times. For example, on page 81, the authors talk about the chart being grouped by levels but sometimes it's specific needs. I think this can be especially beneficial in any classroom. For example, I'm working with kindergarten right now in my field experience. I think that grouping the children by specific needs at this time can be helpful. Some of the students can write letters correctly but many write them backwards while others use capital and lowercase interchangeably so that can be an example of how to group the students. I think that's a really helpful hint to teachers.

Another really important concept that the chapter discussed was this need to give children time to read. Just like the article we read by Allington earlier this semester, it's important to give students at least ninety minutes of reading time. This book discusses the need for reading time because if it's not there then students cannot use the processes they are learning. Another additional thing I liked that piggy backed with this is under the "Sample Daily Schedule," reading and writing practices took place in other subjects besides just reading and writing time. It was under math and science/social studies!

The Sample Daily Schedule really opened my mind up to some new ideas. Again, I loved that reading and writing were present through out the entire day in every subject, not just writing and reading. We are moving out of this reading and writing time only during our literacy blocks as we progress but when I was younger it wasn't exactly like that. Another awesome thing that I liked about the Sample Daily Schedule was the "explore time" first thing in the morning. I have never heard of or seen this in a classroom and I think it's wonderful. It allows students to engage but get their thoughts together first thing in the morning!

Chapter 10, Assessment: Looking Closely at Readers, provides great examples for how to help assess students. The very first page of the chapter quotes Fountas and Pinnel, "You cannot see into children's minds but their behaviors can guide your teaching decisions." I think this is important to note because I personally feel that by watching children you can learn so much about them. You cannot learn about the child if you are not watching their behaviors. And if you are but you are not writing them down then essentially you may miss a pattern or something very big. Another point on this page I liked was that you have to pay attention to what could be contributing to why a struggling reading is struggling. I believe by understanding this, you are likely to help them much more.

An important thing that I am taking away from this chapter is the importance in keeping track of your students each and every day. Like I said, I think this can help with numerous amounts of things. I like the way that the chapter gives pictures of how Katie does her tracking. I also noted how the authors discussed the need for keeping certain goals. In more than one example, Katie has clear goals and an approximate amount of time she wants to accomplish these goals. I think it's important to do this with your readers if only for those that are struggling. It helps guide you as a teacher.

Although I find these tools helpful, I think that we are approaching an era where we have better ways to keep track of things than in a binder. Many different applications and sites offer wonderful ways to track students learning needs. I think in my classroom, I will probably take notes daily but then track them into a site or app that I will be using. I think this provides a good way to look over the notes and think a little bit more about them too.

Catching Readers Before They Fall (Chapter 4)

Chapter 4, Beyond Sound Out, is some of the best new information I have received in a while. The Chapter expands on this idea about finding more strategies to figure out a word than just sounding it out. The "sounding it out" method has been something that I have been told since I was younger and it's something I always hate telling students - because it doesn't always work. In fact, it barely ever works when it needs to.

The reason I found this chapter so beneficial and full of great information is because it gives me as a future teacher a better way to help students when they're struggling. Anytime I've worked with students and they look at me to find a word, I always use the "sound it out" method because it's what I've always been taught. The beginning of the chapter discusses that this method only has about 50-60% of words working in it's favor. Sure, it's got the majority on it's side but it what about the additional 40-50% of words in our language? We can't only use a method that doesn't work the way it should therefore handicapping our children. If the students can't figure out an alternative way besides sounding it out then our students will not learn the words that they cannot sound out therefore making their text sometimes totally not understandable. Which if we aren't learning to understand, then what are we doing?

The strategies that the authors find useful to help students find out a word they cannot read is by meaning, structure, and visual. So for meaning, students are using their knowledge of the text around, the pictures, or context of the story to make sense. For the structure students are using their knowledge of spoken language to know if it sounds right. The visual is by seeing the letter and sounds and seeing if the word looks right. Before I even left the first page where the authors introduces these strategies, I felt that knowing these was going to improve my reading instruction drastically.

My favorite part about the authors of this text is that they use what they've actually done in a classroom to give examples to us. This chapter had so many great examples for how to help children based on different things. The author helped show the conversation that worked with the student and alternate ways that might work. I think this is important in the text because it provides us with this knowledge of how the students might react to what we say and can help us pretend this is our scenario too.

I think that one of my favorite parts about the strategies is teaching the students structure. Students know how to talk in day to day language obviously much better than they can read (most of the time and especially earlier on). This means students know what sounds right. I think this strategy is my favorite that I use and that I can help students use too. By finding out the word (or maybe not) and seeing if it makes sense in our day to day language, students can really understand if the word can go. Even if it isn't the correct word, the making sure it sounds right can still help students.

