Creating Shared Experiences During Reading: Part 3

This may seem kind of funny to talk about how to share in the experience of reading during reading - shouldn't the act of reading alone be enough?  Yes and no is my answer!  I read books straight through all the time whether on my own or with my kids but often as I read I remember the importance of asking questions, answering questions, looking up words or teaching new words, and it can enhance the reading experience that much more!  Reading works wonders, yes, but active reading can really be magical as well.

Here is a short excerpt from my Master's project related to this very topic:

 Pinnell (2002) states that, during reading, “the teacher interacts and supports” (p. 170). As with prereading instruction, suggestions for activities used during reading instruction are varied, so there are many ways a teacher can interact and support students’ reading while it is happening. Correctly, Dowhower (1999) refers to this as the “active reading” stage of reading instruction, and points out the need for students to have a defined purpose for reading, to monitor their own levels of understanding and to develop awareness about a story’s content (p. 673).

With older children you can have them read a page on their own, you can do oral reading together out loud, you can read silently and then discuss. With my son Jacob I've found that when we are reading a book he knows well it is fun to change words sometimes and have him correct me, but since I am not always in the business of confusing my child I don't do that often. With rhyming books he loves to fill in the blanks at the end of a phrase to guess the rhyming word.  Activities done during reading to engage readers and support them in a shared experience can be fun and interactive. What ideas do you have related to this?