Chapter 2: The Reading and Writing Processes

Vocabulary:

Reading Process: Goal is to comprehend the text and be able to understand it and use it for its intended purpose.

• Involves essential components:
  • Phonemic Awareness and Phonics
    • Phonics: Relationship between phonemes and graphemes
    • Orally manipulating sounds in words
  • Word ID
    • Words students see frequently and are able to read without much thought. With unfamiliar words, students have to use phonics and word parts to pick apart the word. Until most words are recognizable, students will be word to word readers.
  • Fluency
    • When students are able to recognize most words automatically, they become quicker readers, and are able to focus on their expression rather than identifying each word.
  • Vocabulary
    • Knowing what each word means. This helps with comprehension.
  • Comprehension
    • Understanding what they are reading. Being able to recall what happened.
• Stage 1: Prereading
  • Before even opening the book, the reader gathers background knowledge, grasps the purpose, and makes a plan for reading.
    • Background Knowledge: acquired through life experiences, and knowledge that is needed in order to be able to comprehend the text
  • Students will also take the time to preview the text in this stage.
• Stage 2: Reading
  • During this stage, there are 5 different ways students go about reading the book
    • Teacher reads aloud to students:
      • Interactive Read Aloud: Used for books that are written above reading level but are developmentally appropriate. 
      • During the read aloud students are engaged and making predictions, seeing important big ideas, forming questions, and making connections.
      • The teacher models what good readers do while they read the book
      • Reading aloud has lots of benefits: Vocab introduction, modeling comprehension strategies, and increasing student motivation.
    • Shared Reading: Used when students could not read the text independently. Children see the text as the teacher is reading, allowing them to be more engaged and in tune with the story.The students are able to read along once the book has been read to them a few times. 
    • Guided Reading: Used with groups of 4 or 5 students who all read at the same level. A book is chosen for that group’s reading level that they will be able to read with 90-94% accuracy. Students do the reading themselves. Lessons usually last 25-30 mins. Teachers observe the students as they read during their set aside guided reading time. The teacher is looking for evidence of strategy use and watching for when students attempt to identify words and solve reading problems.
    • Partner Reading
    • Independent Reading
• Stage 3: Responding
  • This stage reflects Rosenblatt’s transactional theory. 
  • Students respond to what they’ve read often times in reading logs or in discussions.
• Stage 4: Exploring
  • Rereading; Students go back and examine the text. This is a more teacher directed stage.
  • Close Reading; Purposeful rereading of the text to understand big ideas, determine authors’ purpose, and reflect on meaning of certain words/phrases. Teachers ask text-based questions for students to think directly back to their book.
  • Examining Writer’s Craft; Teachers share info about the author and share others books they’ve written.
  • Focusing On Words and Sentences; 
    • Word Wall: Where students add important words. The word wall can be referred back to when students are writing.
    • Word Sorts: Categorizing words based on how they are related.
  • Teaching Minilessons; 
    • Minilessons: Introducing topic and making examples in selection of text that students are reading. 
• Stage 5: Applying
  • Students extend their comprehension and reflect on their understanding of the text. 
  • This is when a project is made to show what they’ve learned (stories, slide shows, posters, readers theatre, essays, podcast)
  • Readers Theatre: Students act out their reading. They do not memorize their lines or do any movement, they simply practice reading their text with expression outloud to the class.

Writing Process: 5 stages that describe what students think about as they write.

• Prewriting: “getting ready to write” stage. 
  • Choosing a topic
  • Considering purpose and genre
  • Gathering and Organizing Ideas
• Drafting: Stage where students get their ideas down on paper and get a 1st draft done. Drafts are usually messy with crossing out words, arrows, lines, etc. Students are writing quickly and are not concerned with handwriting, grammar, or spelling.
• Revising: Students are refining their ideas. Reading the draft to peers to get reactions and feedback. Revising consists of 3 activities: Rereading rough draft, Sharing rough draft with revising group, and revising based on feedback.
• Editing: Putting the writing into its final form. This is when spelling and grammar are corrected. This is also when students proofread their writing and mark possible errors.
• Publishing: The final copy! This is when students have the opportunity to publish their writing by making books, reading their story to the class, etc.

Reading Strategies: 

• Decoding: Using phonic or morphemic analysis to pick apart unfamiliar words
• Word- Learning: Analyzing word parts to find the meaning of a word
• Comprehension: Predicting, drawing, inferences, visualizing what is being read to help comprehension and understanding of text. 
• Study: taking good notes and questioning to learn more info when students are reading content area books.

Writing Strategies:

• Prewriting: Organizing and developing ideas before writing begins
• Drafting: Narrowing topic and providing examples to focus on ideas for first draft
• Revising: Detecting problems, elaborating ideas, combining sentences to communicate ideas more effectively. 
• Editing: Proofreading to identify spelling and other mechanical errors
• Publishing: Designing layout to prepare final copies to share with classmates.

Classroom Connection: These 2 processes are going to be taught in most classrooms that I could ever teach in. It is important for me to have a good understanding of each process and the importance of each step within them so I can support my students effectively. Having this blog post to refer back to will be very helpful!