Why was this book worthwhile for me to read?

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

This post contains my thoughts on this book, and the benefit I got from reading it.  For ease in reading, I’ve left the font black, but imagine it red, to be consistent with the other 9 blogs!

This book opened my eyes to the necessity of teaching reading in the context of a science class, or in any classroom for that matter.  I loved that it was pragmatic and gave real-world examples for math, science, social studies, English and foreign language classes.  While my content area is science, there were still viable tips and techniques in these other content areas that made sense to me.

Reading this book made me take a hard look at “traditional” methods of teaching reading.  I don’t know how wide-spread reading comprehension is explicitly taught in English classes, but I don’t believe the “connection” idea is widely taught.  This was a whole new idea for me, that avid readers connect to text.  I’m an avid reader, but I never gave any thought about why I love to escape in books.  It was eye-opening to do some thinking about how I read both fiction and textbooks.  I could see my personal strategies in her words, at least in part, but many of them were new to me.

Of greatest impact were the notions of modeling reading comprehension strategies and finding ways to connect students to the text.  Her use of specific content areas for her examples were a great to demonstrate her strategies, and gave me many ideas.  Certainly, many that I can apply for teaching reading in my science classroom.

My favorite strategies are (in no particular order):

1. Short creative writing exercises to practice using new vocabulary and subject matter in ways that the student chooses. 
2. Read “nature writing” texts to help spark interest and supplement reading the textbook.
3. Break vocabulary down into Greek and Latin origins, so these roots can be applied to different, new words later.
4. Teach the specialized test question wording and have students create test questions themselves.
5. Create graphical representations for critical areas of the content.
6. Model reading comprehension strategies.
7. Find ways to connect students to the text and the content.

I’m so glad I read this book.  Definitely worth it!  As I’ve said before, “Thanks, Amy Benjamin!”

Putting all the pieces together

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates what the author says.

Red font indicates my comments.

At the end of the book, Benjamin has a dandy chart that she calls “The Strategic Reader”. 

The Strategic Reader

Before Reading
What do I already know about this subject?	What am I reading to find out?	What do I know about the main ideas from previewing?
During Reading
What are the main pattern clusters? (Narrative, classification, comparison/contrast, process analysis)	How can I connect my life, other readings, and the world, today and in history, to this reading?	What am I visualizing and animating as I read?
After Reading
What can I create, think about, talk about, or do that will help me make sense of and remember what I just read?

This might be a great addition to the wall in a classroom, to remind students that reading is more than fluency!  I’ve highlighted my favorites.  The most powerful concept to me in this entire section (which was about half the book) was the notion of connecting prior knowledge to new knowledge, in all phases of reading.

She also has a closing section on what kinds of strategies work at schools and which ones don’t.  By far the most successful strategies are those that are student directed and selected.  The more typical practices of looking up vocabulary words to write definitions and reading a chapter to take a quiz on it immediately afterward were considered the least effective for both reading comprehension and retention.

After-Reading Strategies

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Black font indicates what the author says.

Red font indicates my comments.

In an earlier blog, I talked about something Benjamin wrote, that it’s not enough to read, you have to do something afterward to make it stick.  The “something” is what she refers to as after-reading strategies.

After-reading strategies can be used to cement knowledge after reading, or even for assessments.  There are five steps to an after-reading strategy, and she urges teachers to let students decide which ones to use, to take charge of part of their learning and to appeal to the type of learning style they possess (verbal, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, or social).  Unfortunately, she doesn’t give any examples of different strategies for the different learning styles.

1. The first step is to summarize the main idea using the key vocabulary and any pertinent relationships between the data. 
2. The second step is to note the supportive details, deciding which are most important in the process, and connect these to the main idea.  One way to help students decide which details are most important is to ask them to imagine what will be on the test.
3. The third step is to put new vocabulary in context with the new knowledge, which could be as simple as expanding definitions or simply reinforcing what students already know.
4. The fourth step is to make inferences or draw conclusions.  This requires some higher order thinking, to get students to apply their new knowledge. 
5.  The last step is internal organization, having the student identify the types of patterns found in the text.  Again, as in the discussion with during-reading strategies, I found this step to be the least helpful. 

She gave a science example of a wrap-up activity.  Students read about Mount St. Helens erupting, then had to describe another volcano somewhere in the world, and what would happen to the surrounding area if it exploded and why, based on what they’d just learned.  This helps the students to internalize what they’ve learned and utilize their new knowledge to analyze  and draw conclusions about similar situations.  Great idea!

She ended this section emphasizing yet again, the importance of connecting prior knowledge to new knowledge, calling it this time, creating links between the known and the new.  It’s significant to note that this is a common thread through all of her strategies, for before-reading, during-reading, and after-reading.