Foundations+of+Reading+09

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=Foundations of Reading= media type="custom" key="4722681"

=Reading Responses=

"On Reading, Learning to Read, and Effective Reading Instruction: An Overview of What We Know and How We Know It" by the Commission on Reading of the National Council of Teachers of English
Many of the ideas presented in this article build upon ideas presented in our readings last week. One point in this article that stood out to me was the idea that students develop language skills through avenues such as "reading environmental print...making and using grocery lists, writing and reading notes, and reading and discussing children's stories and letters from friends" (2). While I have known for a while the importance of reading children's books to your child, I never thought of all the times they are learning language that we don't even recognize. This article reminds me that virtually every moment is a learning opportunity when it comes to developing language. I appreciated the bulleted lists at the end of this article. They provided me with concrete ways to help children to read and recognize policies that promote reading. Some of the words present over and over again in the bulleted lists include: daily, regular, and ongoing (3). The repetition of these words indicates to me the importance of reading and writing as a daily activity. As teachers, we must present students with opportunites to practice reading daily, independently and in a safe environment.

This reading really reinforced the reading that we did for last week, as well as a lot of material that I have read for other education classes. A key idea outlined in this article was the concept that learning to read is a life-long process. It is also important to note that both reading and writing support/depend on one another. I was interested in the idea that context is really important for beginning readers; beginning readers sometimes depend on the context of the story to make sense of words, or to be able to recognize words. I think that it is a little bit intimidating to think that I will be teaching students to skill of reading- a skill that they are going to need to understand the rest of thier subjects.... -Renee

This article reiterated many of the points from last week's readings and the two chapters from //Subjects Matter// that we read for this week. I suppose I've forgotten a lot about learning to read and how things like content can be crucial to a child's understanding. One thing that this article mentioned that the others didn't was how reading and writing are interdependent. Reading improves writing and writing improves reading. From a practical standpoint, I appreciated the bulleted points for teachers and administrators that showed ways that both teachers and administrators can contribute to students' reading.

It was interesting to think about hte roles of personal experience and cultural background in learning to read and write. I never really considered how much effect those can have on students in their learning processes. Also, I'd never thought about the importance of context which was highlighted in this article, like with the example of a child having trouble recognizing a word on its own versus a word in a story. This article was really helpful because it reminded me of the many opportunities there are for kids to learn to read. I guess it's been so long since I went through this process that I've forgotten the value of shopping lists, street signs, advertisements, and other such things for a learning reader/writer. The bullet list at the end was also really useful because it provides ideas for how a reading/English teacher can guide their kids to become better readers and writers, like reading different types of text from different cultures and reading texts with authentic language. I guess the only question I am left with is in regard to the bullet list about the suggestion to "build partnerships with families to read and write regularly at home" (3). I was wondering how that could be accomplished with parents or family who cannot read or write themselves. How do we get families who are uninterested or unknowledgeable to help their students learn to read/write?

One of the most interesting things about this article to me was the fact that the first thing on the list of effective reading instruction is that teachers “expect all students to achieve.” Time and time again I have heard of multiple strategies of teaching, and almost every theory or proven method I have read about includes the important theme that teachers need to believe that students can learn, that they can achieve, and that they have the skills necessary to succeed. I think that sometimes no matter how you teach something and no matter what kind of effort you put into it, if you go into a lesson as a teacher not believing that all of your students can learn the material, you will be right. What a sad thing to be right about – to believe and be correct in believing that all of your students cannot achieve what you think some of them can. Perhaps this phenomenon of teachers getting burnt out is, at least in part, a byproduct of slowly coming to believe that students cannot learn. ~Amy

Chapter 10: Fluency and Automaticity
This is the first time I have seen a way to calculate both a silent reading rate and an oral reading rate (210). I also really connected with the paragraph on page 210 that highlighted how difficult it can be for struggling readers once they get to high school. I can see how students could get discouraged easily with their assignments and stop doing them, or, in some cases, drop out of school. I agreed with the suggestions for improving fluency. One that I remember from elementary school is the word wall. When I was in first grade, my teacher had a word wall that we would take turns reading from. I think it is a really great idea to have students construct the word wall or have a small "word wall" in their binders with them (214). This way, the words on the word wall mean something to them. Suggestion #2: Give Students Varied Opportunities for Hearing Text, contained two techniques I had not heard of before: echo reading and choral reading (215). Reading this section brings to light the fact that I did not spend much time in school reading aloud in my classes. I especially responded to the echo reading technique. This appeals to me because it combines more than one learning method: auditory and visual. I always learn something more fully when I hear something read aloud while looking at the words simultaneously. I enjoyed reading this chapter because it contains concrete strategies for helping readers.

