First off on a remark I want to make just because this was the theme of the book of teaching reading

comprehension in the primary grades. It is so important that we teach this to students then. I wasnt
fortunate enough to be given the time to learn this in those grades because my eye problems knocked
me out of class a lot, and the teacher wouldnt always go back and give me the time to learn these
concepts. It is so important! I really enjoyed this book a lot though it was a great read like you told us it
would be!
Chapter one I think was my favorite chapter so I will probably spend more time elaborating on this one.
Also because I think it is the most critical time of teaching at the beginning of the year, where it sets the
mood. The first chapter is talking about the guiding principles. I thought that there were some great
points that they had in there. I liked how at the chapter start below the picture it said independence is
the goal. It is so true. We want students to be able to do things independently but it must be a goal. In
the first section establishing framework, Miller talks about Reading Workshops. She gives you what all
happens in them, breaks down the time frames of the work shop. I loved her example of the book that
talks about mini lessons and compares it to fishing. I can just picture our students just as the fish. Its
important that we dont leave them out there to get bored and their possible learning to die out of their
minds. The talk about creative environments in our society arent the ever-changing ones. I think that is
great. I think about certain students and that the autistic ones are always so creative but if their
environment changes it is going to make it super hard for them to be creative. The second part of
chapter one goes into Proficient Reader Research. I liked the list of what you see in proficient
researchers. Activating relevant and prior knowledge, creating visual and sensory images, drawing
inferences from texts, asking questions of the texts, determining the most important elements, and
synthesizing what they read. To learn about teaching these strategies its encouraged that we first know
ourselves as readers. When we get to know ourselves as a reader we can then help our students out as
readers. There were some questions we were given to think about with teaching students which were
great to think about when it came to teaching the skills and strategies for teaching them (pg 17 bulleted
questions.) The gradual release of responsibility was basically a sum up of scaffolding children so that
reaffirmed my thoughts of how important it is to scaffold children correctly for learning concepts. Then
Creating a culture and climate for thinking and relationships, is such a great couple of sections I wish
there was more elaboration on it. It is so important to give students an environment where they feel
confident in expressing their thoughts. Having a relationship with your students is also so important.
Learning will not take place in an uncomfortable environment. It is just a known fact even for us as
teachers. Also the students like to be noticed by their teacher and any little differences. I know I always
feel like if my teacher can remember the little quirks to me I feel so much more confident learning with
them.
The second chapter my favorite part was when we got the list of Why does reading and learning
matter? I personally want to take this list and put it up in my room for my students to see. Reading is
one of the tools that is so critical to learn because without reading would it really matter about anything
Im writing in this review? How would our students stay safe? Im not just talking about reading words
on a page teachers also help students read non-verbal ques. Reading really does make the world a
better place. Smart is something you get. I used to believe that because I wasnt in the top reading
group I was never considered smart. It is important that you let the students know, you arent born
smart you have to earn it, which comes from hard work. Teaching students to learn with a purpose is a

lifelong skill, engaging in conversations and discussions is too. I also think that understanding learning is
for always. That is super important to teach students.
Chapter three talks about motivation. A point I liked which is so important in any subject as a teacher is
you are doing more than teaching or reading a story. The reading a favorite book to students had great
lessons for teaching. Showing love and enthusiasm, sharing my own thinking and inviting others into it,
encouraging students to like what I like. Its great for bringing students into a book unit. When the
students see the teacher liking something they know that they too can like it if they really see that
sincerity in the teachers love and enthusiasm. There also is talk about variety. The saying I apply to this
is variety is the spice of life. Students need to learn how to read a variety of books. They may learn
that they like a whole new style of books because of it.
Chapter four is all about thinking strategies. I really appreciate how this book breaks things down so
well. When it came to thinking strategies I liked that they did emphasize making meaningful
connections. I think about how we know we make a connection because we all get the ah ha! moment
and it is such a great thing. We need to be focusing on those connections with our teachers. I like that
they encourage thinking through the text together the teacher can really help the student model how to
think when reading. There is connecting to the characters, which can really help the students
understand. If they can picture themselves as the character suddenly all of the parts of the story start
piecing themselves together. Children can also learn lessons from the stories that could help them being
a better human. There is also a stress on building and using the schema throughout the year. This allows
students to make connections to what they know, and what is happening in the world. This can be seen
through authors, types of texts, and elements of text. It is also important though to make sure students
realize they may need to start revising their schema.
Chapter five focuses on sensory imagery. I really liked all of the anchor lessons that are presented
throughout this book. I really appreciate though that throughout the different lesson types you can use
for imagery it also gives you what type of response you should look for. The three response options it
gives you are artistic response, dramatic response, and a written response. What I like about the three
styles of responses is you can a way to cater this to each child to find the just right response that they
will learn from.
Chapter six is over book clubs. This chapter gives you great plans to go through these. Calendars to work
through this part. I think that book clubs are a soft spot for me as a person because I really was able to
find myself when I was in book clubs. My favorite part and I think the most important part is the
conversation that goes on. I think it was great that there were questions given in the book for children
to ask themselves before they responded. I know that I would take to heart a lot of the responses I
heard about books from our book club talk. This can really also get the students out there to really
express themselves through a book. I think that chapter eight goes hand in hand with book clubs.
Chapter eight ends the book with book recommendations which is important to learn about different
types of books. I loved the different graphic organizers that were used to recommend the book. I think
that the right type of recommendation can make the difference when it comes to picking out a book.
Chapter seven goes over questioning and determining importance. The first thought I had when I looked
at this was why did the book put this as a March and April topic? I would have much rather had this
topic at the beginning of the book. I think questioning really helps out a lot. I thought the wonder box
was super cute! Students can make their own wonder box when they have questions they can write

them on a card. This encourages kids to ask any question at any point. Which as the book states the
secret of wisdom is to be curious about the world. I like the emphasis of modeling fiction and nonfiction
books. Helping students to understand what they read is real or not real. They make the importance
known not just reading for that story line you like but for different learning strategies of what you need
to know. I know like as it says you learn to skim, scan, using headings as sign posts are so important to
learn. Students can really learn from those skills throughout the rest of their life. College I feel is the
epitome of those skills and with common core being so heavily pushed about getting ready for college.
When it comes to this book, I think I am going to be able to take the anchor charts, calendars, graphic
organizers, and different questions and things to think about when teaching these concepts to students.
This whole book is a giant tool box of information that I want to use! I really liked this book a lot and was
a great read! I love Debbie Miller books because I feel like I go in reading the books and have a
preconceived notion of what I am going to learn and she just blows me away with all of the knowledge
she has put together in this book. I cant wait to have this book ready for my tool box in teaching.