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.