Final Reflection

Overall, I really enjoyed this class. I loved the reading selection. I have a huge list of books I want to read now after hearing so much about them in class. I also learned a lot of things I can use in my classroom. I've already used the strategies in my other literature and teaching classes this semester. I also really liked the textbook that was chosen for the class. I liked that she offered a lot of suggestions, but I also liked that she broke the strategies down and applied them to a classroom. That really helped me to have a better understanding of what was actually happening and how it benefits students. As for class, I really liked that it wasn't a straight lecture and that we did different things in class. It kept my attention. I also thought it was really neat when we were able to practice some of the strategies in class. This was one of my favorite classes that I've ever taken at Kent.

Chapter 14

"If we listen, we'll hear very specific criteria for what makes a book appealing to a reluctant reader."

In this chapter, Beers talks a lot about what type of books reluctant readers want to read. She also talked a lot about how to encourage students to read more books. One of the ways to do this was to use a read aloud. One of the suggestions she had was to put a lot of expression and excitement into the reading to get student's attention. I was a little surprised by this because I wasn't expecting that much emphasis to be placed on the teacher's reading. Another strategy teachers could use would be the Read and Tease. The teacher would read a chapter or two and then stop at a compelling part in book. The goal is to peak student interest in the book, so they want to read it. I really liked this strategy when we used it in class because I really wanted to know what happened in book. I think it's a very effective way of catching a student's attention and motivating then to read.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13 talked about creating a classroom that encourages students to take a risk with reading. One of the most important things she said was that teachers should not tolerate put-downs. In one of my high school classes, a particular student would make negative comments all the time to other students if they got something wrong. The teacher never stepped in to stop the student from making the comments. Sometimes the teacher even laughed. Eventually students became tired of being made fun of and just quit participating in class.

I also liked that she talked about using appropriate literature. By appropriate, she meant that the text needs to be easy enough for students with word recognition problems and also choosing literature that appeals to them versus the normal classics. I really liked this chapter because I think it's very important for students to feel comfortable and confident in class in order for them to succeed.

Chapter 10

One thing I really liked in this chapter was in measuring fluency. Beers was talking about why fluency matters and how it can be a problem. In one paragraph, she broke down the rate of words per minute a student reads. I was really surprised by just how long it could take a high school student to read 20 pages. For a student who only reads 60 words per minute, it would take that student 2 and 1/2 hours to just read the assignment. It would be very hard for a student to complete reading and assignments if he or she struggled that badly with fluency. I also liked that at one point Beers said, "Flash cards drills, placing words on word walls, listening to a teacher read aloud, following along in a text while listening to an audiotape of the same text-these teaching strategies are not reading." I liked that she offered strategies on how to help improve fluency, but the main way for students to improve in reading is simply by reading.