Blogging from Boston…Day Two

I am back to my hotel after day two of training.  Today we spent a lot of time thinking about
genre studies in both reading and writing workshops. 

Here are my TOP 10 things I am thinking about tonight:

1. Questioning authenticity of nonfiction text.  Is the text really factual or is it from the
author’s perspective?

2. Grounding teaching decisions in assessments.

3. A hybrid text needs to include a fiction genre and a
nonfiction genre.  For example, it could
include elements of realistic fiction and biography. 

4. The difference between ‘doing’ guided reading and using
guided reading to bring students as far as possible in their reading abilities.

5. Writing territories (topics students often write about)…any topic can be a good one provided that it
is important to the writer and written well. 

6. Read-alouds are great because they take
away the need for decoding.  Students
should experience grade-appropriate text regardless of their reading level.

7. Ask questions during an interactive read aloud that draw
out thinking from students, rather than ask for one right answer.

8. When students read, they do not think about just one
skill (for example, making predictions). 
They are thinking about the entire reading process at once.  It’s a complicated process!

9. Students infer when they are reading all the time.  As teachers, we need to bring this skill that
they are already doing to their attention throughout our year together.  We can’t just teach inferencing for one week
and never talk about it again because our students our inferring every time
they read.

10. Reading orally is all about reading the way the writer
meant the text to be read.  We read
informational text differenty than we read poetry or a mystery. 

That’s my TOP 10 for today…Tomorrow I might have a TOP 100
since I will be spending the day listening to Irene Fountas share her thinking
around guided reading and genre studies!