"Catching Readers" Chapter 1, 2 and 3 Blog Reaction 9/14/2014

Jared Weisberg
September 14th, 2014
"Catching Readers"


Over this past weekend I read Catching Readers Before They Fall and was very intrigued with the specific chapters I read.  Chapter 3 caught my attention because it made me reminisce on my learning experiences in Elementary School and how similar they were towards the examples that were given.  It made me believe that my past teachers addressed the Vygotskian Theory model in our classrooms because they found so much success.  I can recount numerous times were I had difficulty reading in 1st grade and comprehending specifically what I was reading.  As a result, my teacher performed ZPD on me to help me better understand.  For instance, she first selected a novel that sparked my interest then she would explain to me what we were about to read.  My teacher would then begin reading aloud to me but would stop after every two-three pages to explain to me what was happening and how she knew that.  She gave me tips and advice like visualization and relating the story to personal experiences.  After she read aloud one chapter to me, she asked me to do the same thing to her.  After I completed reading the chapter aloud and explaining to my teacher what was happening, she then told me to pursue the book independently and just act as if she was there the whole time.  As a result, this specific scenario helped developed me into the reader I am today.  As one can see my teacher followed the ZPD method and it helped me exponentially.  This inspires me to follow my teachers footsteps with the relation to Vygotskian Theory and apply similar methods to my future students so I can help them to the best of my ability.