Before-Reading

toc =Before-Reading=

**Set Purposes for Reading**
Often what students struggle with the most, as readers, are the well honed and fined tuned practices that come naturally and unconsciously to us. We are just that though, well-honed and fine tuned readers. As educated adults, we read without knowing that our minds are processing information. However, our students are still in the beginning stages of the never-ending process of learning to read.

Without knowing, we pick up various texts or open various websites with different purposes in mind. I do not dig through my glove box, fumbling for my user manual, expecting to have a pleasurable reading experience. I want information. It seems obvious. I do not pick up the latest in a series of mystery novels with the intention of learning something and furthering my education. The purpose of reading, which we have internalized with much practice, is not obvious to our students. As middle school aged children, their exposure to a variety of texts is minimal. Specifically, “students often come to middle school with limited experience with content area texts; therefore, they don’t know how to read them.”

 Barclay Marcell’s strategy, called Traffic Light Reading, is “adaptable for second graders as well as for junior high students.”  And while Traffic Light Reading is actually a before-, during-, after-reading strategy, Marcell insists that students must first be introduced to “introduce students to the fact that there are different reasons to read and different ways to approach divergent material.”

 Another important aspect to understand before reading is the setting and themes that may be different than the ones students are used to or familiar to students. By that I mean, if a text deals with characters from a different place or time period, it will be difficult for middle schoolers to connect with the text. Sherry Lain explains how she introduces articles or popular songs to get students to begin to understand period pieces or different geographical areas. It is important to make sure that middle schoolers can engage and understand a setting of a text, so that they can move into higher level thinking.



**Activate Prior Knowledge**


**Develop Questions**
Chris Street uses the strategy "Think, Pair, Share" in order to engage his students in a text before they begin reading. However, this is normally done after background information has been given to students.

**// Think //**

 1. Present students with a specific question or problem related to a topic that will be raised in a piece of expository text. The question should be open-ended in order to solicit a variety of responses and opinions. Here are a few examples:  What is your opinion about…? Why?  Take a position on this issue. Defend it.  Argue in favor of or against. . .  If this were to happen, what would result?  How do you feel about [social issue or person]? Why?  What suggestions do you have about. . .?  Why do you think this individual did. . .? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> What do you think this person or group would say about this? Why? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 2. Give the students quiet time to consider their responses and frame their reactions in writing before discussing in pairs.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> **// Pair //**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 3. Have students find a partner, close by or long distance (for example, students might share their responses over e-mail with other students).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> **// Share //**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 4. Have students share their responses with a partner. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 5. Kick off a whole-class discussion where students share ideas and responses.

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**Make Predictions**
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**Before Reading Strategies for Struggling Readers**
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Due to No Child Left Behind, "school literacy" is becoming more important than "real world literacy" due to the need of passing the standardized tests. Barbara Radcliffe spoke in her article about how the FCAT (the standardized test in Florida) has shifted the population of her middle school students to older and more mature students, who have even more problems reading. Sixteen and seventeen year old kids are still left behind in 8th grade because of their inability to pass the FCAT. Radcliffe described activities she does with her kids at the beginning of the school year before she begins the reading lists from the 8th grade curriculum. The activities she uses are as follows:

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Radcliffe also describes the effective behaviors one uses before reading:
 * Brainstorming what we read (i.e. magazines, street signs, cereal boxes, etc).
 * Having the kids made a reading timeline that recaps each student's reading experience by grade level. It is important that the students clearly state whether their experience was a positive or a negative one. This highlights when and where students begin to have a negative view on reading.
 * She has the students take an interest survey and from their answers suggests a book to read on their own. She suggests these books in one-on-one conferences.

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 * Preview the text before you read. Never jump straight in without thinking about the topic or title.
 * Reflect and think about what you already know about the topic.
 * Ask someone or do research about the topic if it is new to you.
 * Determine why you are reading the text. (I.e. for your own entertainment, to learn new information, to study for a test, etc)
 * Set a purpose or goal for your reading.

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Before-Reading for Textbooks
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> A lot of the times, it is in middle school that students begin to have a negative experience with reading. This is the turning point in which teachers expect their students to read a lot of dense information for the purpose of learning instead of pleasure. This is different from what students are used to in elementary school when short stories and chapter books were the main texts being read.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> While the debate continues about the necessary use of textbooks, the Before-Reading becomes vital for the students to successfully read textbooks. Not only do students generally dislike reading textbooks, but also students do not know how to approach an expository text. They lack strategies to read textbooks, and the narrative strategies do not function for reading textbooks. The important Before-Reading strategies include: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 1. The teacher should provide background knowledge and draw upon their prior knowledge. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 2. The purpose and goals for reading the textbook should be clearly established. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 3. Students should skim through the textbook and begin to make meaning from the pictures and figures. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 4. Unfamiliar vocabulary should be introduced/explained to the students.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> In the Subjects Matter book, it outlines the insufficient aspect of textbooks in the classrooms. They often are too heavy, superficial, hard to read, badly designed, authoritarian, inaccurate, and cost too much. I know that several school districts require the use of certain text books, but one point made in this book that stood out to me was that we "must change not just how we teach reading, but what we ask kids to read" (47). Textbooks are references so teachers need to use them appropriately and could use other forms of literature or poetry in our lessons. Also, a point was made about how text books are too heavy for students to carry around and are causing health issues due to carrying 30lbs of books around everywhere. An idea to help fix this problem would be to have a classroom set and be able to send home more engaging homework than just reading the textbook.