Haley's Literacy Response Blog

I agree with the author that vocabulary is key to not just comprehension, but also success in school and in life. Words make up our life, and if we do not understand how to communicate with one another, how would we ever be able to learn from one another? History is the sum of written/recorded accounts of what we know has happened in life before us. So much of this content is given through written expression. Likewise, in order to make history, we need to know how to express ourselves through our writing to future generations. Hinchman Chapter 7 gave some really great examples of reading comprehension strategies. I was so excited to read through these. As a non-English major, I worry about how to help my kids with reading, as I know how important it is to them. Some of these strategies, such as K-W-L and Teach-Teach-Trade are definitely tools I could easily implement into my classroom. I never realized how lucky I was growing up that I didn't struggle as much as some of the other r...

One of my favorite professor's here at Olivet who retired a few years ago had his students memorize these words: "If they know you care, you can accomplish anything." These words could not be more true, and I could not get this professor's voice out of my head as I read these two chapters. Before students can learn any content, or care to read any words on a page in front of them, there has to be a motivation to learn. To help increase student motivation, there must first be good rapport built by the teacher with his/her students. I hate hearing of students getting lost in the shuffle of a school. It is so easy for a teacher to miss out on connecting with a student. If a teacher truly wants to see his/her students succeed, the first step is to care about them as people. While it is true that the national/state standards do not know the stories behind each and every student, they do set each student up with a goal towards achievement. In Social Studies, these skills lo...

Hinchman Chapter 8 discusses the importance of bringing differentiation into the classroom. As a social studies teacher, I know that each class will be extremely varied when it comes to reading and especially learning abilities. Because there is so much reading involved in a social studies classroom, it is extremely important that I learn how to differentiate lessons for my students. When I first learned about differentiation, I was a bit nervous. I understood what it meant to differentiate for students with I.E.P's and developmental disabilities, but for all students? At first it seemed to me like differentiation meant making work easy for students, that they were not forced to push themselves to meet higher expectations. However, this is not the case at all. Differentiation is adapting lessons for students so they are interested in their work and can challenge themselves at their own level. It does not always mean "making things easier for some students." It can also b...

Reading informational texts for a secondary classroom should involve so much more than just reading it through. Although this is what we mostly went through as students, we know from first-hand experience that this does not excite or motivate students to actually learn from the documents. This chapter is full of example ideas of how to actually connect students with the text. The first step is motivation. Telling students to read a text without any reason why is a recipe for disaster. Linda Darling-Hammond in her research has found that students need to be able to relate their work to skills they will need in the 21st century. Whatever we do in the classroom should prepare them for the real world when they leave school. Therefore, in giving students a text to read, they should not just read over it once for content, but interpret and analyze it in order to practice pertinent 21st century skills. After motivating students to read a text, they will need help understanding it so that the...

Hinchman Chapter 8 discusses the role of secondary content reading in middle and high schools. Moving away from fiction, as students grow older, they begin to read more informational texts during the school year. Not only does the type of reading change, but also the amount. In order to keep up with the vast amount of content teachers must teach in one year, the students must be prepared to keep up with the different readings in each content area. Because English teachers are still working with fiction and poetry, much of the instruction on how to read content-based reading comes from the content area teachers themselves. Therefore, I believe content teachers must spend a significant amount of time early on to prepare students for the readings that will come. It is important that content-specific texts be introduced slowly, as students should have a thorough knowledge of reading strategies before diving into a text. Vocabulary is also important to bring to students' attention befor...

Most often when I read a book for an education class, I am either in complete agreement with the author or am strongly opposed. For this chapter, I found myself stepping a toe onto both sides. In chapter six, Munger and Murray discussed the importance of text complexity and deliberate practice. In their opinion, teachers must identify each student's reading levels, offer students a variety of books and reading assignments in that level, and gradually move students to higher levels as they progress through school. My biggest problem with the reading dealt with the issue of fiction vs. nonfiction reading assignments. As a social studies teacher, I understand the importance of reading nonfiction in class. However, I believe students can gain very important skills from reading fiction, such as inferencing, hypothesizing, looking for meaning, and increasing vocabulary. I do not think students should read more non-fiction than fiction; I believe both are equally important. Historical fi...