Gibbons Ch. 5

Through reading Chapter 5 of the Gibbons text, I learned that there are not only different theories that are related to literacy pedagogy, but that it is incredibly important to plan before-reading, during-reading, and after-reading activities. I had never thought about the importance of modeling the manner in which effective readers read prior to reading this chapter. Previously, when I thought about teaching reading, I solely thought about the importance of teaching the students to read for comprehension. For some reason, I had completely forgotten about the fact that many young readers as well as English Language Learners may not have a grasp on the techniques required to become an effective reader.

While reading this chapter, I began to think about my own elementary school years, and I cannot remember a single time where I took place in a before-reading activity. Similarly, in my current field placement, I have never seen my CT incorporate any before-reading activities into her lessons. I cannot help but wonder if my lack of experience with before-reading activities is due to the fact that there were very few (if any) English Language Learners in my Elementary School, and there are no ELLs in my current field placement. However, I think that before-reading activities can be useful to any level of reader, no matter if they are reading in their first language or not. One of my favorite examples of a before-reading activity was "Predicting from Title or First Sentence" (85). I thought that particular activity would be especially helpful because it allows the children to model hypothesising about the content of a book/reading prior to reading it. Additionally, if the predictions are given in a group setting, it would be fairly easy for the teacher to "guide the class in a way that will best help them deal with the major concepts or events in the text to be read." (85)

I hope to incorporate the concepts I learned from this reading into my future classroom as well as my current field placement. Although there are no ELLs in my current placement, I hope to still incorporate before, during, and after reading activities into my lesson I teach. In my past as both a learner as well as my time spent as a "teacher" in a classroom, I have seen during and after reading activities modeled, so hopefully I will be able to incorporate my prior knowledge of those types of activities with my new-found knowledge I gained from this reading.