1. Turn and Talk. Write your explanation on a card.
What is reading?
If you were asked to define reading to a Martian, what would you say?
Turn and Talk.
Write your explanation on a card.

2. What is reading?
Reading is not simply decoding or sounding out words. Decoding is one aspect of reading.
Reading is a recursive process not a linear one.
You do not decode first or “know” words, then make-meaning.
Decoding problems stem largely from inexact or insufficient teaching. When beginning readers are given explicit decoding instruction that introduces the basic scheme that underlies any alphabetic language, they become competent decoders. But when such lesson are either minimized or exaggerated, students suffer.. It is good, balanced, reading lessons that product good balanced readers. Teach decoding and teach other skills and strategies also AND always give students lots of opportunities to engage in success. Page 57 Allington, RTI.
NOT

3. Reading is a meaning-making process BUT meaning does not reside in a word.
Meaning resides in the structure of language; therefore, reading is understanding words in relation to other words and sentences in relation to other sentences.

4. Reading is making meaning by thinking and making decisions about thoughts.
Reading is the process of constructing meaning or composing a [meta]text in the reader’s head.
ONE reason you are asked to write about reading, or sketch, or finish sentence stems (I think, I wonder, I like, I don’t like….), or talk about reading or annotate is to make the mental process concrete.

5. Reading is a process similar to writing.
Readers monitor their reading.
Reading entails drafting and revision (of meaning) in similar ways that writing does.

6. Reading is a puzzle. A certain amount of confusion is appropriate
Reading is a puzzle. A certain amount of confusion is appropriate. Hopefully, the meaning “comes together” after reading, rereading, talking, questioning and thinking.

7. Reading requires both cognition (thinking) and meta-cognition (thinking about thinking).
Reading is a messy process, filled with starts and stops, rereading, rethinking, making connections, pulling from prior experiences.

8. The ability to read well is relative…
The ability to read well is relative….relative to the piece you are asked to read.
When we confront a difficult text, what do we do?
Apply the strategies we learned.

9. Sometimes meaning is constructed from text is not is not there.
Reading is more than focusing on the text: words, sentences, paragraphs, visuals.
Sometimes meaning is constructed from text is not is not there.

10. Reading is thinking, and thinking is cognitive and meta-cognitive.
Reading takes work.
Meaning does not pop into your head
once you say, scan or skim the words.
Meaning has to be constructed.

11. When we read what is at play?
When you read, what assumptions do you make, what opinions do you formulate and what interpretations do you consider? WHY? HOW?
Is reading an interaction between what we deem from text and who we are?