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reading skills
thinking skills
the thinking process

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Source: Tompkins, Gail (2017). Literacy for the 21 st Century: A Balanced Approach
The Reading Process
Reading process involves stages a reader goes through to understand what they are reading in text (p.39). As students read, the goal is to comprehend the text. The process involves the following components:

Phonemic awareness and phonics: Students use the knowledge they gain about phonemic awareness and phonics in primary grades to help them read. This includes "how to manipulate sounds in spoken words and apply phoneme-grapheme correspondences and phonics rules, as they read" (p.40).

Word identification: Students are able to recognize common words and decode unfamiliar words using their knowledge of phonics (p.40).

Fluency: Students are able to recognize most words and read with ease and expression. Fluent readers are able to focus on understanding the material rather than reading the material (p.40).

Vocabulary: Students make sense of the words they are reading, relating them to their prior knowledge, to understand what they are reading (p.40).

Comprehension: Creating meaning of what students are reading by predicting, connecting, monitoring, repairing or other strategies. They also use what they know about genres, organizational patterns, and literary devices (p.40).

Stages of Reading
Teachers use the stages of reading to help improve literacy among their students. A table on page 40 summarizes these stages nicely:

Stage 1: Prereading

In this stage, teachers want to build a knowledge base prior to reading the text. They can do this by "activating background knowledge, set purposes, and making plans for reading" (p.41). Background knowledge refers to knowledge that students have gained throughout their life inside and outside of school. General knowledge refers to basic knowledge about the world. Literary knowledge is what students need to read and understand text (p.41). Stage 1 also involves setting purposes or motivation for reading. Then, students look at the book and plan for reading. Students may plan for reading by making predictions based off the cover or illustrations, author, or genre.

Stage 2: Reading

Students read the book a number of ways in the classroom: aloud to students, shared reading, guided reading, partnered reading, or independent reading (p.42-43).

Guided reading: this is used for groups of four or five students who are all at the same reading level. Books used are at their current level. Students read independently, with the exception of younger students who may murmur words while the teacher keeps track. The lessons are 25-30 minutes. The teacher observes and takes notes while students read, making sure they are using good reading strategies. The teacher uses notes to help develop minilessonsto teach and books for students to read.

Shared reading: Teachers read text that students can't read independently. The teacher models fluent readers. Typically, the teacher uses a large book so everyone can see. She uses it to teach phonics and commonly used words. During shared reading, students seetext as the teacher reads. This process also allows students to read along when they know familiar pieces of the story. This process can be used by older students as well. The teacher starts reading, and as the student feels comfortable, they start reading and the teacher stops. This us called "popcorn reading".

Interactive read-aloud: The teacher reads books that are written above students grade level. The students play an active role during this process by asking questions, making predictions, making connections, repeating refrains and identifying key ideas. By reading to students, the teacher models good reading practice, introduces vocabulary, and increases students motivation.

Stage 3: Responding

This stage provides an opportunity for students to review their readings. Students can review readings by using a reading log, in which they write about their readings in a log. Students can use their creativity do design a cover. The logs are to focus on ideas with limited attention to spelling (except for character names and common words). Responding can also take the form of group discussions, or grand discussions. With these discussions, students can talk about their personal thoughts, maybe the authors thoughts, and maybe making connections to their own lives (p.45).

Stage 4: Exploring

Students can explore the text in a number of ways: rereading selections, closed reading, examining writer's craft, focus on words and sentences and minilessons. Students review the text through teacher-led process of rereading selections and close reading. These processes give students the opportunity to learn deeper meanings, themes, and/or relationships among big ideas. Teachers help students address the author's purpose, structural elements, viewpoints and so on (p.46).

Focusing on words and sentences:

Word wall: Teachers add vocabulary to a wall in the classroom so students can reference them during reading activities. Word sorts allow students to categorizing important words and complete semantic feature analysis charts to examine relationships between words.

Minilessons:

Procedures, concepts, strategies, and skills are presented by the teacher in minilessons. It is a way to introduce a topic and make connections between a topic and examples in text (p.47).

Stage 5: Applying

In this stage, students apply what they have learned to a final project. The project could be a story, slide show, presentation, podcast, posters, readers theatre performance and more. "Readers extend their comprehension, reflect on their understanding, and value the reading experience" (p.47). The project can be done independently, in small groups, or as a class. This is a great list of ideas found on page 48:

Readers theatreis a way for students to act out or perform written scripts. It can be used both as a reading assignment and application project.
Reading Strategies
This segment was taken directly from text on pages 63-64

﻿ Comprehension strategies are probably the best known type, but readers use strategies throughout the reading process:

Decoding Strategies. Students use strategies, such as using phonic and morphemic analysis, to identify unfamiliar words.

