Chapter 6

In the traditional literature, I like how it tells you to compare the different versions of a story. A good one in my opinion is The Three Little Pigs v.s. the one where the wolf tells his version. I think that a Venn diagram. I think it is good to allow the children to see similarities as well as differences about the books. I also think it is good to hear their take on it and which one they feel is better. Many times, we like the older versions because that is what we grew up with, but there is always that child who prefers the different version. They like the variety. I also thought it was funny how it was orally passed down first. How do we know it is the way it was meant to be told. We dont. Because it was passed down orally, it has been changed many times.

Chapter 5

Poetry, wow, this was not one of my strong points in school. In fact, I hate poetry for the simple fact that I was not exposed to it like I wish I would have been. The only poetry I read was the few readings we did in high school. They were always boring and meaningless to me. I hope as a teacher, I will take my experiences and turn it around for someone else. My goal is to allow the children to make decisions about what we read as a class and what we can do to make fun. I hope that we can find ways to bring meaning to the readings as well as life experiences. I think that my poetry days were not relevant to me and that is why I did not care to take the time out and read it. I feel that if I allow the children to have a say in what is read then they will take to a liking. I also want to allow my children to write poetry and read it to the class or to me.

Chapter 4

I like how chapter four brings the point that there is not just one right answer and that we as readers have a sort of "contract" between each other. I feel this is important to remember when we are teaching a class full of students. Too often we as teachers want a child to read a story that we have read and look at it in the same way that we did. We want them to answer the questions we provide for them exactly the way we interpreted the reading. Reading is just that, an interpretation. There will be many different interpretations by the students that differ from your own. I do feel it is important to sit down with the children and discuss what they thought about the reading because this will open a whole different approach to what you thought. It is amazing how once you hear someone else take on a story how you look at it. I also feel it is good to read the same book more them once because every time you read it, you will learn something else that you had no idea was in the reading.

Chapter 3

In this chapter, it brings in the point that vocabulary is a goal and outcome of reading. Too often children are given the vocabulary words in a reading that are meaningless and many times the words on the side of the teachers book. This is not necessarily the words that you should be using. Most of the time, they pick the words that are not the target words for the children to learn. It is not relevant for them to know the words in order for them to be successful in the reading. It is my opinion that we as teachers pick out the words in an authentic way. I feel that we should find the words that are going to make it difficult for the child to understand the reading. I also think we should pull the words that are relevant to what the children are learning in the curriculum in order for them to make a connection to what they are learning and put it in real life contexts. The children should be shown that the more we read, the better we are with our vocabulary. Reading opens doors to new vocabulary every day.

Chapter 2

When we as teachers think of making our classroom culturally appropriate, it is important to think about all cultures and not just our own or what is predominate in the area. There will be many children in the classroom who do not fit in the majority. It is important to accommodate the minority as well. When talking about culture we want to also make it a point to be sensitive to other cultures and not stereotype different cultures.

Chapter 1

Something that popped out at me as I was reading was that it is very important to surround the child's classroom with actual books they can read as opposed to just surrounding the classroom with textbooks. It is important to allow the children to have many opportunities to also pick up the books that are around the classroom and read without you telling them to do it and what they should read. Give the children autonomy by allowing them to choose what they want to read and what they like. Give them different genre to read so they can see what they like and what they do not like. Don't just expect them to read what you like, every child is different.