What I Believe About Reading

Reading allows us to learn and experience instances, people, and situations that we simply would not have the opportunity to learn about first hand. We experience a lot in the world but reading allows us to experience everything else.

My belief comes from my own reading and experiences including:
• Helping students in developing as independent readers, thinkers, and learners. (Weaver, 88)
• Russell Stauffer has also advocated teaching students to raise questions in order that they may become reading-thinking scholars. (Russell Strauffer qt in McNeil 40)
• It is education that can help children move from their ego centric state to the ability to look at things through the various lenses needed for global understanding. (Miller Cleary)
• All human beings strive to be in a continuous state of learning and comprehension, just as they continually strive to breathe. (Smith 6)
• I learn about what interests me through reading. If I want to know about a person or a place that I heard about I read about it. It allows me to learn about the world that I don’t have the chance to experience first hand. It allows me to learn about anything and everything. You can experience anything with reading.

Because of this belief as a teacher I will
Create assignments that allow students to learn about what subjects that interest
them while also learning language arts skills.
Choose literature that teaches not only the language arts skills but also presents
other valuable information.

I believe that the best way to learn or improve reading skills is to read. The brain learns not only by mastery of individual skills but by immerging and using all the skills simultaneously.

My belief comes from my own reading and experiences including:
• A reader’s competence continues to grow through engagement with various types of texts and wide reading for various purposes over a lifetime. (NCTE)
• Fluency both supports and is strengthened by extensive reading. (NCTE)
• Children learn to read by reading, provided they are interested in what they read and not confused by it. (Smith, 29)
• I belief that ‘good’ readers are good at reading skills because they read, not because they master skills.
• I read a lot as an adolescent. Yet I continually did poorly on tests of reading skills. I was a good reader because I read a lot not because I mastered reading skills. My Phonemic skills to this day are terrible but given my success in college and my constant enjoyment of reading, I still consider myself a good readers.

Because of this belief as a teacher I will
Create numerous and continuous chances for students to read.
Create opportunities for students to read self-chosen and teacher chosen works.
Create class time for students to discuss the reading they are enjoying.
Monitor individual students progress in gaining fluency by making a specific
amount of outside self chosen literature mandatory.

I believe reading when it is an enjoyable experience is more meaningful and more worthwhile.

My belief comes from my own reading and experiences including:
Motivation, interest, value of prior knowledge
• Reading can be fun.
• I define a good book as anything that can make me laugh or cry out loud and keeps me up all night.
• I think people are much more likely to get involved and interested in what their reading if they enjoy it.

Because of this belief as a teacher I will
Allow students to change independent reading so they can choose enjoyable
books.
Create an atmosphere where students can enjoy what they are reading and share
that enjoyment with the other students through book talks.
Try to choose literature for class activities that conveys a wide range of interests
or common interests of the class.
Try to vary the content and types of literature so all students will find something
they enjoy.

I believe success in future endeavors depends on having a mastery of reading as a critical skill.

My belief comes from my own reading and experiences including:
• Literature can help readers make sound choices through experiencing in the text the consequences of character’s action. (Jago, 45) It allows students view the positive and negative consequences of actions through the characters and help them make more informed decisions .
• Scholars note that the level of literacy required to function in American society and on the job is steadily increasing. (Smith)
• I don’t know where I read it, but success in reading is linked to success in other areas of school. For example students who do well in reading also do well in math. School success is related in so many ways to success later in life, not only affecting collage admissions
• Students who believe they are struggling readers usually allow this struggle to affect their self image and believe that since they cannot read they are stupid. This is not the case.
• Struggling students often fall victim to self fulfilling prophecies where they believe that since they cannot read they can never read.

Because of this belief as a teacher I will
Stress the real life situations in which these skills/knowledge will be valuable.
Try to instill not a classroom understanding/love of reading but a lifelong reading.
Teach students not the specific skills but teach the ability to solve their own
problems using the skills.
Have students explore their possible futures and the role that reading will play in
achieving those goals.
Try to teach students to read in ways that will help them in the future.

I believe the world is full of interpretations and opinions found in both the literature we will read and the experiences my students and they are all valuable.

