RM Winter 2017 FINAL

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Reading Matters
Research Matters
Reading Matters | Volume 16 • Winter 2016 | |35|
conclusions and make different connections. Not knowing
what our pen pals would pull out of the text was exciting and
something we looked forward to throughout the project. It
gave us practice adjusting our writing style to the reader and
showed how thinking and writing skills develop over time.
For each of the chapter responses, we used our pen pals’ writing
to guide our responses. If our students focused on a certain event
in the book, our response would also include a reaction to that
event as well. We used this technique in order to validate their
ideas and perspectives. We also designed our responses with
the intention of developing our pen pals’ critical thinking skills.
For example, we modeled making personal, textual and worldly
connections, as well as, provided essential questions about the
chapter in order to extend our pan pals’ thought processes. See
Figure 7 for examples of preservice teacher entries. Many of us
observed that as the project progressed our pen pals’ writing
increased in length and included more varied types of responses.
Figure 7. Sample pre-service teacher entries.
Creating responses prove challenging at times. For example,
we have not had many opportunities to observe the features
of third grade writing. This made responding difficult because
we were not always sure if the errors appearing in our pen
pals’ writing were age appropriate. Further, we were unsure
about the amount of feedback (positive and constructive) we
should provide. We wanted to focus on the positive aspects
of the students’ responses in order to encourage them to
continue writing. Therefore, we focused on the content of our
pen pals’ responses, and indirectly suggested improvements
for their future responses. As a result, another take away was
that simply modeling effective writing practices does not
guarantee students will generalize and respond accordingly.
They need a lot of practice and support along the way.
Benefits of participating in the project. Participating in
this study project provided third graders with the opportunity
to grow as both a reader and a writer, and it helped us
develop as educators. We were able to learn a third grader’s
point of view through the responses each week, viewing
the story from a different perspective. Their authentic
writings allowed us to develop a better understanding of
the ways third graders interact with and process text. It also
allowed us to see the types of connections they made.
After a while, we were able to anticipate the questions that
they would ask and the connections that they might make. This
was extremely beneficial to us as future educators, because it
showed how to ask the right questions in order to gauge student
understanding and comprehension. In our course work, we learned
about writing instruction and the need to plan and implement
instruction based on the needs of our students. This project gave
us the chance to really practice that. Each of the third graders
were given the freedom to respond however they wanted and
we were able to see their work, challenge them to think critically,
and talk positively about reading. This required us to reflect on
the student’s strengths and needs in order to respond. We learned
about the essential components of writing, textual connections,
and the various types of inferential and literal questions.
Further, we learned first-hand the importance of
individualized instruction for students. We were able to link
the instruction from our university coursework on student
development to real-life student work. We learned that
teaching students about textual connections and inferential
questions are essential skills in developing our students’
writing. We discovered that teaching students how to write
about textual connections can help them generalize this skill
to reading comprehension and higher order thinking by taking
the book’s content further than literal interpretation. This
experience has taught us how to intentionally and appropriately
support student learning in both reading and writing.
Considerations for Designing
Authentic Literacy Experiences
Based on the variety of experiences detailed above, we
offer some considerations for teachers interested in designing
authentic preservice and elementary literacy experiences.
• Make it manageable. Start small! Mrs. White dedicated twenty
minutes a day to the project. She taught a few new skills and
reinforced skills already taught through authentic learning
experiences, and she was able to meet the needs of her
students. This project started with one class of third graders
and only went for seven weeks. This was manageable for
the third grade class and also for the preservice teachers as
well. They could easily commit to seven weeks of reading
and an additional week of responding and visiting.
Pen pal book study figures 10
Figure 7.