READING PROCESS
Pair Work

Step by step process of what I did when I was reading

• long term memory and retrieval
• working memory
• rereading
• building visuals
• using past knowledege of eastern europe
• empathy
• understanding of langauge (phonic, phonemes)
• understanding of the concepts
• visual and engaging my eyes
• motor neurons of the brain
• making connections to experience
• recognising the written form (e.g. a diary entry)
• reading fluency (reading faster) to develop a big picture of the text
• reading fleuncy (slower) hanging on some words to understand
• understanding content (comprehension)
• decoding (Buda-Pesth)
• engagement
• processing

Discussion with a partner
We realised that we read the text quite differently. We both, however, read slowly at times to comprehend the text and at other times to get a big picture of the diary entry. I used a lot of visualisation and text to life as I am familiar with Eastern Europe. For some students the reading of the text would not have happened for a couple of reasons: 1) they may not have had enough enagement to begin to read, 2) they may not have had the skills to decode or comprehend it.

Our discussion very quickly go onto the use of AT to make learning accessible for those students who were not able to read the text.

Soon after we raised the question: Would we ever come to the point in schools in which teaching reading was obsolete because AT was available to do it for us? I think initially we felt horror at that thought and then ridiculed the very notion of it. However, penmanship is losing ground quickly and is not covered in many schools. Perhaps reading will follow; and what about writing and arithmetic? Are we developing a culture of dependency on technology? This is worth some discussion!

Simon