Reading Strategies

I just viewed the reading strategies video and I found it extremely interesting. Though I thought all the ideas were very valuable my favorites were reader's theatre and the anticipation worksheet. Readers theatre is an exercise where students act out a book or part of a book that they are reading. Not only is this fun for the class both as actors and audience, I think it is very valuable for teaching many skills. To act as a character from the reading students must first analyze the character. This forces them to deeply consider that character's personality based on what they have read, and it also allows them to be creative and add their own interpretation of the character based on their opinion of the character's actions and reactions in the reading. Bringing a character to life for students helps make the reading easier to understand because they can see the character as real and visualize them in situations in the story. Acting out a story or section of a book also gets students to think about the order of events and the causes and effects in the story. Sometimes causes and effects are not immediately apparent to readers, but as part of the scripting process the teacher is able to guide the students to consider the relationship of various events in the story more carefully. I thought the anticipation worksheet was also a very interesting and creative idea. The teacher designs the sheet based on the story and lists general ideas that pertain to the events about to be covered in the reading. Before the students read they go through the worksheet and respond to each topic. Then after the reading the students revisit the sheet and see if their thoughts on each topic have changed based on what they just learned. I think this is a great idea because it gets students thinking about what they already know on topics beforehand which makes it easier to relate to and understand the reading. Then after the reading going back to the worksheet shows the students what they have learned or how their opinions have changed as a result of the reading which gives it real value. I am very excited to learn more about both of these techniques and try them out in my classroom when I become a teacher!