Coby's Reflection to Chapter 7

Taberski says in chapter seven that the right way to present information to children is to give it to them as they need it. Teaching a child how to read is not a step by step recipe, it is a process that involves questions, investigations, discoveries, and experiences. This reminds me of Greg stressing to us that "children expect the text to make sense." In the same way children need to learn how to read by reading and as they go along everything else will fall into place.

Teaching "systematically" like a recipe sounds like a logical way of teaching reading. I used to believe it was a good way because I thought reading was founded on sounds which support words. The truth is reading is founded on the understanding of text. If a child can make the right sounds but cannot understand the text then all those sounds were for nothing.

Children need the text to make sense and many adults have forgotten that. They have forgotten what they expected when they were children. Languages are best learned through immersions rather than courses and since reading is a language let us immerse our students in hands on reading rather than subject them to a crash courses.