After reading Chapters 3 and 4, return to the quote from Harper and Kilarr on p. 41. Respond to this quote on your blog, saying whether you agree or disagree and explain why or why not using ample evidence from the text to support your assertions.
"The major folklore of reading instruction relates to the "theory" that reading is considered an exact process. In other words, the reader is expected to read everything exactly as printed on the page in order to understand the message of the author. In general the consuming public, legislatures, courts, and too many educators hold this to theory. it is like the theory of the world being flat during the time of Columbus" -- Robert Harper and Gary Kilarr
As an educator one of the most important rules to remember when teaching literacy is that reading is an active learning process. When we place texts in front of our children they are constantly soaking up new meanings, vocabulary, pictures, and concepts. It is ridiculous that people in our education system today believe that reading is to be considered an exact process. I completely disagree just as I would if people said they expect math to be an exact process and done right the first time. It just makes no sense! Both chapters three and four have great examples that contradict this quote and show how reading is, in fact, not an exact process and even how miscues do not always hurt the reader.
Weaver (2002), on page 54 gives us a chart to shows what our brain is actively doing at the same time we are reading. It shows that we are "confirming or correcting words, sampling graphic clues, and making new predictions of what is to come". After seeing that chart it is obvious that at one moment in time our brains are working very hard to understand the words we are reading. With that it shows that we are confirming and/or correcting. Does that mean that we have to verbally correct? Absolutely not. Many students will miscue only to later understand their mistake when they have gotten a better idea of the context. Without perfect reading we are still constantly using the clues before and after the miscues to piece together the main ideas of what we are reading.
"Constructing meaning from a text is far more important than identifying all of the words" (Weaver, 2002, p. 70). I absolutely agree with this quote and believe that Weaver throughout chapters three and four gave us several examples backing up this idea. When describing the different types of readers, Weaver labels the highest level as proficient readers. Throughout the chapters there were various examples of running records from proficient reders that showed many miscues. Upon reading the original sentences and then the insertions or substitutions that the proficient readers had created I formed an opinion that the miscues made the text richer. Not only did the substituions make the text richer, but they gave proof that although the child did not accurately read every word, the student still understood the general concepts and was reading for meaning actively. (Weaver, 2002)
I am a book worm. My nose is constantly in a book. I often read things and only construct the meaning after the fact. I sometime even skip words and use the clues around to make sense of the word. How can I, as an educator, expect my students to be accurate while reading when some of them are not even on the grade level for fluency? Weaver (2002) points out another great example on page 42 explaining a cloze test. This example goes along with what I do when I come across a tricky word. When looking at the paragraph about beavers with every fifth word taken out I was able to still insert words that made sense with the context that helped me grasp the main idea of the paragraph. This is a perfect example that can be used in the classroom to show that not all students need to be accurate in order to be excellent readers.
Reading is an active process. At any one time our brain is constantly working to make sense of the text around us. We rely on our clues around us to help make up the main idea of what we are reading. I believe that as a teacher, having students learn to read is a challenging but rewarding task. I have students come in that are overly confident or ones that do not like to read aloud. How can I take these students and ask them to be correct all of the time when reading? It is an impossible task. Through the examples given in the text I hope my peers are able to understand why I disagree and the ways in which reading instruction does not have to always be accurate.
References:
Weaver, C. (2002). Reading Process & Practice (3rd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann
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