blog 6

I wondered as I was reading this chapter how I could apply the differing theories of "phonics" versus "the whole language approach" into my secondary classroom.  Student-led read alouds is one strategy that many teachers apply in their classroom.  This provides the teacher with two concrete goals for effective reading:  (1) the students actually read the material; and (2) the material can be explicated as it is read.  As Williams points out good readers pause to ponder meaning while they are reading.  However, with all student read alouds, I often find myself struggling to pay attention.  Read alouds can be very motivating and effective if spoken by someone who is familiar with the material and takes it upon themself to establish their own concept of the story's tone.  Students reading material aloud for the first time cannot be expected to meet this criteria.  On a first reading, they are struggling to make sense of the words and the content and in their tone, often, it shows.  So, with limited time, how do we make read alouds more exciting?  One strategy could be asking students to read the material beforehand and then, read it aloud.  Unfortunately, I fear this strategy may be too idealistic.  Students are likely to not read the material at all. The teacher could read every other section.  This way, the students could, perhaps, catch onto the tone.

Williams raises a great million dollar question in this section: "How do we get our students to want to read?"
Many students express how much "they hate reading".  So, I think a more pragmatic question in this case is, "how do we get them not to hate it quite so much?"  Most of the books in the school's curriculum are quite boring and worse, reading skills that they already proclaim to hate are continually tested and tested and retested.  Falling "below basic" in reading skills may be a dent in a teacher's reputation, but certainly, not of any importance to a student who proclaims that such a skill is boring and useless anyways.  In order to make them better readers, we must find a way to insert books our students might actually enjoy alongside Thomas Paine and Shakespeare.