Week 4 Readings

When reading the Langer article, they mention this point of "stepping in". I wondered how many readers actually allowed themselves to "step in" because I know when I was a young reader, if I had to read something I didn't find appealing from the start, I never let myself step in and just stayed on the surface. Another question I have is how do you push a less proficient reader to see past the "superficial" points? Or what do you do with those kinds of readers? Because if you just let it happen, then eventually it is all going to build up and they aren't going to be learning anything. This article also made me think about why these "strategies" can't be mixed. Why is there one strategy for a particular type of reading and another for a different type? Could switching the strategies prove to be more useful for different readings?

As others have stated, the Hassett article did remind me of TE 348. This article was a good reminder to the importance of other aspects and elements in literature besides the literal "text". I think it is really important to keep these elements in mind when dealing with a variety of readers because the more textual elements that are present, the more some struggling readers might be able to not fall as far behind. I see these textual elements used in a beneficial way a lot in my classroom because we do have some readers who really struggle with reading actual text, so they are very reliant on elements such as the font type, pictures, spacing, etc.

I think the Lelan article brings up some really good points about critical literacy and gives readers the image that serious topics can be brought up in the classroom and have benefits. It takes the "scary" edge off of the literature being tolerable for young students and makes it less intimidating. I thought it was really interesting to see how well the students responded to these issues because honestly, I wouldn't have thought they would have been capable of it.