Helping struggling readers in the classroom

I was very interested by the article entitled "Narratives of the Struggling Reader" by Saba Vlach and Judy Burcie, particularly the discussion about some of the methods for guiding students, who may already be struggling in reading, in their studies, so that they can be successful.

The story that the authors offer about the two students who have already pretty much given up on learning is heartbreaking, especially since I know that it does happen. It's hard on students when they fail, especially if they continue to fail repeatedly and teacher reactions can make that feeling of failure all the worse if the situation is handled improperly. But, teachers also have the ability to help students through this difficult time and aid their success. It's all a matter of reaction and understanding why your students are reacting the way that they are and working with that student towards a positive solution. In the first example offered in the text, the young girl reacts with anger to her perceived failure and this led to her being kept separated from the rest of the class, but this reaction did more harm then good because all it did was make her feel worse. Her anger was never about being "bad" or "disruptive" or anything else that might have caused her to be separated from the other students in class. Her reactions were nothing more then frustration at the difficulties that she was having in class and, at the end of it all, the reaction stated in the article to her feelings didn't actually accomplish anything outside of causing the student to see herself in a very negative light. Had the real problem been confronted, perhaps she would be in a very different place emotionally by the point that we see her in the article.

I like some of the methods that the authors of the article suggest to help struggling readers, especially the "attitude and interest surveys" (pg. 523) and the "Turn-and-Talk" (pg. 524) strategy. I like the first because I do think that it's important for teachers to know where their students are emotionally so that potential issues can be solved quickly before they cause any harm. And I like the second because I think it would be an excellent way to engage the students as well as help build social relationships within the classroom.

Technological Benefits for Reading

While reading the article, I was particularly interested by some of the technological adjustments that were possible when using the Kindle. Things like the text adjusting the text font size, text-to-speech functions, and especially having access to the built in dictionary struck me as being incredibly useful.

The text size adjustment strikes me as excellent because it makes the students more comfortable while reading and, therefore, would also hopefully make the experience more pleasant for learners. On top of that, it might be fun for the students to be able to actually use the function, although I worry that the students might spend too much time toying with the system rather then really using it to just adjust the font size, but as long as the students were well acquainted the program so that it was just a tool to reach a certain goal rather then a fun toy and the students understood the purpose of the function then I don't think that would that big an issue. It's probably still important to keep to potential issue in mind, but I doubt that it's a terribly serious problem in the long run and the potential benefits seem to outweigh the potential concerns.

The text-to-speech feature is also interesting and potentially useful. It also brings to mind something else that I've read about text audio recordings and their usefulness because it brings up a lot of the same benefits. This allows students to hear the way a word should sound, so, if a student is having a lot of trouble sounding out a particular word, then they can listen to it. This provides students with the opportunity to have a bit more control over their own education because they don't have to go running to someone else to find out what the word that is giving them trouble sounds like.

But it was the dictionary function that really caught my attention, especially when it comes to helping students improve their comprehension because this allows the students to look up words that they don't know without having to go very out of their way to find the answer or relying on others to find the answer. This also allows students to take charge of their own learning. If they run into words that they don't know then they can make use of the tool in front of them and look it up, so that they can better understand the text. This function also has the benefit of being useful in helping students decode words.

Formative Assessments

Reading the article "Formative Assessment" by Colin J. Marsh got me to thinking more about that particular topic. In theory, it seems to have a lot of promise in figuring out the best way to plan a lesson or unit, so that the students will learn as much as possible because, through these assessments, background knowledge can be assessed and activities can also be assessed to see if they are being well received. The best option, in my opinion, would be to proceed what is referred to in the article on page 26 as the "purest form of formative assessment." If used as an actual instrument to improve the learning process and self-assessment for both students and teachers, then I think that the whole idea could prove very useful, although I'd suggest making sure that students understand the purpose of these activities, otherwise the results could prove to be inaccurate and it might upset the students if they think that this assessment could prove harmful to them.

The thing that I like most about these types of assessments is that it offers the opportunity to really teach to what the students in question truly don't know. I remember too many times in school being bored because we were relearning something that had been learned in a previous year. Sometimes that type of repetition is helpful, but often times it is boring and insulting to the students. That's not to say that it's wrong to recover old ground, but it would likely be better to try and focus on the holes in the students' knowledge, assuming that there are holes. Or, if there are concerns that a lesson might not have been well received, it's probably better to discover just how much the students took from the lesson so that a whole lesson is not wasted recovering ground that has already been dealt with solidly.

It is unfortunate to think that these assessments are often not being utilized as well as they could be, assuming that they're used at all, but, as the article that we read points out, more research on the topic might help and simply staying educated on the topic so that we can make good use of this technique. This website has some more information on the topic as does this one.

