Module 1 – PowerPoint Response

I thought the PowerPoint was informational, helpful, yet surprising. This is my third year of teaching. I believe that it will be a fun year but different because this is my first year that I have ELL students. I agree that “ELL students’ achievement in reading is limited by their command of the English language”. It is difficult to translate or relate the materials I am teaching to those students since there is no direct connection with English and their native languages (Japanese and Korean). This can cause the students to become frustrated and they might give up, which is one of my fears.  However, I plan on utilizing my ESOL teacher as a resource and work on our own separate level that will include numerous visuals and explanations.

            I really enjoyed the slide entitled “Nothing Succeeds like Success” because I certainly believe that everyone enjoys life more when they succeed at their tasks. We, as a class, make (realistic) goals at the beginning of the school year and check them off as we reach them throughout the school year. I allow the students to share their goals and successes so we can celebrate the victories. I feel this helps build their confidence as learners. I help build the students’ background knowledge/schema, if necessary, before a unit so we can dive deeper into the knowledge of the specific curriculum.

            I was not surprised by the statistic that “40% of all students are diagnosed with some type of learning disability and 80% of those disabilities are reading related” because in my three years of teaching I have seen numerous students struggling with reading. Reading is a vital skill that is not only required in our everyday life but is an essential part of every subject during school. I believe this statistic might be so high because every school and even teacher employs different methods when teaching and assessing reading. Some of my students, who are new to Georgia, explained that they only read when they had free time at their prior schools. This was disheartening and upsetting. I hope the Common Core Standards will help all teachers get on the same “playing level” with reading so that we can lower this statistic. I want to instill a love for reading with my students. Moreover, I want us to work as a team so they can become proficient readers who use various strategies to acquire new knowledge throughout their lives.

Module 1 – Activity 4

The reader that I observed is a fourth grade male student. I decided to choose this student because he was newer to our school and has had difficulty sticking with a book for more than a couple of days during the first week and a half of school. I know he had difficulties in reading and writing last year. Also, he is on tier 3 for both reading and writing. However, I noticed when I listened to him read his text aloud to me that he exhibits behaviors from both the proficient and less proficient reading behaviors. After reading aloud, he quickly reassured me that he reads better in his head. I believe that he has never been told that he can read well, which he actually can. Additionally, I’ve noticed that many of my students this year are afraid to read to me which makes me sad. We will have a lesson on building reading confidence and stamina this week.

                This student displays behaviors that fall on both sides of Table 1.1. He was less proficient because he was “monitoring what is read for correct letter/sound and word identification”. He stopped and thought about the difficult words before saying them aloud (fear of getting them incorrect). However, he did try a “variety of different strategies when meaning breaks down”. I think his previous teacher(s) might have focused on fluency/getting the words correct rather than comprehension.  I observed him “attempting to identify all of the words correctly” instead of reading to make sense of the text. I stressed to him that we read for meaning of the text and it is okay to miscue as long as it makes sense. I want to implement a couple of mini-lessons that employ this strategy because he as well as several of my other students who have lower reading levels, are still focusing on every single individual word on the page rather than the story as a whole. This made it difficult for him to build meaning of the text and therefore, comprehend the text. However, I see him as a proficient reader when attempting to correct his miscues, chunking words, varying the manner in which texts are read, etc. He enjoys reading nonfiction books about sports which can be a little more challenging. But, we are working on “talking back to the book” this week and I think this will help him focus on making sense of the text as a whole. Also, we will work on monitoring his comprehension since he said that he easily forgets what happens in the text. Overall, I want to organize some strategy groups during reading workshop so I can focus on moving students to the proficient reading behaviors.

Module 1 - “Watch & Learn: Assessing Reading Skills” Video Response

I remember watching several of these “Reading Rocket” videos when I was pursuing my undergraduate degree at KSU. They do help teachers learn what to look for with students. I have noticed, though, that fluency is an argumentative topic between reading researchers/teachers. In our EDRD 7715, our book and much of our research information, we’re led to believe that reading’s sole purpose is to make sense of the text (comprehension). However, the Stern Center places emphasis solely on fluency. I agree that children who read with a choppy pattern will more than likely have a lower comprehension. Yet, I think if a classroom is based solely on improving a child’s fluency rate, it leads to the students “racing” each other during reading which can also cause confusion. This is why I feel that it is important to find a balance between comprehension and fluency. Many of my students who have a lower reading level are those who struggle with decoding and they are in fact struggling with maintaining comprehension.  This is why I model consistently throughout the day with my read aloud texts during mini lessons, read aloud times, and small group instructions.  I evaluated my students on a regular basis last year with individual conferences and DRA assessments. This year will be a challenge for me since I have 31 students and I will be using a new assessment tool. However, I will continue to assess my students’ fluency and comprehension through conferences and small group instructions (i.e., strategy groups, book clubs, and guided reading groups). I always begin my individual conferences by having the student read to me so I can informally assess the students’ fluency after which I follow-up with a few comprehension questions. We also will be working on Words Their Way spelling which will help with students’ word recognition. My goal this year is to assess all of my students on a regular basis as the video stressed.  Continual assessments will be vital to my small group instructions and reading plans.