What conditions promote literacy development?

Hello again to all my classmates in cyberspace. Today we will have a look at the idea of what conditions promote literacy development? These thoughts come from my class book Reading for Understanding. The authors of Reading for Understanding have developed four dimensions of classroom life that they believe are necessary to support adolescent reading development.

First of all, the social dimension must be addresses. Getting teens to attempt any activity in which they may fail in front of their peers is risky. In my experience, teens are not willing to participate in activities that lead to embarrassment. Therefore, authors here recommend that a safe environment be created in the classroom. This would be an environment of nurture, a social environment in which students can begin to reveal their understandings and their struggles without fear of public embarrassment. On a personal note, I see this as extremely difficult to make a reality. Students may pay lip service to your wishes, but when the cat is away… I once had a student that I felt was very respectful in all ways. However, I heard through the grapevine that outside of my door he was unkind to his classmates, calling names etc. So while this is your goal…. Another aspect of the social dimension ties in students’ need to recognize that they each bring something of value to the collective plate. In addition, the social dimension is where students are motivated to read and see its value.

Secondly, there must also be a personal dimension in place. The personal dimension of a reading apprenticeship classroom focuses on developing individual students’ relationships to reading in a variety of ways. Examples of developing reader identity include writing and talking with others regarding: previous reading experiences, reading habits, likes and dislikes, reasons for reading, and setting and checking goals for personal reading development. The personal dimension involves the development of students’ identities and self-awareness as readers, as well as their purpose s for reading and goals for reading improvement.

The third dimension is cognitive. This dimension’s focus is on developing readers’ mental processes, including their problem – solving strategies, and increasing students’ repertoire of cognitive strategies for making sense of texts. Multiple problem solving strategies to assist and restore comprehension occur in this dimension. Examples include, questioning texts, talking to the text, visualizing the text, making connections between the text and prior knowledge, rereading selections, summarizing, retelling or paraphrasing, and representing the text in a graphic form. (Many of these strategies will be detailed in future chapters.)

Lastly, the knowledge-building dimension works to identify and expand the kinds of knowledge readers bring to a text and further develop through interaction with that text. In order to become strong readers, students must have some prior knowledge to attach the new information to. They need to know something about the topic that they are reading in order to make connections. This is because readers do not absorb information from the text but rather actively mobilize their own knowledge structures to make meaning in interaction with the text . Therefore, in order for students to be successful in reading a text teachers must first provide preliminary activities that will build a knowledge base. These activities can include: brainstorming knowledge about the topic, identifying conflicting knowledge about the topic, imagining yourself in situations similar to those that will be encouraged in the text, and exploring conceptual vocabulary to be encountered, etc.

One additional thought to keep in mind when defining factors that promote reading in the Reading Apprenticeship approach is the importance of talking things through. Central to the application of each of these dimensions in this methodology is the metacognitive (thinking about thinking) conversation that must occur both internally and externally. The conversation is one in which the teacher and students consider their own mental processes. They talk about their reading strategies. Therefore, these four dimensions of classroom life that support reading apprenticeship are linked by the key enterprise of talking together about making sense of texts.

The coming chapters of this work give us a glimpse of the Reading Apprenticeship in action in the classroom. I hope that my next blog will be written better. I apologize for this one. I am used to doing things over until they are my personal best. This summer one of the many things I am learning is that when given time restraints I cannot always do that. It is making me crazy to turn in work that I do not feel meets my standards, but I have to learn to deal with that.

See you soon.