Book Overview

Lorraine Wilson makes it clear that literacy should focus on many important aspects that will enrich students’ lives and encourage them to become lifelong readers.  Her book, Reading to Live, covers many topics related to the framing questions for our course this summer.  She presents the information in a very reader friendly format and lists numerous strategies that will help future educators aim for success in their classrooms.

A theme that recurred in my mind while reading this book was the importance of teaching both reading and writing together as a functional program that will allow students to witness the positive benefits each and every step of the way.  This condition in which both depend on each other to communicate and progress as learners was a valuable concept that I took from her ideas and philosophies in regards to literacy.  She proved to me that people become literate at a greater rate when they can see the necessity of acquiring this skill along with the freedom to explore and be creative at the same time.

The four practice model reiterated in her book was an eye opening way of understanding how there are multiple dimensions to become literate.  This model also is vital in allowing the teacher to witness the struggles a student might have with one or many of the practices to become proficient readers and writers.  Before reading her text I never thought about how important it is to enter the text, make meaning, find purpose, as well as becoming a text analyst.  She constantly reminds the reader that these skills will almost always overlap and that they will hardly ever follow a traditional structured sequential format.  I couldn’t agree more because it made me aware of how learning anything in life is never a step by step process, especially in social environments.  With that being said, It ultimately made me cognizant of how important it will be as a teacher to always keep this in mind and remember this four practice model.

I feel this book will aid my career as a physical educator because, contrary to popular belief, there are many opportunities in my field to use literary devices to aid my pedagogy.  We live in a world where children are becoming obese and developing preventable health diseases at younger ages.  This means that it is the physical education teacher’s job to provide information and studies to fight this plague in our nation.  A great way to do this, besides all the motor skill and practical application, is to begin with reading and writing about these major issues and to develop lessons and exercise prescriptions along with nutritional documents.  Reading and writing are essential tools to keep this awareness alive for all of our students!

-Colin Johnson

Planning for Classroom Reading

The final chapter of Reading to Live, by Lorraine Wilson, closes on strategic ways to plan for classroom reading as well as the rationale behind her beliefs.  She discusses how the teacher should always keep in mind the big picture which includes systems about living, learning, language, and reading.  I completely agree with her and think that literacy should always include these belief systems for every individual student in every classroom. 

I am a very pragmatic person, teacher, and learner which are traits I have mentioned a few times in my earlier blogs.  For this reason I was impressed by her section in this chapter about authentic reading.  She writes that “We do not read to read.  We read to do something else.  Therefore, classroom reading should never be for its own sake…”  I am also a big fan, from educational psychology, of social cognitive learning theories.  I feel that a large majority of literacy will indeed come from social environments both in primary and secondary discourses.  Wilson describes that reading must have a practical function whether it is for making something, relaxation, pleasure, or social communication.  She continues by saying that “We must remember that reading is social practice.”  Learners will always model what the teacher is doing whether it is reading or writing.  This doesn’t mean that the student will always copy everything the teacher does but it reminds educators that a major function of literacy is to become influenced by society to create something and find a means to an end.  Socialization will always be a great influence and teachers should shape their planning around this powerful concept.

Another issue about planning for classroom reading that jumped out at me during this chapter was her section on “The Crowded Curriculum.”  Within this section the author discusses how “Teachers are constantly pressed for time.  Classroom sessions are never quite finished properly.  I think we all need to slow down and perhaps attempt less, in more time.  If we teachers are feeling frazzled and rushed, how must the children be feeling?”  When a teacher’s challenge to teach reading is always complex in itself then how must the student feel when they are given time limits to learn all aspects of literacy?  I think this often leads to cognitive overload for most students and puts tyranny on comprehension as we have mentioned before in online discussions.  Wilson says that is important to vary the schedule and provide alternatives to reading activities which might exclude some students.  This might help teachers who are facing time constraints and pressures from standardized programs being forced upon school districts.