I just really enjoyed this chapter because of it's emphasize on decoding (sounding out) not working all the time. At one point, the authors even discuss that if students do this with every word (even if they are getting the right word), it slows down there reading therefore possibly making them unable to comprehend the text because of the slow speed they are going. This chapter provides readers with excellent ways, and real examples, of how to help students figure out words beyond the sounding out. I loved it.

Catching Readers Before They Fall (Chapters 1-3)

Already judging from the title of the book, Catching Readers Before They Fall, I knew that this text was going to be beneficial. Just from the title, I had concluded it was about getting to readers before they fell too far behind grade level.

"Each child is a potential new puzzle, and we must remain active learners in order to solve these puzzles" (page 2). The first chapter of Catching Readers Before They Fall is focused on discussing where exactly the text is going to take you. That particular quite stuck out to me because I found that concept as an extremely important thing to take. We have to keep learning. Although I think the this particular part in the text is referring more towards teachers who need to keep learning and changing what they know for their students where as I am a college student still learning. It stuck out to me though as a reminder that in two years when I am (fingers crossed) in my first classroom that I remember there is always more room for learning. As chapter one continues, it talks about what we are going to get out of the book and what the authors believe. One thing I found really interesting in this chapter was the postcards at the end. The postcards were written like to different groups of people about what they will acquire from this text. I thought it was just a neat and fun way to do it to direct at different people.

Chapter 2, How Reading Works, discusses many good points that I had not necessarily thought of. First, the chapter starts out by going on about elementary schools and the different programs they have adopted there. At the end of each one it says that "many students are learning to read just fine, but some are struggling and falling behind." For me, I took out of this that all approached to learning to read have drawbacks. No system is 100% guaranteed for every child. Which lead me to think about how schools do adopt certain programs and do not allow teachers to use something different. This made me wonder what these schools were doing for students who did not take well to the certain approach they had. Are students at these schools who do not take well to this approach get a different one? I don't know for sure, but I think they probably are not getting taught a different one. As the chapter goes on, it discusses the importance of the reading process. Which again got me to wonder, if the students are not learning through the approach, the basal for example, does teaching them a process automatically make the basal an okay approach for the student? The chapter also talks about how some teachers stop feeling responsible for the student and have a "It wasn't our fault" kind of attitude about the student who is/has fallen behind or has not been able to get back to classroom level. The importance with this is, we cannot be satisfied with such an attitude or way of thinking. We should think of each child who steps into our classroom as our own and take them under our wing - doing everything possible to help them succeed.

Chapter 2 begins to also talk about reading processes and the important roles they play in proficient readers' lives. The reading process is crucial for students to learn and understand reading. The reading process is something that we have discussed in our E340 class too. Catching Readers Before They Fall cited on several different instances the book Strategies that Work which is something that we've been reading in E340. The reading processes include how a reader understands reading so I think this is really important to teach kids. I personally don't remember being taught this but I think it can make a world of difference for someone who is struggling with reading. I love to visualize a book that I am reading like it is a movie. I have always done that but I didn't even know people didn't know how to do that until I was explaining to my grandma about what we were doing in my classes. "Oh well what are some comprehension strategies?" She asked. So I told her. "Oh wow, visualizing. I had never thought of that before." Really? It didn't occur to me that visualizing was a reading process because I had never thought about how I had done it. I had just done it.

Chapter 3, Vygotsky Takes a Seat in Our Classrooms, focuses on Vygotsky and his idea on zone of proximal development. In previous psychology classes, we had reviewed Vygotsky but I like the way the authors talk and discuss his theory even more in depth than I had ever before. I think this is extremely important because we have to be able to teach kids where they are not bored, like they would be if they only ever did zone of actual development, or so far lost they cannot pay attention or understand where it's "out of reach." Like when we tried to read that abstract in class last Monday. It was so hard. I kept trying to understand but it was like there was no way. I didn't have the background knowledge to understand what was going on, at all. This is important for us as teachers to be aware of so we do not have students doing activities where they feel like that. One thing that I would really like to take into my classroom and field experience is the idea of thinking about a child and answering certain questions about him/her. This can really help the teacher better understand what the child knows and does not know.

Chapter 3 also explores the idea of how we should model for students. I think this is something that teachers really should already know how to do but I like that the chapters addresses the idea of demonstrating, working with students, and then letting them do it alone. I think it's important for teachers not to miss those steps.

