I feel that modeling is one of the most effective ways of teaching students. One of the most common forms of modeling, one that I remember in school, are the Big Books. A Big Book is one of the “big books” that teachers read in front of their students. Years ago, Big Books, use to be the main way that teachers modeled shared reading. Now shared reading refers to a variety of ways that “teachers and students share a text” (pg 1). Some of the ways that teachers can use shared reading is through “echo reading (students echoing the words aloud after the teacher reads), choral reading (students reading aloud while the teacher reads aloud), or cloze reading (teacher reads aloud and pauses periodically for students to fill in the missing word)” (pg 1). I have never even really thought about shared reading, but have realized that this is a strong part of reading instruction. In fact, four major areas of instruction are addressed in shared reading. These areas of instruction include comprehension, vocabulary, text structures, and text features.
Comprehension is the most common modeling used during shared reading. One of the examples of comprehension that is given in the article is through using a document camera and showing students the text as you read it. While reading the text, the teacher will stop occasionally and ask the students questions about the text they are reading. Through use of the document camera, students are also encouraged to follow along in the text as the teacher reads aloud.
Vocabulary is another common modeling tool used in shared reading. Instead of teachers giving students the definitions of the vocabulary words, students are encouraged to use different techniques like context clues, word parts, and resources to figure out their own definition of what they think the vocabulary words mean. Context clues are clues that students obtain by rereading passages or reading ahead. If students can figure out what is going on in the sentence, then it is likely that students will be able to figure out what the unknown word means. Word parts use “inside-the-word” strategies to figure out the definition of words. Inside the word means that students will look at prefixes, suffixes, roots, bases, word families, etc. to see if they can use these things to figure out what the word means. Resources is a tool that I have never actually heard of until I read this article. Resources is the last strategy one should look to and that is only when the context clues and word parts fail. The students’ resources can include asking classmates or finding answers on reliable internet websites.
Text structures was another tool that I had never heard of until now. This deals with the ways that different genres of text are set up. For example, “informational texts are commonly organized into compare/contrast, problem/solution, cause/effect, chronological/sequence/temporal, and descriptive” (pg 6).
Text features are something that we discussed the other day in class. This refers to places in the text where words are in bold print or are italicized. This can also apply to headings, captions, graphs, etc. I remember that when I was a student in elementary school and up through middle school, that I often times would skip right over italicized words or bolded words. Now though I realize that those text features are like that for a reason and that means they are important to stop and read. It is important for us as future teachers to teach our students about these text features and why they look different than the other parts of the text.
In conclusion, shared reading is something that I think is very important and definitely needs to be done in the classroom. Through this shared reading, I feel like we can better develop our students as readers.
