Prominent Theorist Research Paper Link

Here is my link to my paper on Yetta Goodman: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3WYhICurCEnN0pwaEIxY2pEOU0/edit?usp=sharing

If the link does not work, just copy and paste the URL.

Module 3: Activity 2

What do you think of this? What do such activities and cracking the code contribute to proficient reading? What else might a reader need to become proficient? Record your thoughts in a blog posting. Name this posting "Module 3: Activity 2."

(In my undergrad work I was certified only grades 2-6 so I have found that early phonics instruction has been completed by the time the students reach my classroom.)

In my school I am very comfortable with the phonics program Words Their Way.  When working with the students I do not use nonsense words.  I think that when giving children nonsense words you are asking them to use phonics rules that do not always work for every instance.  I also think that using nonsense words only allows children to practice learning words in isolation.  Learning words and phonic instruction is so that children will eventually be able to apply this to their reading. Although I do think phonics instruction is important I am finding that during the week I give my students 15 words and they do not know what they mean.  How are students supposed to be able to identify and use these words when they are unsure of their meaning.  Giving students nonsense words will only confuse them and make them search for a similar word or a meaning that is untrue.  I believe that in order from a reader to become proficient it is important to build a strong vocabulary from a young age.  I also think that exposing children to books about any and every thing will help them get a better grasp on all different genres and subject. 

            I do no understand why there is so much emphasis on phonics instruction.  I believe that the best way students learn how to read words is through reading.  These students are able to read a book and use context clues to figure out words.  I think that making students read aloud different nonsense words is confusing and only relevant when having students read aloud words in isolation. Read! Read! READ!

Module 3: Instructional Challenge: Mock Memo from a Reading Specialist

Erica, a fifth grader, reads grade level passages at a rate of 177 words correct per minute, or 30% faster than grade level norms. When asked to retell what she has read, Erica struggles and is able to give little to no information from about the text. Many other children in Erica's class also read well above grade level expectations for fluency rate (or automaticity), but the teacher laments that they struggle with comprehension and using appropriate expression and intonation while they read. What is going on here? What advice can you offer the teacher? Write a memo to the teacher from the viewpoint of the school's Reading Specialist. Give the teacher and explanation for the phenomenon and offer her advice on dealing with the situation. Please keep the memo to no more than 400 words. Post it to your blog and name the posting "Module 3: Mock Memo from a Reading Specialist."

Ms. Teacher,

When observing Erica in your classroom as well as when I pulled her out of class I am noticing that there is a disconnect between what Erica is reading and her making meaning of the texts.  Erica has a very fast reading rate and is very fluent.  I am however concerned that she is not comprehending what she is reading.  A lot of times children who are reading too quickly are just trying to fly through the paragraph/ story without taking time to reflect on what they are reading.  I do believe that Erica is one of these children.  Although her fluency rate probably makes her feel confident in some areas of reading I would like to pull her out of class twice a week to work with her.  When I pull her out of class we will be working on a variety of strategies.  We will use Weaver’s “Think Aloud Strategy” (p. 226) to help Erica stay on track with her comprehension.  We will work on reading a paragraph, aloud and talking about what we just read.  I will work with her like this when we spend time together, making sure to lengthen how much she reads but still making sure she pauses and is able to reflect and really think about what she has just read.

Another great strategy that is often used in reading workshop is using Post-Its.  I think using Post-Its is a great way for students to sum up what they have just read and put it on a sticky note to help them remember.  I encourage Erica to keep a packet of Post-Its (also in your box) with her when she is reading.  After she reads a page she needs to write down the main idea from that page.  Once Erica begins to recall and comprehend more frequently she will be bale to do a post-it ever few pages then soon one or two a chapter.

I am looking forward to working with both you and Erica in the future.  Please let me know if there is any way I can help Erica while we are in or out of class.

Laura Jordan

Reading Specialist

Grad School

Module 3 Reading Reflection

Do you agree with Marilyn Adams (1990, p. 108) who argued that rather than relying on context, Skillful readers of English thoroughly process the individual letters of words in their texts? Why or why not?

After reading Chapter 5 I quickly formed my own opinion about reading and processing words.  I do not agree with Marilyn Adams quote about reading individual letters for many reasons.  On pages 92 and 93 of the text I found myself trying to identify words without all of the letters and I was able to read them quite easily.  This is showing that I do not look at every individual letter while identifying words. 

            In the middle of page 108 there are a list of myths about eye fixations and reading.  It shows that we as readers do not fixate on every word when we are reading.  I think that good readers rely on context to thoroughly process words.  Good readers also do not read word for word and line for line. (Weaver, 2002).  When reading, most children, or adults do not read every letter.  We group letters together ot make words and string those words to make sentences.  As we read we are able to identify words based on where they re in a sentences and what relationship they have to the words or sentences before them.  It is because of this that good readers identify words with the surrounding context whether it be apart of a story, a sentence before, or words around that particular word.

Weaver, C. (2002). Reading Process & Practice (3rd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann

Module 2: Activities 1 & 2

 Activity 1

Complete Exercise #3c on page 58 in the text: first write a definition of each word listed. Did you notice yourself using any fairly consistent principle for determining what the words might mean? Discuss. Then read the first chapter of A Clockwork Orange to find the meanings of at least six of the words: http://www.hubertlerch.com/pdf/Burgess_A_Clockwork_Orange.pdf. In each case, how do you finally determine what the word means? Combine this assignment with Activity 2 in this module. Create a blog post.