This chapter provided some great methods for improving reading fluency. I liked the idea of "word banks" for students on an individual-level basis. I think that's cool because every student is different and has trouble with different words. With the daily review of word bank words, students will be able to recognize sight words and high frequency words and consequently, understood more of the readings. The word wall idea was also really awesome. It does sound really simplistic, but for the students who need it, it would be really useful. I liked the ideas of choral reading and echo reading as well. I've never heard of it being done that way before. My teachers just read aloud to us and we had to follow along in our books. It was boring just looking at the words on the page and not speaking them aloud. Choral reading and echo reading keep the students involved and have them trying to sound out the words for themselves which is much better. Lastly, I completely agree with the prompting instead of correcting when students have trouble with a word. Correcting them or telling them the word just gives them a temporary crutch and does not allow them to learn.

The most interesting part of this chapter for me is the discussion of how fluency impacts comprehension. I've learned about reading remediation in another class, but this chapter presented a few concepts in a way I had not looked at them before. As in every chapter, I appreciate the transcribed accounts of real children in reading situations. I think it's interesting that Antwan considers himself a good reader despite his lack of intonation, simply because he could pronounce all the words smoothly. The specific examples that she gives help me to visualize how I, as a teacher, can do something to help these struggling readers. Also I like the clear instructions for measuring silent and oral reading rate. The methods outlined in the chapter are applicable and understandable, which makes me feel like the author is giving me something relevant to the students, and not just theoretical. ~Anna

Chapter 11: Word Recognition
From the very first line of this chapter, I was engaged. I did not know there was such a debate about phonics instruction and whether or not it can be useful for students in middle and high school. I learned many of the terms in this chapter, such as grapheme and phoneme in a linguistics class I took a few semesters ago. I agree that while we don't need to know these terms to teach them to our students, we need to know them in order to communicate about phonics instruction to administrators and parents. I enjoyed the anectdote about the PTA meeting, in which a mother asked about phonics instruction (229). It showed me that often, phonics instruction is defined different ways by different people. --Lindsey

In my opinion, the teacher vocabulary section in the beginning was really helpful because in all honesty, I had no idea what words like "decoding" actually entailed. In addition to that, the "chunking" technique really resonated with me because it was a part of my own learning experiences in early education. I also liked the way Beers differentiated between phonics and word recognition because there are so many misconceptions about how phonics is the key to proper reading. Though phonics is indeed a big part of learning to read, fluency and word recognition are just as important. The rime patterns struck me as well because it reminded me of this rhyming dictionary that I had my mom get for me. I learned so many words from it based off of rhyming patterns. It was wonderful and had a great effect on me. Riming patterns are a vital strategy for students struggling with reading because it is a key to understanding how to read words. One of the final things I liked in this chapter was the prompt that Beers would use: "get your mouth ready to say it." I thought that was a great way to put it because it gets the kids to prepare to pronounce the word fragment and it does not give them an easy-out. They have to know how to state the word and to sound it out. I really liked this chapter overall. -Amanda

The chapter on phonics really caused me to think about a familiar concept in a brand new context. I learned how to read by phonics when I was only 5 or 6 years old, and I do not remember it ever revisited in the upper grades. As easily as it came to me, it is difficult for me to put myself in the position of a struggling reader who does not connect the graphemes with their phonemes. These terms are not new to me, though they were two years ago, and I agree with the author that it is not important for the students to know these technical names, though instructors most likely benefit from being able to define and categorize the students' level of phonetic comprehension. Since I am fluent in English, the best way I can think of to try and identify with these struggling readers is to put the experience in the context of another language, in which I am not fluent: French. I do not know even the most basic rules of French, and thus encounter some frustration in attempting to read it. Because I know Spanish, and with the help from context clues and words we've adapted to English, I can figure out the meanings of some words. But even then I am at a complete loss when it comes to a pronunciations. I think the instructional tactics outlined in the chapter really give me a better understanding of how to help children in the older grades who are still experiencing this frustration. ~Anna

