Chapter 7 Response Questions
Posted October 21, 2013 
Comments(1)
Comments(1) To get you started, if you need a bit of help…
1. What reading strategies do you remember helping you when you were in school?
2. What sorts of texts will your students be reading in your subject-area? What might some of the challenges be? What creative reading strategies might you employ in your own classroom?
3. What sorts of reading support can you build into your own classroom, and how/when will students be able to use these supports? Will you make a word wall? How can these kinds of spaces/resources be interactive?
When I was in grade 5 and beginning my English classes I had an amazing teacher. The number one thing she did for me that I believe helped me throughout the rest of my schooling was foster a love of reading. She found books that looking back, were probably below our expected reading level, but that made them accessible. It was with these books that I grew comfortable with reading and developed my love of story. Furthermore, I would bring these books home where my mother would read them. Being an English language learner herself, even though she had written a phd in English, my mother also appreciated the easy narrative nature of the writing and got sucked into books with me. For both of us it was our first time reading English for pleasure, and my first time reading any language for pleasure. Reflecting on this really reminds me as to the importance of scaffolding. It may seem like we are going easy on students at first, but the increase in motivation, comfort, and self-confidence is well worth the investment.
There is a variety of reading materials that students will need to confront in Home Economics. In foods, I will start with activities on how to read recipes. I will type out recipes to be simple, easy on the eyes, and straightforward. As the year develops I might ask students to rewrite an on-line recipe to be clearer. Or draw the process described in a recipe. The focus will be on helping students understand the information a recipe conveys, but also appreciating how useful that information is. In textiles it can be tricky because pattern instructions are often written very horribly. I do similar activities with patterns as I do with recipes.