Constructing Meaning through Reading and Writing

Constructing Meaning through Reading and Writing

Strategy

Activity and Assessment

Inference

This is the strategy of reasoning, concluding or judging from certain information and according to many researchers it can be considered as the heart of process of reading (Pearson, Kamil, & Barr, 2000). Inferencing can be incorporated into the process of learning by letting students to formulate predictions during and before reading and by doing so develop their abilities for constructing meanings. The teachers can access this strategy by evaluating predictions of student and judging whether they can demonstrate them.

Make a sentences list and let students conclude the meaning by selecting from a list of possible meanings. After that create a mind-bender puzzle using the concluded meanings, statements and questions and answers.

Monitoring

This is the method of realizing that what someone is reading is not creating any proper sense and having the ways of resolving the problem. A reader can expect problems in his/her interpretation and revise them as they occur thus enhancing their skills of meaning construction. This strategy can take account of searching words in the dictionary, reading further on, or requesting for help from somebody. By observing students at the time when they are writing or reading, teachers can rightly gain access to their monitoring abilities and thus their improvement.

Summarizing

This strategy involves organizing main information in lengthy passages (Stahl & Hayes, 1997). This strategy required to be developed with beginners over time. As the expository passage structure is different as of that narrative passage structure, summarizing must be explained in a different way for these passages. In narrative passages, it requires concentration on the basics of the story plot whereas in expository passages it requires classification of key thoughts (Baumann, 1986). This strategy can be evaluated by assigning students different passages to summarize. The excellent summary must provide an actual outline of the complete writing piece.

Let students double over a blank paper piece into 4, 6 or 8 parts, now ask them to tell any article or story by drawing the basic idea or event in each section and writing a sentence to escort each picture. Distribute in small groups.

Question Generating

In making use of this strategy, students bring about their own developed questions which should be answered because they read. Students can be assessed as moving towards improvement if they can properly answer to their generated questions.

Fix a paper clip spinner. After reading passage section, let students spin that spinner. Communicate a question by making use of the question word and choose any classmate for answering that question. Scaffold Instruction

This strategy is created on this concept that students need very much assistance at the inception of learning; slowly, this assistance is taken back as students can seek their self-determination (Pikulski & Cooper, 2007).

For judging this strategy, teacher carries off the assistance and evaluates the level of self-determination of the student. In the cases that students are unable achieve to freedom, the system for assistance is restored to support students till the time when ...