"Fluency beyond the Primary Grades: Helping Adolescent Struggling Readers" and "You Oughta use Periods and Stuff: Reading Fluency through Oral Interpretation of YA Lit"
From the definitions that "Fluency Beyond the Primary Grades" and "You Oughta use Periods and Stuff" provides of fluency it seems like memorization of plays, poems, or especially emotive passages would really help fluency. That is something that I think is disappearing from classrooms today. Older generations are able to recall poems or passages from their days in grade school. The memorization and recitation of plays and poems would greatly enhance fluency, while providing students with knowledge of important texts. In high school there are texts that would greatly benefit from the methods presented in "You Oughta use Periods and Stuff". Shakespeare is often read and not performed in high school classrooms. -Stephany

I particularly enjoyed the article "You Oughta use Periods and Stuff" for a variety of reasons. First, I agree that "Fluency beyond the Primary Grades" was a little confusing as far as the definition of "fluency" itself. I read these in the accidentally correct order because i felt that "You Oughta" helped me understand the concept of fluency in this context. The concept of repeated reading showed up in both articles, and I found it very striking. Mrs. Moorman's point on the first day about "cold reading" comes to mind. Why and when in life do we ever have to read cold?? We don't! This truly being the case, why should teacher's limit their ability to assess the reading fluency of their students by giving them one dry run in popcorn reading, individual reading followed by questions, etc.? It seems that a teacher would be better fit giving students the opportunity to practice a text, become intimate with the meaning, and complete the cycle of comprehension by getting the opportunity to revisit and fix "first time" difficulties with the text. I also loved the idea of clippings for struggling readers. I wish there was room in every middle school for a class dedicated to samplings of a wide range of reading. It seems that, unfortunately, in a regular Reading class, curriculum and test expectations would limit the possibility of doing this as often as it should be done. Kids learn so well from each other- what a great opportunity for peer support for struggling readers. Perhaps more kids could benefit in the way that Deanna did with clippings. If a wide variety was provided in a context that did not require cold reading, kids that believe that they hate reading may just discover a love for SOME text, be it fiction or non-fiction, classic or modern. -Jess

Like the two previous responses, I found much of "You Oughta" extremely relevant and useful, ey-opening even. I can't say that I've thaught of teaching reading in quite the same way. So much of it is in the ideal category, though. Classrooms of 8-10. Time spent on just these remedial skills and creating fans of reading from the ground up. To gear this towards what I'm doing now, I would love to find some way to use similar strategies in the everyday 7th grade classroom. Instead of progressing chapter by chapter by chapter, to actually pause and master, to allow students to take ownership of a text. I think that is the main point of it, to allow the oppurtunity to make words one's own, so that students can feel as comfortable with that as they can with anything else. These students actually had the chance to realize that the words were saying something. -Matthew

"You Oughta use Periods and Stuff: Reading Fluency through Oral Interpretation of YA Lit"
I really enjoyed following Deanna through this article and further exploring the concept of fluency. I thought that the alternative literary-literacy experience (cuttings) was a really neat classroom concept. My favorite activity that they discussed in this article was when they asked the students to make a book cover in order to "encourage visualization of the cutting"(25). I also thought that it was really neat that students became really comfortable with the peers in their cuttings groups, so comfortable in fact that they were more inclined to take feedback from their peers, than they were from their own teachers. I really enjoyed reading that Deanna became a Paulsen fan, and read tons of his books after being exposed to the Paulsen cutting. That is a great encouraging story for teachers. I also liked the fact that they intergrated a 3rd grade buddy system so that the students involved in the extra reading class could recognize that they had made progress. The "cuttings" concept seems like a really successful activity and it seems like it would be really fun to teach. Could this concept work in a larger setting/how do you get this to work well? Also why is it that just now the concept of fluency has come to the attention of researchers? -Renee

