Sunday, November 09, 2008

can you read? do you write?


Is your brain engaged in your reading and writing activities? Room5ians brains are - they do all these things when reading actively....

  • Summarize: Every once in awhile, you should stop, look at a portion of text you just read, and try to summarize the content in your own words. This is a good way to test your understanding of the material.

  • Make Predictions: To keep your brain fully engaged in the text, you should make predictions about what you think might happen next based on what you already know. It's always fun to see if your predictions are accurate.

  • Formulate Opinions: We have opinions on everything from the weather to politics. When you are reading, allow yourself to form opinions about the characters, the plot, the style of the writing, etc.

  • Make Connections: A good way to understand something that is new and unfamiliar to you is to connect it to something you already know or have experienced. Can you connect the text you are reading to a personal experience? Does it remind you of something else you've read or seen?

  • Ask Questions: Don't expect that you are going to understand everything in the reading with complete clarity the first time through. What don't you understand? What confuses you? What words are unclear to you?

  • Analyze the Author's Craft: As you are reading, you may notice certain things about the writer's style. Is there a lot of description? Is there too little description? Is the reading easy to follow or difficult in some way? Does the author use a lot of literary devices like similes and metaphors? Do you understand how and why the author is using such devices?

  • Reflect/React/Comment: What do you notice? What surprises you? How do you feel about what you are reading? What do you think about what you are reading?

  • Look for Patterns/Repetitions: What do you notice about the way the text is structured? Do you notice some kind of pattern? Is there some element in the text that is repeated? What is important about this pattern or these repetitions? How does the structure contribute to the overall meaning?
[- as described in Angela Maiers blog]

http://www.angelamaiers.com/2008/02/active-reading.html

And thoughts on actively engaging with a txt:

http://psuwritingcenter.blogspot.com/2007/09/talking-to-books.html

5 comments:

Nei-Nei Neina-Marie said...

I do all of those. I especially like Greek Myths because they really make you stop and think. I mean, they are very immaginative tales, but the way they are written is simply so realistic.

HamilTRON said...

Yeah I enjoy reading books with a really good plot, hook and language (written in a good sense) Books let your imagination grow!

HamilTRON

Candycane said...

As a bookworm I find the most entertaining thing to do is sit down and read a good book Hamiltron is right 'books let your imagination grow' is a perfecly good reason to read some books i enjoy reading fantasy the most but its still exciting to read non fiction
3=0)

TracyO said...

As a Resource Teacher of Literacy,I can say that these are great strategies to use to teach critical literacy. And i'm talking literacy across curriculum.....an excellent resource that talks about what to do and the 'how' to teach literacy - well in this case reading, but can be applied to viusal literacy, ICT etc......is Alison Davis' book "Teaching Reading comprehension" which is available thru learning media.

My focus for my job is literacy, this encompasses all literacy - the visual and spoken too......so what is talked about as you have done above, can be applied to all thinking.
thanks for your excellent blogs.

Aquagirl said...

Like most of you i also love to read books but if i find the book really boring i end up dreaming off into another world