It seems to me that this boy is cold.  I see his hat, scarf, jacket, and boots.  But it’s just all red on the cover so I don’t have all of the clues I need to make a good inference or prediction.  But I can tell that he’s walking quickly, and when I add that to the clothing, I predict that it’s cold where he is (pg. 550). 

And these are strategies just for increasing comprehension!  For each of the other areas that the teachers covered during the observations,  i.e., vocabulary, text structures, and text features, they used even more strategies.  This article is rich with ideas for the new teacher.  I believe that incorporating all these ideas into our own classrooms will prove to be fruitful in creating readers who read well, understand what they’re reading, and as a result, enjoy reading.

Blogs are such a great way to follow up internet research.  Children love having their work read by others and publication serves as a big motivator in not only getting them to do the work, but to do a good job.  As stated in the article, blogs cost nothing but a little time.  Considering the rewards of students’ having been motivated to perform at their best academically and having learned the ins and outs of computer navigation and research, it is time well spent.

I thoroughly enjoyed this article and agree with it so very much.  I’ve always been a firm believer that many children in the upper grades are reading texts that are too difficult.  To have a low-achieving reader read a text such as this aloud in class, as Jon did in Ms. Green’s class, is ludicrous.  This is not helping him learn social studies, or other struggling readers like him.  What it is doing, on the contrary, is hurting his self-esteem and keeping him behind in reading. 

I love the idea of using social studies trade books in lieu of those nasty ol’ textbooks.  The Sign of the Beaver is a good book to have students read IF it is matched up with their reading level.  It was a poor match for Jon.  Trade books are more enjoyable for students to read – they tell a story and are not overwhelmingly filled with bland facts.  Additionally, social studies trade books are chock full of historical information and will be better remembered by the students.  Why?  Because they’re fun to read!  Finally, trade books can be suited to children’s reading level, a must for children to be able to read them in the first place.  The thing I find most magical about using trade books is this:  not all readers have to read the same book!  As a matter of fact, as teachers, we don’t want them to because there are different reading levels within the classroom.  I feel confident that there are plenty of stories pertaining to the same topic, say colonial life in America, in mult-reading levels.  I say we take advantage of that fact, cater to our students’ reading needs, and throw the textbook out the window.

This book of poems is easy and fun to read.  What a brilliant idea to take simple one or two word things (seashell, asparagus, telephone poles) and make a poem  about them.  Although they are short poems, they are chock-full of carefully chosen words such as descriptive adjectives, vivid predicates, heck all the words are descriptive!  This is an entertaining read, to be sure.

 The poems in this book are so poignantly written.  My favorite one is Love That Boy.  Of course, I’m a parent and when I read this, every maternal instinct in me rose to my throat and made a lump there!  I could hear the voice of a proud father telling how much he loves his little boy.  These poems are precious, but I’d venture to say that it is the photographs that make them come to life.  They capture so much behind these little eyes, it makes you wonder what they were thinking when the shutter clicked, what they’ve seen back in a time when discrimination against blacks permeated our country.  I don’t believe anyone is able to read this book and not fall in love with these little brown angels.

“… as I filled my notebook, something significant began to happen.  I was learning to write fluently – to get text down on paper in order to go back to it.  I was rereading, reflecting, and writing some more.  I discovered my own ideas and things I wanted to dwell on in my notebook.”   

Think of what writing notebooks will do for our students.  It’s exciting.

CHAPTER 2:  It is mentioned in this chapter that people do not see themselves as writers because they feel they have nothing worthwhile to say.  My older daughter loves to write (and talk), she is never at a loss for words.  But my younger daughter fell into this category in high school – writing lessons were drudgery for her as she could rarely think of how to begin her writing piece.  As I tried to motivate her, I pointed out that she ought to look at writing as simply having a conversation with someone.  If she were standing face to face with a friend, what would she verbally say about this particular topic?  She immediately began talking.  And talking.  After a little while, I would smile and say, “Now put that down on paper.”  There was rarely a time this did not work.  I think pointing this out to students would really make them realize that writing is a form of talking, so writing doesn’t have to be hard at all.  We all have something important to say.  I like how Ms. Buckner sort of turned the tables when she suggested that she as a teacher takes notes in her notebook about each student so that she can make connections to their written stories.  I see that there are many reasons to have a writing notebook at hand.  I will definitely have one myself as a new teacher.  Additionally, this chapter points out that children can insert writings into their notebook and later build on them to make a more complete story, or they may refer back to their notebooks and retrieve ideas for stories.