The book finishes with some important questions regarding the four reading practices and below I have listed some that I thought were valuable to myself as a future educator.  These questions will provide the teacher and student with ways to evaluate his or her program which will hopefully aim for higher success in the classroom.

Code Breakers:

Do the reader’s miscues make sense?

Does the reader self correct?

Does the reader’s retelling indicate that the reader is reading for meaning?

Text Participant:

Does the reader want to make meaning?

Can the reader retell in his or her own words?

Can the reader discuss different themes of the book?

Text User:

Does the reader read to pursue personal interest?

Does the student choose to read on his own time?

Text Analyst:

Is the reader able to identify author motives?

Does the reader question the decisions made by authors of fiction?

Does the reader question the accuracy of nonfiction writing?

The Reading and Writing Connection

Chapter 8 discusses many important aspects of the reading and writing connection.  The author does a great job of explaining how implementing both of these simultaneously will always complement each other and allow for more successful literacy development for a diverse population of students.

 A quote that caught my eye was when Wilson states that “To teach writing divorced from a rich reading program is to feed writers a nutritionally poor diet.”  Coming from a background in physical education and health, I was interested to see how she was going to explain this analogy.  She discusses how early writing is often influenced greatly by experienced writers, mainly through life routines such as written letters and numbers.  These parental figures and relatives are mimicked and copied during the years in which children are first learning the same things at preschool or early elementary school.  The author makes a valid point in reminding the reader how these children are full of confidence and usually aren’t worried about how a word should be spelled.  When pedagogy begins to place too much of an emphasis on writing editorial skills such as spelling, punctuation, and word usage then children become more and more self-conscious of quality rather than an ongoing positive learning experience.  Wilson reiterates how important it is for students to always be able to freely write to formulate ideas rather than focusing entirely on these technicalities.

So my question was how should quality teachers approach the pedagogy of the reading and writing connection?  How should we keep the independence of our students to freely write without losing their thoughts and ideas due to editorial specifics?  Wilson says that children should initially be allowed enthusiastic activities to write and flow freely without requiring the student to focus on technical mistakes.  She writes: “How much easier it is for the teacher to teach at the point of need with children who compose freely.  Their enthusiastic writings reveal their understandings about letters, directional features, punctuation, words, and spelling.”  It makes sense that after these initial activities are finished the teacher can start implementing reading and sounding of the letters and word usage along with editorial skill acquisition. 

Wilson also brings up another intriguing point that “The reading connection is not just about all the reading that occurs before a writer commences writing.  The reading that precedes writing informs the writer about how to write.”  She continues by discussing how important it is for a reader to read during the act of writing as well.  The author states that this will help to clarify the thinking about the subject of his or her writing at hand.  I was fascinated by this idea because it is something we all do whether we are a student or not.  We all re-read while constructing text and we hardly ever write a full sentence without thinking about the ideas and concepts involved while reading aloud or in our own heads.  The author reminds us:  “It is as we struggle to get our own ideas down that we learn more.”  I feel this is a truth that every teacher should always remind themselves of each and every day.

Literature Teaching

The book continues with a chapter dedicated to strategies and key concepts involved in teaching literature.  I found the most important information to be when the author, Wilson, discusses principles for teaching literature and the necessity to develop a love of literature for all students.

“Self-motivated readers need choice over the books they read.”  This statement relates to my field of physical education in many ways.  Along with allowing children to read about health and lifelong exercise concepts that they are interested in, the physical educator must provide motor skill activities that allow choices according to the likes of the student body.  If this is not implemented in a quality physical education program then students will lack motivation to learn and will not become lifelong movers.  As far as literacy goes, if students aren’t given choices involved in their literary progression they will also become unmotivated and are less likely to become lifelong readers. 

