Reading
Engaging Older Students in 'Reading for Understanding'

A new resource helps educators improve the more advanced reading skills needed by middle and high school students.

In middle school or high school, a student who knows only how to read individual words does not meet the definition of a "good reader." At the secondary level, a good reader needs to be able to question, summarize, clarify, and predict, based on the material that's been read.

But, as many secondary educators know, not all students come to their classes equipped with these reading abilities.

That's why the new book, Reading for Understanding: A Guide to Improving Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms, is so important. In its pages, educators can explore how to help adolescents connect what they already know with the new information that awaits them in a text.

The authors, a team of researchers and secondary classroom teachers, explain clearly how educators can help students take control of their reading and become aware of where and why understanding breaks down.

The basic approach is simple. Teachers serve as master readers to demonstrate the cognitive strategies of questioning, summarizing, clarifying, and predicting. Then the tables turn, and students practice these strategies out loud through in-class exercises.

Educators who are familiar with the concept of reciprocal teaching will recognize elements of this technique, since both lead students to explore what they know about what they know.

Reading for Understanding is published by the National Council of Teachers of English, but it offers ideas that can be incorporated into virtually any subject area, without adding new curriculum.

For more: To order Reading for Understanding from the National Council of Teachers of English ($22.95; $16.95 for NCTE members), send an E-mail to orders@ncte.org or call 800/369-6283. For more on reciprocal teaching and other reading topics, log on to NEA's Reading Matters Web site at www.nea.org/readingmatters.

How To ...
Build a Multicultural Library

Why the need for multicultural literature?
Children need every kind of role model that is appropriately available. Our children come from an incredibly wide range of backgrounds and have many different ways of experiencing the world. We need to read and experience, with authenticity, things that come from their point of view to be a fully rounded human being.

What do you mean by 'authenticity'?
Sometimes books are written by people who imagine a world they've never lived. As a result, we get books full of factual errors, stereotyping, and pictures that are not helpful to anyone.

How can you discern a book's cultural authenticity?
Look at the sources cited and the acknowledgments made by the author. It's important to get a clear and detailed citation--if that's missing, be suspicious.

If you come across a story that is described generically as "an African story," for example, instead of being tied to a specific tribe or region, you should question its authenticity.

Unfortunately, even today, we see books with pictures of other cultures that are the equivalent of Italians wearing kilts and speaking with German accents.

How can educators develop a multicultural library or reading list?
Make a list of the finer writers out there, and make it a class project to write and ask for their recommendations. Contact publishers who have catalogs and a variety of resources, such as Lee and Low Books: (www.leeandlow.com).

I strongly recommend the Multicultural Review as a source for reviews and interesting articles. And it's incumbent upon librarians to read regularly such publications as the Small Press Review, which looks at the diversity of publications out there.

For more:
E-mail Bruchac at nudatlog@earthlink.net or visit www.greenfieldreview.org. His two picture books, Crazy Horse's Vision (Lee and Low) and Squanto's Journey (Harcourt Books) have just been released. Visit www.Nativeauthors.com for more on the North American Native Authors Catalog, which specializes in work by American Indian writers.