Week 1: Brainstorming: What do good readers do?
Based on her initial assessment of Emily, Joyce wants to find out what strategies Emily uses when she doesn't understand what she is reading. Joyce saw a brainstorming chart on the wall in Emily's classroom, so she decides to use this technique.
Joyce: Do you do brainstorming at school?
Emily: Yeah, we do it when we get ready to study something. You call out ideas about what you know and the teacher writes them down.
Joyce: That's great, so we're going to do that right now. Let's talk about reading. I'm going to write a question in the middle of this paper and I'll write what you say on lines coming out from it. My question is: What do readers do when they don't understand what they're reading?
Emily: (doesn't answer and just looks at the paper)
Joyce: What do you do when you don't understand what you've read?
Emily: (quiet)
Joyce: (waits)
Emily: Ask someone.
Joyce: That's one idea. When I don't understand, sometimes I go back and read again. What is another thing you could try?
Emily: Look at the pictures?
Joyce: That's another good strategy.
Emily: Skip over it. Keep reading.
Joyce: Those are good strategies, too. Let's add one more to our list that I do sometimes: Stop and ask myself what the author is trying to say.
Brainstorming … What just happened?
Joyce made several helpful choices during this activity. She:
- Encouraged Emily to think about the question, without rushing her response
- Supplied a visual of the activity to give Emily a picture of what they are discussing
- Offered suggestions of her own to take some of the pressure off Emily
See the next session: Visualization
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