My belief comes from my own reading and experiences including:
• “In every country where man is free to think and to speak, differences of opinion will arise from difference of perceptions, and the imperfection of reason; but these differences when permitted, as in this happy country, to purify themselves by free discussions.” (Jefferson qt in Miller Cleary, 14-15)
• “Constructivism as a philosophical theory holds that knowledge – and therefore- understanding – is not a property of the physical world, but something that has to be personally constructed by each individual. (Smith, 78)
• “Literature teaches teenagers about the many possible ways of life and philosophies from which the reader is then free to choose.” (Jago, 45)

Because of this belief as a teacher I will
Not force my opinion as fact onto my students
Allow all interpretations in my classroom
Allow all students to voice their opinions
Try to present many interpretations to a piece of literature
Encourage students to juxapose their own views with the view of the texts
Analize texts from many perspectives and philosophies.

I believe reading is the mind creating.

My belief comes from my own reading and experiences including:

• Teachers should create environments that allow students to engage in critical examinations of texts as they dissect, deconstruct, and re-construct in an effort to engage in meaning making and comprehensions processes. (NCTE)
• Socio-psycholinguistic characterizes any approach that emphasizes the construction of meaning, drawing upon the individual’s unique constellation of prior knowledge experience, background, and social context. (Weaver, 88)
• Readers read in accordance with their ‘identity themes’ and re-create literary works in accordance with their won psychological predispositions. (McNeil, 52)
• When I read, I get drawn into the world and the lives of the characters. Sometimes, if I stop reading, I think that I miss what is happening with the characters.
• Each reader creates the world of the story. Every reader sees the world slightly differently. Our mind, based on what we already know and experienced will latch on to different details. We all bring our own schema to the text and it influences how we read a text.
• Every person has a theatre of the mind where the events of a text play out, We all however, create different set, costumes, lights and cast different actors for our production.

Because of this as a teacher I will
Allow students to create their own interpretation of the text and to express that
interpretations in their own ways.
Teach texts in a way the allows the mind to create whatever it wants as long as it
is based on the text.
Use pre-reading strategies to tap prior knowledge and experiences of my students
Choose literature that allows the student’s minds to create a variety of creative
environments and characters not always realistic.

I believe we learn and retain more when it connected to our lives.

My belief comes from my own reading and experiences including:
• Textual Understanding grows from student’s knowledge of their worlds to knowledge of the external world. (NCTE)
• Langer, et al found that literacy programs that deal best with at-risk students emphasize connections between students’ lives, prior knowledge, and texts, and emphasize students conversations to make those connections. (NCTE)
• Effective literacy programs move students beyond decoding goals to deeper understandings of texts and give them ability to generate ideas and knowledge for their own uses. (NCTE)
• All the literature lessons and classes that I still remember from middle and high school are on books or skills that I still read or use today.

Because of this as a teacher I will
Always try to connect the material or the skills to the students’ present or future
lives.
Allow students to make the connections for themselves no matter how trivial it
might seem.
Use pre-reading strategies to tap prior knowledge and experiences of the students.

I believe reading allows us to explore and understand our own identities.

My belief comes from my own reading and experiences including:
• Literature gives readers the opportunity to see themselves in their reading – to observe their own responses to the characters and situations and thereby better understand themselves (McNeil, 52)
• Literature can assist readers to view their own personalities and problems objectively so as to handle them better. (Jago, 45)
• I identify myself in terms of the world I live in, the person I want to be, and the reactions to the decisions I’ve made and will make.
• Reading allows us to objectively view the consequences of actions, helping us to make more thoughtful decisions.

Because of this as a teacher I will
Choose literature that has male and female characters that my students can easily
relate to.
Use Reader Response to allow students to explore their ideas and experiences in
relation to the literature.
Give many opportunities for students to explore ‘what if’ scenarios
Point out decisions and consequences and put those decisions on the discussion
Table, allowing students to work out consequences for themselves.
Choose literature that culturally represents the background of my students. So
they can see themselves and their culture in the literature we read.

WORKS CITED
Smith, Frank. Unspeakable Acts, Unnatural Practices. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003.
McNeil ***** 1992
Miller-Cleary, Linda. “Literacy, Democracy, Wellstone, and Jefferson: An Imperative for a
Certain Kind of Literacy.” Minnesota English Journal. Fall 2003. pp 5-23
Jago, Carol. “Don’t Discard the Classics.” American Educator. Winter 1999-2000. pp 20-23
44-46.
“ A Call to Action: What We Know About Adolescent Literacy and Ways to Support Teachers in
Meeting Students’ Needs.” NCTE Position/Action Statement
Weaver, Constance. Reading Process and Prectice. 2nd Ed.