Mosaic of Thought

I normally label professional books into two categories: books I will shelf and books I will use. At dayle's suggestion, I began my current read, Mosaic of Thought - The Power of Comprehension Strategy Instruction. This will definitely be a book I use...for validation of my practice and instruction for those I coach.

This book begins in an interesting way. Ellin Keene talks about using her own reading habits to determine skills that good readers need in order to comprehend what they are reading. It sounds simple, doesn't it? Demonstrating for students those invisible processes they should be using while reading and then providing them opportunity to use those strategies as often as possible. However, I remember making that transition myself several years ago and wondering how I could design lessons if they weren't in the teacher's guide. I mean...being a good reader doesn't mean I know exactly what I'm doing when I read. It took a lot of reflection!

Many of the teaching materials chosen for schools are research-based to support literacy development. Ellin Keene reminds us they can "limit teachers' decision making about their students." We want to create readers, not students who can only "read".

As I peek ahead in Mosaic I can tell I have some deep reading ahead, so I'm signing off to dig in!