Chapter 9 Vocabulary

I think chapter nine brought up alot of really good points on vocabulary.  It covered many good mechanisms on how to better absorb different words.  The first suggestion is that of assigning word study instead of memorizing.  I know that when I was in high school many of my friends and I would just cram things before tests, instead of actually understanding and comprehending.  If we would have focused more then, we would not have to go back now to see what certain items mean.  Knowledge is never gained quickly, but if we do take our time to reflect on what is being processed, the information will stay with us much longer.  I also really liked that she brought up teaching students how to use context clues.  Teachers are always telling us to use them, but I don't recall anyone ever really teaching me how to utilize them.  If we teach students how to define words by using other words around it, we can greatly increase their ability to read.  They will be able to use their own inferences to make sense of the sentence, even if they do not know all the words in it.  I also really liked here section on read aloud and SSR.  I found it quite astonishing that she stated, "In fact, adults, when talking to other adults, will use about 17 rare words for every 1000 words"(197).  That is not even one percent.  It makes me wonder what kind of example we are setting for those who look up to us.  If we want all of our future generations to have an enriched vocabulary I think everyone needs to start reading more now.

Chapter 8 Extending Meaning

Surprisingly, I did not like many of the after reading strategies.  One in particular that I did not agree with was the scales.  Likert scales in particular were my least favorite.  To me, they appear to require very little thought.  Anyone could make up statements about the book and then either agree or disagree with them.  Semantic scales were also lacking, using polar opposite traits to describe characters.  I think this strategy would be more effective and efficient if it required explanations to their decisions.  If they expanded on their reasoning, I think they would get a lot more out of the activity.  On a brighter note, I really liked the somebody wanted but so strategy.  What I found most interesting about this was that it could sum up an entire novel into one sentence.  It was able to identify the characters, plot, conflict, and resolution.  Also, it encourages you to use "then", to continue breaking down the novel.  I think the more we simplify certain parts of the story, the simpler the ideas become.  This really exercises our decoding skills, not just by reading words, but by undersatnding what they mean when they are all together.

Chapter 7 Constructing Meaning

I found all the strategies in this chapter to be very enlightening.  I never knew that there were so many different types of during reading strategies.  Compared to before and after reading strategies, I find during strategies to be the most beneficial.  I like the idea of trying to decipher the text while reading it because, in my opinion that is when most confusion occurs.  If you conduct these strategies at that moment, text can hopefully become clearer, earlier.  One activity that I found particularly interesting was say something.  I liked that it involved peers working and collaborating together.  It allows them to bounce ideas off each other and expand their thoughts, perhaps  even on something they did not pick up on right away.  I also really liked the concept of the character bulletin board.  I think this really can help the visual learners understand the text.  If we can put words into pictures, perplexing thoughts and ideas can be displayed in more simplistic images.  It reminded me of the classroom activity we did with our first book review; which I really enjoyed doing.  Drawing pictures really helped me recognize main points and themes of the novel.  Which brings up another good point about this strategy, I really believe it could work for all age groups.  Drawing pictures enables kids to express their creativity, which in terms of classroom lessons, is more appealing than simply just reading. 

Chapter 5. Helping Students Make Inferences

What I found most interesting in chapter five was Rosenblatt's idea of transactional reading.  This idea states that readers don't just translate text, but that they also are "constructing meaning from the information that the author provides in the text and the information they bring to the text"(69).  While decoding is a very important part of understanding literature, we also need to realize that making inferences is essential to comprehension.  As readers we need to be able to connect text to real life knowledge.  When we create these links we enable our ability to predict and infer.