So far I have really enjoyed reading Catching Readers Before They Fall. The text is addressed towards teachers. I really enjoy how in both chapter one and two, the authors use real examples with kids to show what they are talking about. That helps give a better understanding for what we as teachers should do.

Allington Chapters 2&3 Reflection

Chapter 2 What Really Matters: Kids Need to Read A lot was quite overwhelming to me. First the author starts off with discussing the importance of why kids need to read more at school. Not just ten more minutes, or even twenty but at least ninety minutes. The overwhelming amounts of research took me by surprise. The author says at one point, " But Krashen (1993) notes that in 93 percent of the reading comprehension test comparisons students who were assigned more reading or allocated more reading time in school performed as well or better than students who did not have the added reading assigned or that added time allocated." 93 percent? That alone is such a high percentage that it seems that it should be taken in consideration in every single classroom. 

The most interesting thing I found in this chapter was that reading assignment, like workbook pages, had no studies providing sufficient evidence that those actually helped students making any improvement. So this means that workbook pages and practicing reading things really does not help improve reading levels. I am sure that like me, many other educators have no clue that research shows this. Obviously, I am not surprised that reading more makes children better readers but I am surprised that it seems to pretty much be the only real thing to help children read better. 

Next, the author discusses that during the school day teachers waste several minutes doing things like giving directions for assignments. The author then takes time to discuss essentially classroom management and how having good classroom management can make more time for reading and writing too. Before I came to IU, I went to Ball State University where I took a classroom management class so this part of the chapter did not surprise me. The whole class was on how we could essentially save time and make our classroom learning experience for our students better by being organized and having good management skills. This section of the chapter discusses that a little bit which I think is true. Educators need to have good classroom management skills or they will spend all day wasting minutes on things they really should take half the amount of time. 

The part in the chapter that I disagree with is the part of cutting specials and making them after school. I can see where they may have art or computer time less often but more time when they do, but I do not like the idea of cutting it out and adding it to after school activities as I think too much emphasize on learning can actually handicap our students. They deserve to have an art experience, a computer time, or gym time during the school day. I do not think that cutting it out is the right answer.

Chapter 3: Kids Need Books They Can Read made so many good points about students reading books that are not more difficult to read. The chapter starts off with talking about how we are always trying to get students to read things more difficult than the their own reading level. This has been true for all of my years as a student. On page 46, the author notes that being able to recognize words is more important than the quantity of exposure to words until there is a high ability to recognize words and then it becomes critical to expose more words. This, to me, is a crucial point for educators to understand. In my opinion, students can not be expected to become better readers by constantly reading texts that they do not understand.

Another point the author talks about is study done where only one in eighteen books in social studies and science were of the correct grade levels readability. Not shocking to me. I feel like social studies and science books, in elementary school, were always so hard to comprehend. Students can not be expected to learn when they cannot even comprehend what the text is saying. I like the point that the author makes when he says, "the key point here is that the research has well demonstrated the need for students to have instructional texts that they can read accurately, fluently and with good comprehension if we hope to foster academic achievement" (page 47). 

As far as the different studies on readability, I found that it is important for teachers to know. The part where the author talks about even an estimate is better than nothing. I wholeheartedly agree with. I found the part about the "the three finger rule" to be useful. This is where if students hold up three fingers in the first two pages of words they do not know, the book is too difficult. I think that is a great way for students to determine if a book is too hard to read. I did not like the example of finding out if it is too difficult by "Recording Accuracy of the Word Recognition" because I personally felt like this is a time consuming task for a teacher to do for every single one of her students. 

Another thing in this chapter, I think is crucial to making better readers is to get access to books. The author goes in great detail discussing the differences between different social classes and the books in their libraries. It's so unfair that certain schools do not have the same resources as other public schools. We should not want the lower class to remain there. We should want them to move up and have better lives. Reading brings power, knowledge, and intellect. We should strive for a country full of these people. In addition, I like that the author talks about series books. Many people love series books. I personally like them too (if there isn't 100 but more like 3-4). I think it can really help students get connected to the character and help them with literacy by being able to identify things that will happen, etc. 

Lastly, I enjoyed the authors discussion about a classroom library. I like the point he makes about changing the displays too. I feel that a classroom library essentially creates this idea that you value reading. If you're an educator and you just have one small bookshelf with books thrown all over, it does not display that reading matters to your students. By creating a classroom, changing displays often, it shows that you value your library because you value the books in it. I love the idea of the 5-10 books on display! I think that's an awesome idea!