Another key principle that Wilson brings up is the use of “book talk” in which children can generate their own questions regarding the material.  Wilson says this type of open format will “clarify our ideas, broaden our understandings, and share our insights.”  As a teacher I will use this strategy when teaching reading and when students are assigned sport-specific or health related articles and other literary material used in the physical and health education.  Often times many parents, students, and administration don’t realize that there are many opportunities in physical education to involve both reading and writing in parallel with motor skill development and health-related fitness concepts.  This proves that an open format with a freedom of discussion is valuable in every subject matter whether in a classroom or a gymnasium.  With the obesity rate on the rise and elementary school children becoming more and more aware of the health crisis in America, many journals, books, magazines, and articles are being aimed at children.  Creating lifelong movers and well as lifelong readers can, and will exist at the same time in a quality program and Wilson’s ideas are ways to achieve this creation.

The chapter later mentions how journaling can be another valuable strategy to allow the teacher to successfully teach literature in his or her classroom.  Allowing the children to openly comment and criticize reading and writing without the threat of a grade is a great thing in my opinion.  This proves that assessment doesn’t always have to be about right or wrong but that it is a gage to see what students are having trouble with and where they need to improve.  It is also a way for the teacher to witness strengths and connection to the material made by the students.  Most importantly, in my opinion, it allows the teacher to see how the impact of primary discourses can have on new material and the assignments that can stem from journaling as well.  Teachers as well should write down their opinions about the material because this will allow both students and the educators to see the commonalities which can bridge relationships and result in a better understanding of each other, as Wilson elaborates.  It works well for both parties!

Text Analysts

The author makes a very interesting point in chapter 6 in which she states:  “More than any other time, readers need to be critically literate.”  She explains this statement referring to the age in which there is vast amount information to sort through for the text analyst.  We live in a time that electronic technology has allowed almost anyone to input information into open source outlets.  This has allowed for a wide variety of information ranging from a multitude of topics to be collaboratively placed together and critically accepted or denied by the reader, and everything in between.

Another interesting thing that Wilson says is that writers all have values and that these values affect the decisions they make.  It also affects the decisions and questions that the reader may have when analyzing any given material.  I feel that being a critical reader and writer are extremely important in literacy because it allows society to question the use of discourses like power and privilege.  Critically thinking about the material and the circumstances in which it was created will open perspectives and doors into worlds where equality can be questioned as well.  I think it is necessary to allow all students of every level to always question and analyze every text they read and put themselves into the author’s shoes.  When they write their own material they should also be open to peer criticism to positively improve their literacy process.

One of the most important concepts that I was aware of from this chapter was to create a classroom environment in which all students do not feel threatened.  This includes allowing criticism from all ends with the focus on overall improvement.  Wilson says that students should aim for a “world with a capacity and desire to work for a better society.”  This can only be possible from quality pedagogy in which teachers do not intimidate students and criticize them in a negative light.  Often times this is the case in almost any subject matter from K-12.  When comprehension is attempting to take place I feel there were many teachers in my youth who deterred me from questioning and criticizing all the material in front of me because I was afraid of being on the radar as a student who disbelieved or disobeyed the educational system in place.  I just followed the traditional steps to get the extrinsic grade I needed for a particular course.  Only a few teachers would allow me to positively criticize myself, the teacher, the system, and all of my peers so that we could understand the reasoning behind the power of literacy. 

This chapter also has a great list of questions that students can ask regarding the text along with strategies at the end.  It reminds me of all the underlying questions I had when reading novels and texts that were already chosen for me in my past literary experience.  I often wondered why I was “required” to read something and then consequently why I was not allowed to completely criticize the material at the same time.

The Text User

I found Chapter 5 to be the most interesting because it explains the relevancy of literacy as something that everyone needs to live a productive, fulfilling life.  It begins by discussing how everyone reads for a “wide range of purposes” to function within a community and be a productive member of society.  I have always been a practical person and I tend to relate everything I do for some means to an end.  This type of personality definitely shows when I teach as I constantly try to reiterate to my students how learning certain information is valuable to function properly as a human and enrich one’s life.  So when I have to teach literacy in the future I will refer to this chapter as it helped me understand how to make my understandings in alignment with the students’ meaning making process.