Comprehension Strategy- Prediction

While reading chapter 8 of Literacy for the 21st Century, I found myself particularly interested in the various comprehension strategies, but "prediction" particularly caught my eye because it's something that I actually make use of in my own teaching experiences. I work with children who are still too young to begin reading, but they have a great deal of fun trying to figure out, based on the pictures in the book and the questions that I ask them, what will happen next.

There are a number of children's picture books that are, in a lot of ways, designed for this step. For some books, the colorful pictures on the pages give a very accurate idea of what is happening on those pages and this helps students start to make connections between the pictures and words on the pages. If you see a fire engine on one page, there is a decent bet that the word also appears somewhere on that page, if not in a few places on the page. Attempts at prediction can even be made before opening the book as the title and the cover often also give important information.

Picture books are hardly the only way to do this as it can be done with chapter books that the students are reading based on what they know of the book and the parts that they've already read as well. According to Steve Peha (2003) in his online article "What Can You Say About a Book?", it also helps developing readers figure what information is important. In general, the process seems to be beneficial and it's one that can start to be taught at a young age. Even if the students in question are not yet ready to learn to read, it is probably still worthwhile to try to make use of this strategy, partly because it will help prepare them for when they begin to learn to read and partly because it is often engaging for the children, whic makes the experience more fun the simply sitting and listening. Making the experience as fun and pleasant as possible will hopefully cause the students to be more willing to persevere when it comes time to learn to read.

Of course, while I focused on prediction here, there are a number of strategies to help with comprehension and ideally they should all be used while a student is learning to read.

This site has more information on comprehension strategies in general, with prediction being included on the list. 

Teaching Figuartive Language

Something that really caught my interest in Chapter 7 was the part that discussed teaching children about figurative language on page 236. The reason for this is that it has always struck me as something that might prove very interesting to teach because the connection between figurative meaning and literal meanings of the phrases are often difficult to see for someone who has little experience with figurative language. What does the idiom "sick as a dog" mean to a child who isn't already acquainted with the phrase? For us, it might be easy, but for people who don't have a strong understanding of figurative language, the connection is often difficult to see, especially for young children who don't have much experience with it and tend to be more comfortable with literal word meanings (Thompkins, 236). Because of this, I'm very interested to read about possible methods of teaching figurative speech. This type of language is a part of every day speech and people often use it without thinking, so to not understand these sayings could potentially be detrimental to my future students. It also might prove to be an issue as my students move on with their educational career because written works often use figurative language to get across various points and not knowing how to decipher this language could leave them at a real disadvantage. So, I feel that it is quite important to further my knowledge on how to teach this subject.


There are a few methods that I've seen so far that strike me as being helpful in teaching this particular subject. For example, on page 236 of the textbook, Thompkins mentions that it could prove helpful to have the students make "idiom posters," which would show both meanings and, therefore, help students see and understand the connections between the meanings. Also, the website ReadWriteThink has this online tool, which strikes me as a potentially fun method of learning about figurative language, assuming that the students respond to it well. This site suggests having the students brainstorm possible examples (Or it gives a list of examples that can be used as well, but I think that I'd prefer to ask my students to think of them as those are the ones that are likely to have the most meaning to them because those are the ones that they will have heard at some point in their life and it made enough of an impression that they remember it.) and then discussing the meanings as a group. There is no way to cover all examples, but this will at least allow the students to get their feet wet and students can always bring in more examples if they wish to do so. As the website that I just posted and the book mention, it also important to teach the different types on figurative language also, such as similes and metaphors, as those will, almost definitely, come heavily into play as the students grow older and knowing how to recognize and use these methods will likely prove a benefit for the students.

Contemplating Methods of Choosing the Words to Teach

During a discussion in our last class, the mention of using word walls and other methods similar to that came up as a helpful method in teaching spelling and it reminded me of something that I read about in Chapter 7 of Literacy for the 21st Century, which is related to how one might use the word wall, but not the idea of using a word wall in itself, although I think that word walls are an excellent idea.

On pages 237-238, the author discusses a dilemma often faced by teachers, which is choosing which words to teach in class as it would be impossible to teach everything, but we do want to make sure that we are setting our students up with a good base for the future. So, how do we choose which words would be best suited to help set up that strong base?

The author of the text mentions a method set up by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002) on page 238 that struck me as being very interesting and potentially helpful in answering this puzzling question. They suggest splitting the vocabulary into three categories; those being basic words, academic words, and specialized words. Then they suggest taking mostly from the academic word section as those are the words that will most likely be needed later in a student's educational career.

For the most part, I like the strategy. At least separating the various vocabulary words into categories helps to make sense of the large amount of information in front of us, although I'm not totally sure that I feel comfortable selecting the majority of words from just the "academic words" section. Their reasoning for why those words are important seems solid and I don't think that, at an elementary level of education, for example, that the "specialized words" should get a lot of focus as they are unlikely to show up in the reading material for those children, but I think that a teacher should make sure to get a good feel for the students in his/her class before ruling out teaching the words in the "basic words" section as it's hard to know what kind of background knowledge a student might come into class with. It might well not be an issue, but I don't like to make assumptions as I often find that can lead to problems later.

