The Active Reader, Van Woerkum

Blog 3: Briefly discuss how you might teach or convey the ideas in "Active Reading" to a developmental reading/writing class.  How would you help students to understand these processes and strategies? And how might you help students practice some of these reading processes and strategies?   I've posted a graphic organizer below to help you organize your ideas.

“...it is necessary to look at how readers are constructed as partners in a communication co-production...” 

I’m interested in thinking about these questions as they relate to a variety of student populations, but my perspective is a little bit influenced by experience with ESL student readers in a few different contexts (pre-academic, non-academic and CMS). In a developmental reading class, I feel, first of all that a significant amount of reading practice which highlights all the stages of active reading should take place in class. Students are often sent home to figure reading out on their own, and only receive guidance on the “after reading phases.”  Who knows what they did, if anything, before reflection, activation and discussion...

I really appreciate Williams’ second principal for teaching reading, which states that reading should be the central activity of a reading lesson (something I read a while ago and just pulled from an old lesson plan rationale.  Day & Bramford, 2002).  

One way to help students understand the processes and strategies of active reading is to model them in class.  Students often skip, for example, some important previewing steps. I therefore believe in showing students how I go through those steps myself when reading a challenging (or any) text.  There should also be opportunity for reflection (students can explicitly reflect on the pre, during and after reading phases they actively or automatically created and experienced), and various awareness raising opportunities, as well opportunities to actively practice each phase as they read in class.  After modeling active reading and allowing students to practice active reading in class, it’s more realistic to send students home with an academic text and expect them to actively engage with it on their own.