To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. ~Edmund Burke
This week we learned about assessing reading. There are various genres of reading that include: academic reading, job-related reading, and personal reading. Most people will come across and have to read examples from all three genres of reading. There are four different types of reading. These are: Perceptive, Selective, Interactive, and Extensive. For the most part, ELLs with beginning English proficiency will start out focusing on Perceptive and Selective reading tasks. As they progress, ELLs will move on to Interactive reading tasks. Once ELLs become more English proficient, they will move on to Extensive reading tasks.
Depending on where the ELL is from, reading might take on a different order. In countries like Japan, things are read up and down from right to left. English is read side to side from left to right. So this can be a challenge for ELLs at first. Students also have to learn how to break up words and sentences depending on punctuation. Words and sentences can also have different meanings depending on what punctuation is used. So it is important to make sure that ELLs know what the various types of punctuation mean and how they are used in sentences.
I chose the about quote because by assessing students in reading, we are having them reflect on what they have read. If we have the students answer questions about what they have read or have them summarize what they have read, they are being made to analyze and understand what they read instead of them just going through the motions of reading.
Hi Daniele, I really learned a lot just by reading your reflection. I completely forgot about the different styles and order of reading. We must teach the correct word usage, punctuation, and word meanings when it comes to reading and help our students learn how to read.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your mentioning how a students culture can affect reading- particularly the Asian cultures. This is something I think teachers forget. We take for granted that our students, even though they are second-language learners, read in at least a similar way in their own countries. Students in our classrooms, however, may not even share the same native alphabet. I have travelled a fair amount in my life, but last year was the first time I encountered what Asian students must feel when they first arrive in the US. In Europe, in Central America, and in other places that share a western alphabet, I have always been able to memorize patterns or perceived sounds of what words are in my head even if I did not speak the language. When I visited Japan briefly last year, however, I felt utterly lost. My brain could not even see patterns in the words on signs and in the trains. It was a valuable and humbling experience for me.
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