#3C Prior to reading  A Clockwork Orange

creech- screech                    malenky- long, lanky            razrez- rare

droogs- drugs                       messel- message                  skorry- scurry         

glazzies- glasses                   millicents-small change      spatted- splattered  

goloss- gloss                         poogly-ugly                           zoobies- zombies

As I was attempting to define what each of these words meant I found myself looking at the words and breaking them into letter sounds I could recognize.  After I did that I tried to see if I knew other words with the same sounds and see if I could take their meaning and weave them into these unknown words.  In some cases I also found myself breaking the word into two parts ( * my thinking* messelà message and missel, so maybe a quick message?)  I took my prior knowledge of word sounds and meaning of prefixes and suffixes and used those same techniques to apply them to the words above.

After reading A Clockwork Orange

 After reading the first chapter I realized that what I was doing my kids do everyday in school.  I found myself struggling to fine the meaning of words or skipping word sin hopes to find context clues. For each of the six words I have now defined, I was wrong at my guessing for all but two! (Lucky guesses!) J I relied heavily on context clues to help me discover what these words meant.

droogs- friends, people       poogly- surprised or shocked

glazzies- glasses                   messel- message

razrez- cut (similar to razor?) skorry- quickly, fast

Activity 2

Read Exercise 7 on p. 85 and rather than showing it to an audience, complete the exercise yourself. Answer the questions, including the two at the top of p. 86.

-       As I was reading these words aloud I found myself mostly chunking the words into syllables when trying to pronounce the words.  I found myself relieved when I found syllables that sounded familiar to other words that I knew.  Some were much easier to pronounce than others.

-       There were a few words such as extravasate that I tried to sample all the letter more or less all at once.  I found myself having to re-read the word because I made way too many miscues to even try to make sense of the word I was reading.

-       When looking at the words there were only a few that I knew the meanings of.  I know that sarsaparilla is a root that can be used in a drink.  I know that vitiate means to undo or defeat. I also learned from SAT tutoring that  a sycophant is a suck up or a brown-noser.

-       Pronouncing the words helped me recognize some of the letter sound meanings.  It did not, however, seem to help me when trying to decode the meanings of the given words.

-       When I encounter words that I do not know in normal reading I typically try to look at the word to see if I can figure out the meaning.  If I look at the word and am unable to recognize any of the letter patterns then I will skip the word and read the sentence(s) that follow to see if I can construct the meaning of the word.

-       With this experiment I felt like I was a second grader in my own classroom trying to find the meanings of new words.  I think that giving students tricky words is a good idea for a challenge assignment so that I can see what parts of the word children are familiar with.  This re-opened my eyes for ways in which I can teach children to deal with unfamiliar words.  I think that giving examples like the words in this books will also help the children see what I do when I find tricky words.  It is important to give students opportunities to re-read the sentence, struggle, and guess and check when finding tricky words.

Module 2: Instructional Challenge

Take a look at the following examples of children's dialect-based miscues while reading and the difference between the child's original response (OR) and expected reponse (ER). Then answer the questions that follow.

OR: It my little monkey here.	ER: Is my little monkey here?
OR: We got to tell.	ER: We've got to tell.
OR: Frog look at Toad calendar.	ER: Frog looked at Toad's calendar.
OR: A word what sounded good.	ER: A word that sounded good.
OR: hisself	ER: himself
OR: I can come to your party?	ER: Can I come to your party?

Are these children's miscues evidence of proficient or non-proficient reading?� Explain. If you were teaching children who made these miscues, what, if any, assistance or teaching would you offer? 

After examining the original responses versus the expected responses I see where educators from the correctionist approach would consider these miscues to be non-proficient.  I, however, disagree. When looking at the original responses first I made sure to take note of grammar and sentence structure.  Then I went and looked at the responses the children came up with.  Most, if not all of their miscues had to do with sentence structure and grammar.  I would still consider these children to be proficient in reading.  When children are code-switching they are often taking what they are reading, and quickly processing it in their mind to "translate" it to their dialect.  These examples show that the students were close with all of the sentences.  When taking an even further look at the examples I can see that the students that made miscues also seemed to get the main idea.  Even if the words were out of order, the student still got the "gist" and got the main idea which is why I would still consider them to be proficient.  Asking a young child to get everything accurate and read with little to no miscues is in my opinion silly.  It is with these miscues that teacher's are able to adjust their lessons or conferences to help each student grow.

If I were teaching these children I would make sure to pull them into a small group.  I noticed that these student lacked inflection, pronunciation, and basic sentence structure/grammar.  One of the ways I would work with these students is with choral reading.  I think that when students hear me read aloud they are able to hear my tone, pronunciation, and expression which can then help them.  I would also pull this group to have a mini grammar lesson.  We would talk about parts of speech and the orders they tend to follow in sentences, especially with commands and questions.  I would continue to monitor progress and check in with the students when necessary.  I believe that with dialect miscues, students need to be surrounded by language and text in the classroom.  With more practice, reading, and even reading partners these students will be able to quickly grasp some of their miscues and be able to improve. 

These students are proficient with only room to grow.  I think that their understandings of what they were reading given their dialect miscues are manageable and expected when dealing with younger children and code-switching.