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.
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