"Fluency beyond the Primary Grades: Helping Adolescent Struggling Readers"
I found this article to be a little bit confusing. I feel as though they might have been working with too many definitions of fluency...I am not really sure. Most of the information in the article, is very informative though. I was most intrigued by this quote: "They literally exhaust their cognitive resources by investing so much of their 'mental energy' in the decoding aspect of reading that they have little left over for that more important task of comprehension"(35). I think that the idea that students encounter trouble with fluency, can really relate to their frustrations with reading, especially if it is taking a student twice as long to read an assignment. It is important to note that just because students are exposed to something like fluency in the early years of schooling, doesn't mean that they have confidently fit that learning tool into their toolbox yet. Fluency is something that needs to be worked on at all levels of schooling. I am a little hesitant to really believe that you can test fluency effectively by having students read outloud...that seems a bit cruel to me considering that I myself am a really lousy reader... but that just might be my own bias. I really liked to possible activities that were provided to get students to engage in repeated reading. -Renee

I had never really thought about reading fluency having anything to do with students struggling to comprehend material they read. I guess I just thought that things like not knowing enough vocabulary or not knowing strategies for comprehension would have a lot more to do with students not being able to comprehend a passage. However, it makes logical sense that if a student is spending more mental energy just on reading a text that he or she will have less mental energy to put towards understanding it. I think that the idea of repeated readings with performance could definitely be used in the classroom, even in a high school English classroom. ~Amy

Chapter 11: Help for Struggling Readers
I also really enjoy the way this book clearly explains what students need from teachers. This chapter breaks down specific ways for teachers to help struggling readers by providing ideas and solutions to common problems. These include: 1. Build supportive relationships by showing students you care about them and their success. 2. Model thoughtful reading by using "think-alouds". 3. Use activities like drawing and role-playing that build engagement with the text. 4. Promote self-monitoring to help students to notice when they get confused. 5. Use materials students can successfully read rather than materials that only frustrate them. 6. Provide books and articles on tape.

I really like this chapter. I feel like I have finally read something that gives clear and simple strategies to help my older students who are still struggling to read. It actually makes me want to go buy this book so I can have the descriptions of the specific activities. In all actuality I probably will buy the book. The strategies such as the think-alouds and teaching students to notice when they are getting confused might seem simplistic, but for someone who is new to the education profession I am glad there are people who write books such as these to spell out these strategies. I have always been a good reader and to me it seems simple and easy, so I have had a lot of trouble breaking down the process of what I do in order to help my students. Again, I am glad someone has taken the time to break it down for people like me who want to help their students but are not sure quite what to do. ~Amy

Chapter 12: Recommendations from Reading Research
This chapter (again) really breaks the information down in a way that is easy to digest and put into action. Rather than read pages and pages on one study, this books identifies themes and trends that are consistent with many studies so that readers can see which ones are proven by multiple studies. The ten major conclusions listed were: 1. Kids should read a wide range of materials in all classes. 2. Students should read for the same purposes as literate adults, both for information and pleasure. A sense of purpose is key to reading success. 3. Students need to read a lot; volume, quantity and practice count. 4. Students should read plenty of books and articles written at a comfortable recreational level, not frustration level. 5. Kids need genuine choice of reading materials: at least half of what they read should be self-selected, based on interest and curiosity. 6. The classroom should become a reading community, a group of people who regularly read, talk and write together. 7. Teachers must help students develop a repertoire of thinking strategies to handle challenging texts, and guide students to be increasingly aware and in charge of their own thinking process. 8. Students should engage in frequent interdisciplinary inquiries, projects and where possible, entire interdisciplinary courses to explore topics in depth. 9. Students of all ages need to hear powerful writing in performance-- reading aloud by the teacher and other students, dramatic interpretation, audiobooks, etc. 10. Adolescent students need opportunities to connect with the adult literate community, starting with teachers as readers who generously share their reading lives with kids.