Week 5

Week 5

(Buehl)

I thought the Buehl reading brought up some good points about students having different reading identities and how important it is to mentor students in reading comprehension in different discourses.  By having students that understand how to approach and comprehend different discourses, we can help address the problem of communication between literacies. He also touched on modeling and scaffolding, which relates to what we have been learning in class.  However, I found myself getting annoyed reading so much about Buehl and what type of reader he is, what books he has read that are challenging, how his wife is a better reader than him, sometimes I felt as if I was reading his memoir.  His writing style seems kind of wordy to me, but that’s just my opinion.  One thing I found interesting was his data from NAEP and ACTP.   He says, “The 2009 NAEP results for 12^th graders showed only a 5% scoring at advanced levels, able to read specialized and advanced texts” (Pg. 22).  He goes on to say, “…more students are on track to being ready for college-level reading in eight and tenth grade than are actually ready by the time they reach twelfth grade” (Pg. 23).  I guess I’m curious if the 2009 NAEP test might have been to challenging for the students to begin with.  How do test makers decide what texts are advanced?  He makes it seem like students in 8^th and 10^th grade are working much more efficiently than 12^th grade.  There are a multitude of outside factors that occur between 8^th and 12^th grade that could influence the test results.