Reflective reading

**Guide to Developing Reflective Reader Practices by; Cory Bracy de Zapata**

Reading comprehension is a necessary skill to understand *what* we are reading. Readers cannot merely read the words on the page, they must understand their meanings and how these parts (words) create a whole (text, plot, characters, theme). The following are essential elements that a reader must incorporate in their approach of a text in order to become a successful and reflective reader.

**Step 1 Making Connections**

Teachers and students must create a bridge between the text world and the real world. The reader must make connections by sorting and recognizing the similarities and differences from the reality in the story and their own reality. Teachers can facilitate this process by front-loading the historical and cultural context of a text, as well as important vocabulary and themes that are present in a text. Once students make these connections between the fictional reality in a text to the very real reality they are experiencing or have experienced, the act of reading is no longer a passive activity. The reader becomes personally engaged with a text and achieves increased comprehension and personal connection to the text. Another integral part of creating reflective readers is to allow the reader the opportunity to choose a topic that interests them and seek out texts that will enable them to connect on a deeper level to a specific text, genre, or topic. Choice of text and/or topic will promote a more personal connection and promote personal and text reflection. The reader can reflect on how they connect to a text and how the text connects to them and their greater reality.

**Step 2 Asking Questions**

 The teacher must create a safe and respectful classroom culture in order to facilitate this step in the Reflective Reader process. Not all students will want to answer or ask questions during a whole group or even small group discussion. Many students will feel self-conscious and need a guide or question starter. Developing question guides based on chapters, text sequence, character, plot and theme development will enable the student in their journey through a text. These questions may be presented orally, written on the board or a handout and in turn, answered orally in whole or small group discussion, a think pair share or in writing in a reflective reading journal. These activities can happen either before or after the day's reading, depending on the question. Teachers can propose questions prior to a reading or after in order to have students make a personal connection to the story and/or characters, plot, theme, and setting. Students should also be encouraged to create and propose personal questions to discuss as a whole or even in small groups. Reading responses can also be written in personal reflection journals before or after the discussion and readings, depending on the desired learning outcome. Students that are reflective readers can retell or summarize main points in regards to plot, theme, characters, and setting in their own words (orally and in writing) and make relevant personal connections to the texts.

**Step 3**

The third step is not easily taught nor learned. It is an abstract concept that will require patience, practice, and repetition. The teacher must facilitate the reader in recognizing inference in a text. This is a skill that goes beyond reading and comprehension. Recognizing inference is a higher order skill that will develop over time. The facilitator can aid the student by asking specific questions such as: What do you think the author meant by that? Do you think the author's word choice was deliberate? Does it carry a meaning or other understanding/connotation? Once again recognizing and understanding inference is a learned skill that the reader can more fully develop when they are able to make what is written in a text connect to their lives and/or world. The teacher can have the student practice making inferences by proposing a question that allows the student to reflect and connect to their own life, the life outside of the text. As the student progresses through the text, their ability to recognize and understand/interpret inference within the text will also grow.

**Conclusion**

A key component to teaching literature is having students make personal connections to the texts. Literature cannot be forced upon a student, but rather it should be introduced. This introduction is the first step in developing a relationship and personal, relevant connection to literature. The reflective practices mentioned here are essential in the growth and progression of this relationship between reader and text.