Reflection of Chapters 1-3 "Catching Readers Before They Fall"

        These chapters brought up some very key ideas that can help teach reading. The biggest idea to stick out to me in chapter two was the fact that struggling readers and indeed struggling and they are not to blame. "If struggling readers are not learning how to read, then we need to look at ourselves and our teacher" (pg. 11). Thats me, I'm the teacher. It is my responsibility to form the struggling student into a successful student. So how?

     Teachers have to realize that struggling readers do not have the same thinking skills as successful readers. They need to reconstruct what goes on in their head when reading and form their processing system. Once a student has a successful processing system that does things such as predicting, making connections, inferring, synthesizing, visualizing, and self-monitoring all at the same time, then they will start thinking like successful readers. The earlier a child learns how to use their processing system, the better. That is my job to have each child learn the processing system as soon as possible.

     Vygotsky is a genius. I am thankful to have been learning about Vygotsky and his theories since my high school education. The process of using the zone of proximal development through scaffolding and gradual release of responsibility to lead students to move information from the out of reach to the zone of actual development is key to learning. Not just reading, but every subject in and outside of school can be best learned by using Vygotsky theory, I know this from person learning experiences and personal teaching experiences. The simple idea of assisting a person in something that they can only achieve with help can produce remarkable learning. Another advantage is "when teachers understand the zone of proximal development, they strive to know their students better and try harder to vary their supports, questions, or instruction for different students" (pg. 35) which advances the classrooms community.

     Vygotsky's theories call for a specific style classroom, that being sociocultural, meaning "setting up a classroom environment that fosters talk, having students working collaboratively, developing projects based on student interests, and encouraging students to support each other as learners" (pg. 48). Personally, I strive to have my classroom be sociocultural. I understand that I will not serve as the only teacher in the classroom, that the students will be capable of teaching each other and I want to allow teaching and learning to flow between every person in my classroom easily, which will be made possible through sociocultural.