Kieu- Chapter 1

I can’t lie. I am terrified. We read on and on about how to teach children to read and the importance of and whatnot, but I have to admit that I am still very hesitant. For as far back as I can remember, reading has come fairly easy to me. Although I do recognize that I have trouble concentrating on the text, I do not pay much attention to my reading because I can read. It’s easy to work with a child who is able to read and understand the text, but how do I approach a child who has very little background in reading and help him/her? Aside from that short bout of rambling, I think this is a great book. I really agree with her point about how “children use their own experiences and background knowledge to figure out words and comprehend text.” The example in the book was about dinosaur books and it got me to think about my nephew, who also loves T-Rex. He has absolutely no problems pronouncing the word tyrannosaurus rex when he sees it in the book. Yet, I am not too sure that he would be able to pronounce it if the word appeared in, say, a book on water buffalos.