Dear Fandom,

So the topic of this week is on developing readers.

But it isn't just about teaching students to read.


It covered a topic that I hadn't much thought about before... As teachers, we have a responsibility to teach students more than just how to read.

Consider this: A student reads a very complex text aloud to you, but when you ask her what the text is about, she has absolutely no clue; then we keep handing her complex books and having her read them with absolutely no understanding. Teaching students more than just reciting lines on a page is part of our responsibility. It was a difficult concept for me to imagine about because I generally am able to understand what I read. What is it like for students who are not? I can't imagine how hard this is for students.

The readings talked about our role in helping students develop their own interpretations as well. I think of this as being important because before they can generate their own interpretations, they must be able to understand what they are trying to interpret. In this case, it's a related issue.


If we are to do all of this, we need to teach kids a complex series of skills in order to learn about what they are doing.
The girls colored their room red, white and blue.
1.) How to think (What does this all mean)
2.) How to understand what they are reading (Colors, Girls, paint, action)
3.) What does it mean [interpretation]? (Did the girls paint their room red with white and blue colors together? Three separate colors? How can this sentence be interpreted?)

Reading is much more complicated than I have given thought too. I need more time to brood on this.