Module 6: Instructional Challenge

Next year, you will be teaching in a school where the vast majority of students did not meet standard on your state's criterion-referenced test and where more than 75% of the students are eligible for free and reduced-price meals. What are some specific universal literacy strategies you may implement to ensure students success? Include both in-class examples and things you could do outside the classroom.

Coincidentally, the description mentioned above is very similar to my current teaching situation. 95% of my school receives free or reduced breakfast and lunch; therefore, I am very familiar with how we as a school, currently handle this type of learning environment. I just completed my first year teaching, and next year I know will be very different as my reading philosophy has changed for the better. Next year, I plan to implement writing and reading workshop to their fullest. Having a structured and predictable schedule, especially for reading and writing, are important in successful instruction.

Implementing a comprehensive literacy program is very important for the success of these students. I plan to use guided reading groups in the form of ‘reading’ groups, but also to review skills. For many of these students, absence of books and a love for reading are not found in their homes.  As a teacher, it is my job to be excited and encourage a love and passion for reading and writing. Through sustained reading and writing, I will conference with students daily, complementing and recognizing their hard work and efforts. I have found that in my school, many of the student’s self-esteem is just demolished due to past years of failure and ‘let-downs’. Constant reminders that their hard work is not going unnoticed are important for these students.

Last year, I found myself offering tutoring to those students who truly needed prolonged small group math instruction (I will definitely offer reading tutoring as well next year). I would start my mornings with 5-6 students at 6:30, two days a week. I found that just this extra time truly helped these students feel caught up during regular math instruction. In addition, I stayed in constant communication with parents emphasizing the importance of nightly reading and completion of homework. The biggest changes I plan to implement next year are student choice through reading and writing and ample time for sustained reading and writing. With these changes, I hope to instill in the students who come through my door, a desire and aspiration to learn and grow as life-long learners and readers. 

Module 6: Reading Reflection

Does any of the information presented in Chapter 15 influence your personal philosophy of reading? In what ways? How has your perspective this changed since you took the DeFord TORP a few weeks ago?

My personal philosophy has changed significantly over the last six weeks. Chapter 15 reinforced and summarized what the rest of Weaver’s text has helped me understand and believe throughout this semester. Chapter 15 helped highlight the importance schema and student choice has on being a successful reader. In the big picture, Weaver’s text has helped me define what reading truly is. Reading is ‘whole to part’, verses ‘part to whole’. When I think about the ‘whole to part’ reading philosophy, I think about reading for meaning and a purpose, verses the individual words and sounds on the pages. I also found the different bar graphs informative, as they support my new belief of reading instruction. I now realize the difference between decodable text and predictable text. The effects these two different texts have on reading success are very intriguing. The importance of background knowledge and familiarity of text is crucial in the reading world.  I also found the results in the graphs about contemporary and traditional teaching enlightening. As reading and writing workshop (implemented correctly) fall under the category of contemporary teaching, the results seen in the bar graphs are unbelievable. The findings of this study not only encourage me to implement reading and writing workshops in my classroom, but they excite me as well.

After looking at the DeFord TORP, only a few of my opinions have since changed over this course. I did find however, that when I took the DeFord TORP initially, most of my opinions and thoughts were uncertain and were not well supported. I did not know what all the statements meant in a reading context. Now looking at the statements about reading, I now have a more clear sense of reading and I feel certain about each of my opinions.  One thing that has changed in my reading philosophy is number 6. From Weaver’s text and the various student examples shown within, I believe that sounding out words, by using individual phonemes, is not the best strategy for unfamiliar words. Phonemes are sometimes more confusing to readers than attempting to read for meaning. I think the biggest misconception I had about reading that was shown on the DeFord TORP, was reading instruction in primary grade levels. I now realize that phonemic awareness and phonics is not as ‘necessary’ as I once thought they were. Just like in intermediate grades, reading should reflect enforce gaining understanding through strategies that are grade level appropriate. 

Final Personal Model of Reading Theory

                The importance of reading and clarity of instruction have only deepened since the start of this program. Reading is much more than identifying the words on a page. Through this course, I now have a firm understanding of what reading is how and how to structure instructional time accordingly. Weaver’s text, Reading Process and Practice, has shaped and helped increase my love and excitement for reading instruction.

            Many believe that if students can simply sound out the words on a page proficiently, or with minor miscues they are demonstrating the process of reading. I believe this to not be true, as reading requires comprehension of the particular text, not identification of letter sounds or individual letters or words. In greater detail, reading takes place when the reader them self is able to gain meaning and literal understanding from what they are reading. In order for comprehension to take place, the reader’s schema must be established and aligned with the particular text. Schema is described as ‘an organized pattern of thought or behavior. It can also be described as a mental structure of pre-conceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information’. As a reading teacher, this means that if the reader has not be exposed to and/or taught the background knowledge or prior information of the text (schema), then the reader’s understanding of the text is construed and distorted. It is very important to equip readers with background knowledge of the text, in return building their schema.

