Week Five: Chapter 5 Learning to Make an Inference

In Chapter 5 Kylene Beers cites two classroom interactions, one with an 11^th grade Honors English class and another with an 11^th grade English class with struggling readers (pgs. 66-68). I found the difference in the discussions to be startling. I was first surprised at the quality of the Honors students’ discussion. Although it got a little silly at times the kids were feeding off each other and responding to other’s inferences. There was very little teacher prompting which is ideal in a classroom discussion. They were able to get a lot out of a small portion of a text. It was very student centered because they took control of the discussion while the teacher merely prompted and observed. On the other hand the struggling readers immediately shut down after reading the text. Although there was only one teacher prompt cited at the beginning the discussion went nowhere. It seemed once one student got confused and frustrated the rest chimed in their similar confusion as well. They had a hard time making inferences because they were only looking for what was directly stated in the text. Since the text said nothing about a movie or tickets they dismissed it as a possibility. The last sentence of this transcription, said by a student, struck me the most “This is stupid” (pg. 68). When working with struggling readers it is amazing how quick this phrase gets uttered and the shutdown immediately follows. It can be the most challenging to work with these students. I cannot count how many times I have heard students say that phrase while working at my internship. Unless you can figure out a way to get them engaged and understand the assignment you’ve lost them. That is one of the most helpless feelings for a teacher.

To help students draw inferences from a text I think a teacher should first teach what an inference is so that they know what they are supposed to be doing. A good introductory activity could be showing students movie trailers and having them describe what they think the movie will be about. By using a visual representation it is much less intimidating than a text but it still gets the point across. The teacher can first model what they want the students to do by showing a trailer and then scripting her thoughts, her inferences, about the movie. Then they can try it on their own. Students will infer who will be the main characters, the setting, the plot, etc. All of these things can be derived from a novel or portion of text as well. I think this would be an excellent bridge to learning how to use inferences with a text. This could work in a potential classroom because it relates to students’ lives. Kids make inferences all the time when watching movie trailers to decide if they will go see the film, they just don’t realize it. The teacher could show a variety of trailers that are popular among the students to pique their interest as well.  I think some potential challenges could be students losing sight of what they are supposed to be doing in the activity and merely watch the trailers. I also think some students will excel at this but then not see the connection between making an inference using the trailer and making an inference with a text. The teacher will need to be explicit in order to help students make the connection.  Another potential challenge could be that some students still just won’t get it which I think is a possibility with any activity a teacher implements. These students will require extra help and instruction from the teacher and possibly more examples modeled for them.

Week Four: Chapter 4 Explicit Instruction in Comprehension

Chapter 4 of Kylene Beers’ book emphasizes modeling directly and explicitly to students. I think guided practice is an excellent way to model for the students the strategies you want them to be able to use on their own. When teaching a new skill to students you first need to show them how you, an expert, would do it and model it several times. It is also similar to scaffolding because we want to give kids support so that they can build up to doing it independently no matter how many times they have to fail before getting it right. In lessons I have made for my teaching strategies in Language Arts class I used guided practice to model skills like context clues. In my future classroom I think I will continue to use this teaching strategy to help students learn.

At the beginning of the chapter Beers states “We sometimes confuse explaining to students what is happening in a text with teaching students how to comprehend a text” (pg 40). As Beers points out if you explain something to a student over and over again each time they will understand, but they become dependent on your explanation. If we teach students strategies they will be able to come up with their own answers independently and over time will be able to apply their knowledge and skills to other texts. Similar to chapter 2 it is critical to move students to becoming independent readers. It is better to take up a class period teaching a strategy than to merely explain the meaning of one text and move on to the next because by teaching a strategy you are giving students the knowledge they will need to do it on their own in the future. In the latter you are only teaching to one text rather than all the texts they may read in their schooling.

I think the class discussion technique that the student teacher Kate used, “IRE: initiate, respond and evaluate,” tends to be used frequently. I can recall subbing for one of the 7^th grade Language Arts teachers and reading through “A Christmas Carol” with the students. Now that I look back I think I was focusing on this strategy to generate discussion. The story was in a play format so the kids all had roles and read aloud. At certain points in the story I would stop to check for comprehension of the text and pose questions to the students. After a few answers they would continue reading. Although I didn’t have time to prepare for this particular lesson and reading I think it is easy to fall into this IRE pattern. The student teacher Kate also noted that “It’s just easier to, you know, just tell them what the story is about” (pg. 55). Although it may be easier to do this Kate then notes that by using this strategy “Well, I guess then they don’t get any better at figuring out how to figure out a story” (pg 55). In the future I think I will be more conscious of how I teach a text to students from reading this chapter.

Week Two: Creating a culture of reading

I think that it is important to create a culture of reading in the classroom because as Language Arts teachers we want to make students lifelong readers. In order to do this you need to provide students with the necessary skills and tools to access a text. To create this culture you first need to teach reading strategies so students can engage and connect with a book.
You also need to provide them with opportunities to read books that they are interested in. I think a classroom library would be essential to have to give students access to texts and the school library should also be visited regularly. Also i think a teacher could create lists of books with similar themes for students to choose from based on their own interests. Often a student doesn't realize that there are books that can relate to their lives. For example, Mike Lupica has written many great novels about sports which students love to read.
Going along with this I think independent reading logs and projects are a good way to promote reading outside of school. In my internship I have seen a huge push for independent reading. Students are required to submit a weekly log of their reading and each trimester they are required to complete a project on one of the books they have read on their own. I also think it is important as a teacher to show your own interest in reading to students. I think you could give book talks to your students to show you also read outside of class.

Week One: Chapter 2 Creating Independent Readers

Beers points out in chapter 2 of When Kids Can’t Read What Teachers Can Do that as teachers we often assume that by improving a student’s reading skills they will want to read. Through working with students she has realized that “simply improving the cognitive aspects of reading (comprehension, vocabulary, decoding and word recognition) does not ensure that the affective aspects of reading (motivation, enjoyment, engagement) will automatically improve” (pg 13). I think that teachers want to believe that by giving students the necessary tools they will want to read on their own. After all it is every teacher’s dream to motivate students to read for pleasure outside of the classroom. We want to make students lifelong readers.

However, to do this we must help the struggling readers which Beers believes “there is no single template for… because anyone can struggle given the right text” (pgs. 14-15). I agree that too often teachers assume the struggling reader is that student slumped down in the back of the classroom with their head down. In reality anyone can be a struggling reader when given a certain text. As Beers points out “the struggle isn’t the issue; the issue is what the reader does when the text gets tough” (pg. 15). I related to Beers’ connection of struggling when she read Beloved because I can recall struggling through texts during my undergraduate studies in college. In particular I remember having a difficult time reading Women In Love by D.H. Lawrence. Similar to Beers I struggled as an independent reader but I was able to finish the book because I have strategies that I use to get through a text on my own. I think students do not realize that their teachers can also be struggling readers and I think it is important for a teacher to have a conversation with their students about it. The students need to know they are not alone in their struggle and that there are strategies they can learn to become independent readers. It is not very often that we find independent readers in the classroom and as Beers states “my goal is to move dependent readers toward independence” (pg. 16).  In order to create independent readers students need to learn to depend on themselves instead of an outside source, like the teacher, to help them.