What Good readers Do- High School

Teaching English in inner city North Philadelphia has probably taught me more than any college classroom. In fact, sometimes I fear that I have learned more from my students than they have from me. 

 As an undergraduate, I dreamed of sitting in a circle in my inner city school (it wasn’t haphazardly that I ended up in the inner city, it was my goal) introducing the students to Thoreau and Wordsworth, discussing their impact on literature and society and pondering with the students how they are still relevant today. I quickly learned that in order to get students to that hippie circle they would have to learn to read and then learn to enjoy reading.
 
And it was not as hard as it sounds!
 
But first I had to fail miserably, fight a bout of stress induced hives, consult my students and read a few books!
I mostly relied on my students’ opinions, Cris Tovani’s I Read It but I Don’t Get It and The Reading Zone by Nancy Atwell.

What I learned and what I profess.

• Teach students what good readers do.
• Give students choice (coming soon to a blog near you)
• Teach students what real readers (coming soon to a blog near you)
• Teach students how to “unstuck” themselves. (coming soon to a blog near you)

 
First off, let’s look at how people learn according to the National . While I did not know this when I was teaching reading, looking back it is clear that what good readers already do fits into the framework on how people learn:
People learn by participating in 3 activities:

1. They address pre/misconceptions
2. They learn the framework/basics of a concept
3. They engage in metacognition (National Institute for School Leadership)
   Below is the list of what good readers do. These come from page 51 in Chris Tovani’s I Read It But I Don’t Get It and next to it is the learning activity it supports. As teachers of new or struggling readers it is important to remember, they are learning a new skill. One that you probably do not remember learning or being didactically taught, but a skill nonetheless. We must apply what we know about the brain and learning to the teaching of reading.
   
   
   

•   Make predictions (activity 1)
  
•  Ask yourself a question and try to answer it (inferencing) (activity 1/2)
  
• Make connections- Text to text, text to self, text to world (activity 1) 
  
• Stop and think about what you have read- reread if you have to (activity 3)
  
•  Reflect on what you have read (activity 3)
• Visualize (activity 1,3)
• Use print conventions/patterns (activity 2)
• Slow down- Reading fast is a different skill for a different time.

   
This is what good readers do. You must teach this skills to students. Give them guided practice and then individual practice for each skill. And talk about each of the experiences; metacognition is a huge part of the learning process.