Word-Learning Strategies. Students apply strategies, such as analyzing word parts, to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words.

Comprehension Strategies. Students use strategies, such as predicting, drawing inferences, and visualizing, to understand what they're reading.

Study Strategies. Students apply strategies, such as taking notes and questioning, to learn information when they're reading content area textbooks. These strategies highlight the kinds of thinking that students engage in while they're reading.

﻿Digital reading strategies:

Navigating. Students navigate the Internet to search for and locate information.

Coauthoring. Students coauthor online texts as they impose an organization on the information they're reading.

Evaluating. Students evaluate the accuracy, relevance, and quality of information on webpages.

Synthesizing. Students synthesize information from multiple texts.

The Writing Process
Students gather and organize ideas, write rough drafts, edit their work and publish it during the writing process (p.39). There are five stages in the writing process including: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing (p.49). Figure 2-4 gives a good overview of these processes. Note that stages 1-3 focus mainly on content of the writing. Stage 4 focuses on polishing the writing for final publication.

Stage 1: Prewriting

Prewriting refers to preparing to write by talking, reading, and brainstorming about what they will be writing. 70% of the writing assignment should be spent on prewriting (p.49). There are several components to prewriting including:

Choosing a topic: allow students to make this decision to encourage involvement and interest in the topic. Teachers can suggest broad topics so students have flexibility to write something that interests them.

Consider purpose and genre: Students need to think about why they are writing. Picking a genre helps guide students in their writing. Note: it is important not to call writings "stories" because there are distinct differences between genres. Genres include: argumentative, descriptive, expository, journals and letters, narrative, and poetry. Figure 2-5 summarizes good purposes and activities for each genre (see below).

Gather and organize ideas: Students can gather and organize ideas by drawing pictures, brainstorming lists of words, read books, do internet searches and talk about ideas (p.49). They may use graphic organizers such as diagrams to help them.

Stage 2: Drafting

The drafting stage allows students to write with a free flow of ideas and thoughts. This draft is not meant to be neat. There may be misspelled words, scribbles, sloppy writing, and punctuation errors. The goal is to get ideas down on paper rather than having a neat and orderly paper in this stage. You may want to ask students to skip every other line so they have room to make corrections. Students can also cut and rearrange the text if they wrote the draft on paper. Sometimes drafts can be typed on a computer as well. Rough drafts should be labeled as such (p.51).

Stage 3: Revising

Students review and fine tune their work. "﻿they [experienced writers] must turn to others for reactions and revise on the basis of these comments. Revision isn't polishing; it's meeting the needs of readers by adding, substituting, deleting, and rearranging material. Revision means "seeing again," and in this stage, writers see their compositions again with the help of classmates and the teacher" (p.51). Revising includes: rereading the rough draft, sharing in revising groups, making revisions, and revising centers.

Revising Centers: various revising options students may use. Centers may include: rereading, word choice, graphic organizers, highlighting, sentence combining. Figure 2-6 provides a summary of revising and editing centers and corresponding activities:

Stage 4: Editing

Editing is putting a piece of writing into its final form (p.52). Focus is on mechanics such as: capitalization, punctuation, spelling, sentence structure, usage, and formatting. It is suggested to allow time away from the piece of work prior to editing so they can see mistakes. Editing consists of proofreading and correcting errors. Proof reading refers to word-by-word review, looking for mistakes. Providing an editing checklist will help students know what to look for during the editing phase. Correcting errors consists of fixing the mistakes.

Stage 5: Publishing

This stage allows students to present their work in one of many forms. Teachers may have students make books out of their work. They may also request that students share their writing by: reading to parents, display at a school event, make a poster, read to students in class, submit it to a magazine...etc. (p.55). Resources that may be useful to help students formally publish their work:

Literary magazines for student's work (p.55):

﻿Stone Soup

Skipping Stones

Magin Dragon

New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams

Online publishing (p.66):

Amazing Kids! Magazine. This website posts K-8 students' stories and poems, but it's geared primarily toward grades 4-8. In addition, the site has Writer's Tips with useful information for student writers.

Cyberkids. This site publishes original writing by 7- to 12-year-olds, including multimodal stories.

