Organizing for Literacy

For this week's readings I read Allington's Ch. 12 and the article by Pinnell. Both of these readings emphasize providing reading opportunities throughout the entire day. It is better to have several opportunities throughout the day to work on reading skills versus having a mini lesson or guided reading groups. Reading in connected to every school subject and the kids don't even know they are practicing their reading skills. Both readings also emphasize that before starting an actual lesson it is important to ease the students into it and letting them get a good start to their day. I think activities such as teacher read alouds and writing centers are a great way to gain some literacy knowledge. It is also important to discuss things and have a lot of oral activities to help students with their literacy skills. I thought both of these readings provided great ideas for my future classroom.

Real Life Inquiry

For my Real Life Reading Inquiry I chose the topic of fluency. I helped tutor my younger cousin who is in 2nd grade. For the purpose of this project, we will call him Carter. He is a bright child who does well in school, he just has difficulty with reading. Specifically, Carter has difficulty decoding words in a text. His mom told me that he spends so much time on trying to figure words out that he is not understanding what he is reading. Throughout the year they have been getting one book per week to read and then they take a quiz on it at the end of the week. Carter has an accumulation of these paper books at his house. I met with him on a Sunday and worked with him when he didn't have one of these books. To help with his word decoding I chose a paper book that he had already read and was a little bit easier for him to read. He did pretty well the first two pages and then we got to the third page with the sentence, "Mary danced with her dad." He got all of the words right except 'danced.' He skipped over the word he didn't know at first. First, I asked him if he recognized any chunks of words within that word. He replied with "an." Then I told to him to use the old sound it out method. He finally said 'danced' correctly. I gave him a list of things to do when he comes to a word he doesn't recognize. First, I told him to see if there were any words within that word that he already knew and recognized. Second, I told him to see if he could sound it out and if that didn't help see if there were other words in the sentence that could help him figure it out. Third, I told him to look at pictures if there were any because that can help figure out words. Fourth, I told him that if he couldn't figure it out that it was ok to ask for help. I also told him that whenever he does finally figure out the word to go back and reread the sentence with the new word in it. I think that he is slightly self conscious about going back and  rereading because he says that it takes longer to do that and he doesn't want to be the last one to finish reading something. I explained to him that I'm in college and I come to words I don't know all the time and that I have to go back and reread things frequently. I also tried to explain that everyone does it, even adults who have been reading for a very long time. I also said it doesn't matter how long it takes you to read something as long as you are understanding what you are reading and that it doesn't mean that you are dumb at all. I hoped that I helped Carter with his word decoding and that he will become a better fluent reader after the steps I gave him to go through.

Guided Reading Approach for Kids with Special Needs

The article I read on guided reading talked about how beneficial guided reading is not only to average achieving students but also to students who are deaf, who are English language learners, and students who have learning disabilities. The teacher in the article came up with her own guided reading process to help students with learning needs. The first step the teacher did was place the students into homogenous groups based on their reading level. Then the teacher selects a book for that group that is appropriate for their instructional reading level. The second step is to show the students the cover, title, and author and build background knowledge on the book before they start reading it. The teacher also introduces new vocabulary words to help with comprehension while they are reading. The third step is to have the students read segments of the book out loud first and then silently to themselves. After each segment the teachers asks the students questions about predictions, self-questions, or mental imagery. The fourth step was to have the group discuss the book. During this time they can revisit the text to clarify information, problem solve unclear information and can reread passages that will help them build fluency. Because the students' instructional reading level is matched to the readability level of the material, the struggling reader's abilities grow as a result of learning to read materials that are challenging and that present opportunities for applying newly learned skills and strategies. I think that guided reading is a great way to help students build up on their reading skills.