            In primary grade levels, I once thought that letter-sound relationships were important and crucial for beginning readers. Through Weaver’s text, I now see how phonics and sounding out words by using phonemes can be detrimental to a student’s reading process. I think that using onsets and rimes when assisting students with unfamiliar words, is one of the more useful and beneficial strategies. The onset is the initial consonant sound (b- in bag, sw- in swim), and the rime is the vowel and the rest of the syllable that follows (-ag in bag, -im in swim). By using onset and rimes to help with unfamiliar words, students are more focused on ‘chunking’ word sounds verses the individual phonemes.

I have come to have a new appreciation for miscues. In the past, I have thought of miscues as merely errors, thinking of them with a negative connotation. In fact, miscues are not necessarily errors, as many of the most proficient (effective and efficient) readers miscue more often than non-proficient readers. It is important to understand the difference between miscues, as some miscues actually indicate proficient reading qualities. When miscues occur, it is imperative that the teacher identify whether or not the miscues impacted the meaning of the text or not. It is found, that the miscues proficient readers make do not change the meaning of the text. For example, the reader may change the word home to house, in the end keeping the meaning the same. Typically, proficient readers miscue more often, as they are more engaged in the meaning of the text, verses saying/sounding out every single word on the page. I am very interested to see what type of miscues my students make next year, as I now look at miscues differently.

Through Weaver’s text and the extension assignments of this course, I believe that I have broadened my understanding of the qualities an effective reading teacher must possess. I am looking forward to implementing reading instruction and the workshop model in my classroom next year, as my perspective and level of knowledge have grown.

Module 5: Instructional Challenge

            I think that with correct usage and balance, a comprehensive literacy program can be helpful and beneficial meeting the needs of the ELL students. By using read alouds, the students have the opportunity to hear proficient reading including correct grammar and reading techniques that the teacher models. I know that with read alouds, the reader is the only one with a copy of the book. However, for this circumstance, I would venture to put the book on the document camera. This will allow the ELL students to see the words and sentences as they are being read, but also allow the teacher to point to the text if they so choose. Very similar to read alouds, shared reading gives the students the opportunity to hear someone else model reading. As many schools are big on guided reading, this time would allow the teacher to not necessarily focus on reading levels of students, but more of skills that need developing. The teacher could pull a small group of students according to a skill (including the ELL students and those who are not as well), as to not single out the only ELL students in the classroom. By working closely with these students, the teacher is able to gauge what skills and reading strategies the students struggle with. Another important component of the literacy program is sustained reading. Research has shown how important this time of ‘student choice’ reading truly is. With sustained reading (not always independent), students could partake in buddy reading. In addition with reading, writing follows the same type of process (modeling and guided). As these reading and writing are often simultaneously taught, students will be able to apply and connect skills and strategies learned to both concepts. Overall, I think the biggest underlying theme of all the strategies I have mentioned to assist the ELL students is modeling.  

Module 5: Reading Reflection

          Through Chapter 13 (Research on Learning and Teaching Phonics), I have gained a whole new approach about phonics. Although reading is attaining understanding and not reading word by word or letter by letter, I still felt that phonics played an important role in the younger grades. I always questioned how they knew what their sight words said/were without using phonics. It is all beginning to make clear sense.
          I think teaching phonics could be ‘integrated’ into the different components of a comprehensive literacy program (Read-alouds, shared reading, guided reading, sustained reading, individual reading conferences, and literature groups). Teachers who insist on teaching phonics in isolation could easily teach it through one of the aforementioned reading categories.
            After seeing some of the examples in chapter 13, especially the one on page 311 (see example), I do not think teaching phonics is effective. If anything, I think that the importance of phonics weighed so heavily on this particular child’s education that it actually hurt their reading and understanding of the text as a whole. As a teacher, especially in the primary grade levels, I would choose to not focus so much on phonics, as I see the ability to read and gain understanding when students use onset and rimes and the ‘chunking’ strategy. Moustafa’s study suggests that ‘children draw upon chunks of known words to read unknown print words. That is, they read new print words by drawing upon the parts of words they already know in print’. In addition, other researchers have found, ‘…that emergent readers find it easier to sound out words in onset-rime chunks than to break the words into separate phonemes and then blend these phonemes to make a word’. According to the research and also the new knowledge I have gained from this reading, I am not an advocate of teaching phonics. As a teacher, you must be able to recognize what is and what is not working for particular students and be willing to use all the strategies you know for the betterment of the students.