KIdsWWwrite. Students' stories and poems are published in this eZine that's divided into areas for 5- to 8-year-olds, 9- to 12-year-olds, and 13- to 16-year-olds.

Writing Strategies
This segment was taken directly from text on page 64

﻿Prewriting Strategies. Students use prewriting strategies, including organizing, to develop ideas before beginning to write.

Drafting Strategies. Students apply drafting strategies, including narrowing the topic and providing examples, to focus on ideas while writing the first draft.

Revising Strategies. Students use revising strategies, including detecting problems, elaborating ideas, and combining sentences, to communicate their ideas more effectively.

Editing Strategies. Students apply strategies, including proofreading, to identify and correct spelling and other mechanical errors.

Publishing Strategies. Students use strategies, including designing the layout, to prepare their final copies and share them with classmates and other authentic audiences.

Writer's Craft
Writers craft refers to techniques writers can use to establish reader's attention and convey meaning to their work. It is suggested to teach writers about writer's craft because it can energize their writing. There are six important components, or traits, that help writers to this:

Ideas: the message and its meaning. The goal is to keep readers interested by having compelling ideas.

Organization: Knowing how to organize their writing in a clear way that is logical for readers, ﻿"Students hook the reader in the beginning, identify the purpose, present ideas logically, provide transitions between ideas, and end with a satisfying conclusion so that the important questions are answered" (p.58).

Voice: Each writer has a distinct style known as their voice. The authors personality shines through their work.

Word choice: students use various vocabulary and descriptive words to develop a well-written piece. Students should "paint a picture with words".

Sentence Fluency: This refers to the "rhythm and flow of language" (p.59).

Conventions: Students make sure their piece is free from errors.

Presentation: "focusing on making the final piece look good" (p.60).

Classroom Application
I have copied and saved numerous tables presented in this chapter into my toolbox for future reference. I appreciate the list of activities within each table. For example, Figure 2-6: Revising and Editing Centers provides examples for each specific type of center. Depending on the subject, I can reference this guide to help me decide what activity would be best-suited for my classroom goals.

I also want to use Figure 2-5 to help me plan various lessons and activities based off of genre. The activity list is extensive and creative! I intend to allow students to pick their own activities from this list.

Another figure that I will find useful in my future class is Figure 2-3, Application Projects. I like how the author summarized various final projects into an easy-to-read figure. This will be helpful for designing a lesson plan that contains an application project. Some of these suggestions can also be used in other subjects to incorporate a literary component.

Engaging students and getting them excited about their work:

I hope to help students get their work published in a formal magazine. Doing this will allow them to feel a sense of pride in their work. Several useful resources I can use were presented the text.

Lastly, I want to teach students about Writer's Craft because I believe it will help them get engaged and excited about writing their own work.

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Amanda Cordova, EngEd275, Chapter 2: The Reading and Writing Processes

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Notes and vocabulary Source: Tompkins, Gail (2017). Literacy for the 21stCentury: A Balanced Approach The Reading Process Reading process involves stages a reader goes through to understand what they are reading in text (p.39). As students read, the goal is to comprehend the text.

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Why read faster?

You can read more in less time

you can understand better

You will improve your general knowledge of English

How to read faster?

1- Check your reading Habits

2- skip or guess unknown words

3- Practice reading faster by timing yourself

Guidelines for reading Faster

Follow these for timed readings:

1- Use a timer before you start.

2- Preview each passage before reading it

3- Read the passage and then write down the exact time you finish.

4- Answer the questions without looking back at the passage. Then check your answers

5- Read the passage again. Look for the answers to the questions, especially the ones you answered incorrectly.

6- Find your reading time and your reading rate.

7- Write your reading rate and your comprehension score and the number of correct answer in the progress charts.

8- After reading 4 or 5 passages, check your progress.

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Unit 1 - Preveiwing

Unit 2 - Scanning

Unit 3 - Making Inference

Unit 4 - Focusing on the topic

Unit 5 - Understanding the Paragraph

Unit 6 - Identifying The Patterns

Unit 7 - Thinking in English

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Unit 1- Guidelines for learning vocabulary - Parts of Speech - Sounds &Letters

Unit 2 - Learning New words from the reading

Unit 3 - Guessing Meaning from Context

Unit 4- Word Parts   word parts I - word family

Unit 5 - How words are used together

Unit 6- How words Work together

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Unit 1 - New words in your Reading

Unit 2 - Fiction and Nonfiction

Unit 3 - Books