Chapter 9

It should be common sense that if you want a student to learn a new word then the teacher should use that word in their own vocabulary.  I have to children of my own ages 6 and 3 and I always use big words with them and explain what those words mean.  Instead of just saying her food is good my daughter will say it is delicious.  That is how people use language and most parents will know that children pick up the words they hear around them.

Chapter 8

I like the idea of Likert Scales because the student can answer honestly what they thought of the story instead of just answering questions about the content of the story.  It is good because students can discuss why they agree of disagree and it can open up the discussion.

I also like the Semantic Differential Scales because the reader can understand more about the characters because they can see exactly what kind of person the character is.

I never thought to use something like the "Somebody Wanted But So"   It would be good to use because it is easier for the students to pull important aspects from the text.

Chapter 7

At the beginning of this chapter the students read a poem that was really hard.  Two of the students reread the poem several times and looked up words they didn't know, one of them even drew a picture.  The third student just read the poem once and didn't understand it and that was it.  The teacher showed the third student what the other two did and she couldn't believe they did all that work to make the poem make sense.  If all the students who didn't understand knew the strategies other students used to make something make sense it would help them a lot.  This shows how important reading strategies are.

Chapter 5

This chapter was very interesting because I never thought about how difficult it would be to teach someone how to make an inference.  The "Step Inside a Classroom" parts of the chapter were very interesting.  The class of students who were good readers made a lot of inferences of the passage the teacher put on the overhead, but the class that didn't read well and didn't like to read couldn't understand what they needed to do to make an inference.

Chapter 6

I really like the idea of a K-W-L chart because even though the book said it is used primarily for non-fiction works it could be used for just about anything a student wants to learn about.  Even when reading a novel there are things a reader already knows, things they want to learn and at the end what tthey have learned from the book.  I think this kind of chart can be used in any subject area.

Chapter 4

I enjoyed seeibng Kate's improvement in her teaching style.  The first time she taught the book "Eleven" she told the students that it was the characters birthday and she read the story outloud to the class.  The next time she taught the book to a different class she asked them what they thought the story was about and instead of just reading the story straight through she stopped every once in awhile and thought out loud.  And instead of asking questions she lead the class in a discussion of the book.  It was interesting to see the different reactions of the different teaching styles.

Chapter 3

My favorite part of this chapter is the list of Dependent Reading Behaviors.  Sometimes it is hard to figure out why a child can't read and this is really eye opening.  And it was interesting to compare that list to the list of What Good Readers Do.