| PAGE 28
Identifying themes and ideas
Confirming/clarifying ideas
Assessing
Cognitive processes we may use when reading to make meaning from the text
Picturing
Comparing with other texts read
Empathising
Predicting
Evaluating
Hypothesising
Questioning
Make a video of yourself reading with one or two individuals, who are at different stages of learning to read, so that you can demonstrate to the student teachers how to support children when reading an unknown word, and how to talk with them about their reading.
Model using a questionnaire to discover the attitudes and experiences of the pupils before reading with them.
In addition to lifting the words off the page, reading involves making sense of those words in terms of literal meaning, interpreting the text, recognising implied meanings, reflecting on what is read and critically evaluating it.
Model the use of the Primary Language Record (Barrs et al, 1988).
Ensure student teachers understand the value of having regular reading conferences with independent readers so that they can keep a check on what is read, and extend choices and challenges through discussion of their reading record.
Refer to What goes on in our heads when we read?
Model how to use findings to improve children’s reading (see: What children need to learn/possess to become readers).
Demonstrate how the cue systems (see English and Children with Special Educational Needs - Reading Difficulties - assessment) need to be fully orchestrated for efficient, meaningful reading (Bielby, 1999; Goodman et al, 2005).
A book, a person and a shared enjoyment: these are the conditions of success (Meek, 1982: 9)
Refer to What children need to learn/possess to become readers when modelling/discussing the kinds of responses student teachers need to encourage.
There are important lessons about reading that can only be learnt from books themselves.
Share the research findings from The Reader in the Writer (Barrs and Cork, 2002)
Model how to give critical feedback about tone, pace etc and encourage student teachers to do the same (Trelease, 2001).
Make reading aloud a requirement of any period of school experience.
Ensure student teachers are selecting challenging texts to read which will extend their pupils as readers
To learn to read a book, as distinct from simply recognising the words on the page, a young reader has to become both the teller (picking up the author’s view and voice) and the told (the recipient of the story, the interpreter). (Meek, 1988: 10)
Need for books which reflect and relate to different cultures. (See also English for Pupils with Diverse Backgrounds - Key Resources/Approaches/Activities)
Student teachers can read silently for a given period in session while you model this yourself (Campbell, 1989). They should then explore some of the strengths and limitations of this activity and use their findings to help them observe what goes on in their classrooms.
There are important lessons about reading that can only be learnt from books themselves.
Need for quality fiction as well as non-fiction magazines and comics etc so that even reluctant readers can find something of interest (see The Role of Popular Culture in Primary English - Books, magazines and comics).
The signs of genuine reading development are hard to detect as they appear, and bear little relation to what is measured by reading tests. For me, the move from ‘more of the same’ to ‘I might truly try something different’ is a clear step. So is a growing tolerance of ambiguity, the notion that things are not quite as they seem, even in a fairly straightforward tale (Meek, 1988: 30).
Value of a positive reading environment e.g. role of the book corner (Chambers, 1991).
How to record what is read
e.g. reading logs, journals, reviews etc. Student teachers need to discuss the value of each of these practices and their role in responding to such records.
Productive organisational and management strategies.
Silent reading of individual chapters/parts
Shared reading of particular parts
Reading aloud over a period of time
Illustrating the text through art/digital camera work etc
The text
Group reading of individual chapters/parts
Drama
Be inspired by The Reader in the Writer
Barrs and Cork (2001)
Group/paired/individual independent work
Composing music for the text
| 