One aspect of this chapter that was captivating was how it explained the difference of reader purpose versus author purpose.  It discusses how many authors write books for a variety of reasons that leave the reader to imagine on their own or create their own purpose for exploration.  However, many teachers “use works of fiction for purposes not necessarily intended by the writers.”  An example of this that I have had experience with (and Wilson explains as well) is when teachers hand out worksheets and questions to think about before students have already read the material.  This only limits their exploration and doesn’t allow them to use the text how their brain would have intentionally found purpose for before the teacher’s contamination.  It forcefully directs learners to use the material in accordance with the teacher’s scope of literacy and pedagogical style.  Teachers seem to create underlying purposes not intended by the original author in the first place.  I think it is great to have children analyze the text and formulate ideas and opinions about the author’s work but this chapter is a reminder that many teachers are shaping this process to their own perspectives due to the demands by standardized testing and higher administrative forces at hand.  Children are supposed to be text users not robots who are told how to use the text.

I completely agree with Wilson in which she later discusses integrated curriculum concerning text users finding a purpose to their learning.  She talks about the negative effects of how literacy is often taught in independent conditions separated from other subject matters.  She states that “sadly, all too often, literacy learning is taught apart from the rest of the curriculum as if it is serving some purpose of its own and is not related to the children’s lives.”  She is absolutely right and we as teachers must teach literacy simultaneously while learning other important school subjects so the purpose is ultimately clear.  We should teach students how to read recipes with numbers and fractions at the same time they are learning to make these dishes and study these mathematical concepts.  It only makes sense that students should find purpose in the text as it relates to authentic situations that can benefit their lives and allow them to understand how reading and writing can lead to overall power and achievement in a positive light.

Text Participants

The next chapter in Reading to Live discusses one of the most important of all the four practices which is becoming a text participant and making meaning.  The author states that once a code breaker has entered the text, he or she will become a text participant.  What is interesting is that Wilson also believes that children are able to actually participate before they can begin code breaking.  An example of this, as noted in the book, is when children make predictions based on titles to ponder developing relationships and plot outcomes.  I thought this was a valid point because it proves that children bring meaning making to the table before they can even read and pronounce all of the words and sentences in the correct context.

Wilson continues to write that “The ways we make meaning or understand a text are linked directly with our reading purposes…”  Once again this proves that children already bring something to the table when attempting to code break and become a participant.  They view each and every attempt as a purposeful venture into literacy.  These purposes are what allow text participants to find meaning as it relates to how they have previously made sense of the world they are already accustomed to.  I think this is very important in my discipline because students are going to be reading about physical education and health and they are going to seek purpose within the realm of how their body has already experienced ways to move and improve itself through concepts like lifelong exercise knowledge and nutritional program development.  They will have to find meaning as it relates to their previous experience or they will never believe there are positive benefits to this learning process.  Simply put, if they can’t explore the possibilities by becoming a participant in the ideas then they will be dissuaded to continue the process.  This often happens in literacy, as Wilson mentions, because teachers often test whether or not a child has understood something which consequently sets boundaries to what a child should understand.  It limits their exploration and meaning making of the material at hand.

There are also some useful strategies at the end of this chapter for teachers to use in regards to allowing text participants to make meaning of their works of literature.  One of the most beneficial ideas was very simple but I feel it will be useful to understand how children will communicate true meaning related to a piece of work.  This was just allowing students to ask questions and create answers to concepts or ideas in the reading that weren’t necessarily answered by the author.  This will allow the teacher to understand many things such as how the student viewed the material as far as purpose is concerned as well as what personal meaning they brought to the table when participating in the text.  Wilson believes that “so much more thinking and learning occurs” when compared to a structured question and answer session in which students are called upon to answer few questions related to the material.  There is no pressure for right or wrong answers and children don’t feel threatened by the ways in which they made sense of whatever was being studied.  I couldn’t agree more.