Endings

Here you'll find the endings. Are they what you had predicted?

hopped up the front steps, and rapped sharply on the metal storm door with its beak. After a moment, the door opened and the chicken went in.

and I saw the compassionate eyes of my husband.

“No,” I said. “But what are the chances of your making the same mistake twice in your lifetime on two different coasts?”  

All the stories were taken from:

True Tales of American Life

(Edited and introduced by Paul Auster)

Faber and Faber, 2001 (London) 

Examples (3)

The final story, by Beth Kivel, Durham (North Carolina)

Bicoastal

In the mid-‘80s, I worked at an underground food co-op in Washington, D.C. One night while I was bagging raisins, I noticed that a woman was staring at me. Finally, she stepped forward and said, “Michelle? Michelle Golden?” “No,” I said, “I’m not Michelle, but do you mean Michelle Golden from Madison, Wisconsin?” and she said yes, that was exactly who she meant. I told her that I knew Michelle and that many people had mistaken me for her. A few years later, I moved to the West Coast. One Saturday morning as I was walking in downtown San Francisco, a woman approached me. She stopped in her tracks, looked me up and down, and said, “Michelle? Michelle Golden?” 

Can you predict the ending, as well?

Examples (2)

Here's another story, this time by Edith S. Marks, New York (New York)
New York Stray

In one of my moments of despair following my husband’s death, I decided to go to a play, hoping that a night at the theater would lift my spirits. I lived in the East Village, and the theater was on Thirty-fourth Street. I decided to walk. Within five minutes, a mongrel dog started to follow me. It did all the things that a dog normally does with its owner – exploring some distance away and then running back to check on its companion. I became intrigued by the animal and stopped to pet it, but it scampered away. Some passers-by also seemed taken with the dog and tried to coax it to come to them, but it ignored them. I bought an ice-cream cone and offered some to the dog, but it still wouldn’t come near me. As I approached the theater, I wondered what would become of the dog. Just before I entered, it finally approached me and looked me full in the face – 

Again, can you predict the ending?

Examples

Here's a story, by Linda Elegant, Portland (Oregon):

The Chicken

As I was walking down Stanton Street early one Sunday morning, I saw a chicken a few yards ahead of me. I was walking faster than the chicken, so I gradually caught up. By the time we approached Eighteenth Avenue, I was close behind. The chicken turned south on Eighteenth. At the fourth house along, it turned in at the walk,

Can you predict the ending?

Shared assumptions

When we read we have some expectations. They vary according to the text we are reading. However, these expectations become crucial when we are reading a story. 

How can we understand a story fully? By following its structure and understanding its message.

In order to do that we need to share some assumptions with the author. We may be unaware of them but if our predictions on the end of the story are validated by the very end, it means exactly that: sharing assumptions with the author.

Sharing assumptions makes reading easier and more enjoyable and makes us willing to read more, to 'get to the end of the story'.

Shared reading

Further to the previous post, shared reading gives the child the initial assurance to go on reading by themselves.

What is shared reading?

It 's time for sharing a story and reading together. The first shared reading happens between parents and children and it can also be applied at kindergarten or primary school. The adult will stop reading when they see the child confident enough.

You'll find mass of interesting explanations on You Tube. Anyway from this you can see how important  the sharing and the story are.

A video hint

Here you'll find a video from  You Tube for a practical suggestion regarding training for reading, given by an Oxford teacher trainer.

Answer?

You can have different answers, all of them based on the necessity of training to get to the reading of the first word.

Training that needs to be started with the association between sounds and written words, but smoothly.

The Pyramid of Reading (2)

And this is what you get at the beginning of  Ms Wolf's book:

Can you see anything in common?

 

 

 

 

The Pyramid of Reading

This is what you get from a quick search on the Internet.

Are we biologically meant for reading?

Simple answer: apparently not, since we need to learn how to read in our own language and, if we feel like, in others (second time usually easier than the first one).

 

'Old-fashioned practice at connecting letters to sounds is replaced by immersion in a text-rich social environment, and the children don't learn to read' claims Steven Pinker in 'How the mind works', 1998

So we do need a stimulus and a training to start our journey. During the journey 'the biological and intellectual transformations brought about by reading provide a remarkable petri dish for examining how we think', according to Maryanne Wolf in 'Proust and the Squid', 2007.

Let's see .....

Do you read?

Well, this is an awkward question, because we tend to understand it as 

'Do you read books?' 

and then, saying yes or no to that question can be troubling.

But, a rrreaaallly BIG but, the real  answer should be YES, we normally read.

The what, where and when isn't quite important, what is paramount is that we need to understand what we read, no matter what, where and when we happen to read.

So meaning is important and understanding the meaning even more so: here we start a 'journey' into what defines meaning, what defines the written message and the need for communication that defines everybody.