Reading for Understanding

My book Reading for Understanding by Schoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko, and Hurwitz starts off by discussing a class of students who are learning to enjoy reading because they are learning how to choose books that they like and how to make sure they are understanding what they are reading (Schoenbach, 1999, p. xv).  The use of these strategies, I believe help young readers to become literate. It is important from a young age for students to enjoy reading.  If they enjoy reading they will continue to reading throughout their life, and I believe will strive to read even the most difficult classroom textbooks.  

Something I keep reading in our class articles as well as other teacher educator books is that Explicit instruction in reading comprehension is important in teaching literacy.  What are these strategies?  According to Schoenbach (1999),  Many middle and high school students have difficultly comprehending expository text.  There is hope for teachers and students alike.  Schoenbach (1999) states, "Reading is a complex process" (p 17); what does this mean for teachers?.  In order to help less proficient readers succeed a teacher should model the reading and thinking process of  a proficient reader (Schoenbach, 1999, p. 21) According to Scheonback (1999), "Four key dimensions of classroom life that are necessary to adolescent reading development" include: Social dimension, Personal dimension, cognitive dimension, and knowledge-building dimension (p 22).  At the center of this concept is metacognition, which is the process of thinking about thinking.  The teacher must model the thinking process and then first make sure that the classroom is a safe environment for students to not only think but show frustrations about the text and ask questions in order to problem solve.  This is considered the Social Dimension (Schoenbach, 1999, pp. 22-27).  Another very important dimension that should be present in the classroom is what Schoenbach calls the Personal Dimension.  In this dimension the students should begin to know and understand what they themselves know as a reader.  They become aware of their strengths and weaknesses in reading.  They learn to think about their own process of reading in order to become more fluent.  Students should write and talk with others about their reading.  In the Cognitive Dimension the students first focus on the big picture, then they break down the big picture to further understand.  They learn to monitor their own understanding and thinking process.  They not only monitor their reading they also should be setting goals and making sure to reach those goals.  The last dimension is the Knowledge-Building Dimension.  In this dimension students share knowledge before reading a topic.  The class brainstorms and puts information together.  Class knowledge is more powerful than the knowledge of one individual.  Students also learn how text is organized, what the authors purpose is, etc in order to help with fluency (Schoenbach, 1999, pp. 28-39). 

I teach Social Studies and believe it is extremely important that I also teach tools, not just content.  These tools include reading and writing.  Students in my class should become more fluent at reading textbooks, reading maps, reading data charts, reading primary documents, etc.  Although I use many strategies from each dimension in my classroom I need to become more explicit in my instruction.  Students should be aware of what they are learning and why.