I could see this strategy being very useful though once the students background knowledge of vocabulary had been assessed because it could help with sorting through the words to figure out which words would be the most helpful for the students to learn at the time.

And on the topic of word walls, since I started this post by mentioning them, I do think that they would be a really useful tool both for vocabulary and spelling purposes. Once a word is learned, it can go up on the wall. And, as was mentioned in another class, it can also be helpful to encourage the students to bring in words that they run across and don't know the meaning to, so that the class can benefit from that knowledge as well and then that word can also be added to the word wall.

This excerpt seems to have some helpful information on the topic at hand and this link seems to have some interesting tips about teaching vocabulary.

Response to Chapters 6 and 7

While reading the assigned chapters, I was particularly struck by some of the information that I read about in Chapter 6 on page 209, more specifically the reasons that are suggested for why some students become dysfluent readers. I've always valued the knowledge of what not to do as much as what should be done because it gives me some more information that can help me self-monitor myself so that I don't end up falling into any of these traps.

I actually remember the last method mentioned happening to me during my own education and I hated it. I don't doubt for an instant that my teachers believed that they were being helpful, but it was frustrating and often unsettling to always be interrupted and then corrected as though I could never have figured it out myself and it never really helped me as it basically would go in one ear and out the other unless I played some role in deciphering the word. On top of that, it can be very embarrassing for the student to have to constantly be told the correct answer, especially if it is being done in a group reading session with their peers. In my experience, if a child is given time, then most students can work out the answers for themselves and they will likely remember the answers better because they worked for them.

It is, of course, also important to be certain that students are usually reading books that are on their reading level, as the author of our textbook mentions as the first reason for why some students suffer with fluency. Fluency is best gained through practice, especially by having the student practice on already familiar material as is mentioned on page 210 of the text because this will allow the students to focus less energy on decoding words and more energy on their fluency. Plus, if students are constantly reading books that are far too difficult for them then they are likely to become frustrated, which can lead to the second method mentioned in the textbook, which is that students might do less reading and, for this reason, might not show much improvement.

Of course, that the books might be too difficult for the students is only one reason why students might be resistant to practice. There are many, many reasons why a student might not wish to read and, since practice is so vital to improving fluency, this can be a serious barrier to overcome. As a result, I feel as though, when this issue is encountered, our first job as teachers should be to try to identify the cause by talking to the student and, if it really becomes necessary, by asking the parents for the reasons why their child might be unwilling to read. Once the reason is identified, then it can be confronted head on and hopefully solved so that the student is no longer so resistant to the idea of reading. Despite how simple the concept sounds on paper, I very much doubt that the process itself will be simple, but I think that it would be worth it if it would help the student in the long run.

This website appears to have some handy looking strategies to aid in improving a student's fluency and this link to the Reading Rockets website, which I've mentioned previously, has a number of links to fascinating articles on the topic of fluency.

Chapter 5 response

While I was reading Chapter 5 of the textbook, I was particularly interested in reading about the spelling development on page 168. It's interesting to think about the way that children learn a process that most people seem to take for granted a lot of the time. It's vital in our society to be able to read and write, but it's often something that I've found is not given as much thought as it should be. In my experience, it can be a rather difficult process for students and it can also be quite frustrating for them if handled incorrectly.

The children that I work with are very young, so the part of this process that I get to see is the "Emergent Spelling" step mentioned on pg. 168 of the textbook. Just learning how to hold the pen or pencil correctly can be difficult and this often seems to relate to their level of development, but the children are usually eager to learn. Clipboards, little moveable letters, dry erase boards, and chalkboards are, in my experience, excellent tools to use with younger children who are just taking their first steps into this venture because it makes the experience fun. If the experience is a frustrating chore then most children aren't going to want to bother with it when there are so many fun toys to play with, but make it into a fun activity when they get to write on something interesting and that makes them feel more grown up, then, in my experience, it seems like they might be more willing to forgo other sorts of games to play this fun interesting one that involves them learning more about the way that words function.

These early steps might seem basic to us, but to a young child, each step is a new challenge and, in my opinion, it's important that we approach it in the right way so that it's a welcome new challenge rather then a boring chore that is only getting in the way of their fun. Practice is a big part of learning to write, just as it is a big part in learning to read. If the students enjoy practicing, they are more likely to work harder in their lessons and even practice on their own. In the class that I worked in, there were several students who really liked to draw and it was not uncommon for them to practice their letters as well as writing things that they knew how to write like their name during these periods.

This website seems to have some good information on various activities that can be used to encourage writing at the various stages of development.

Response to Chapters 3 and 4

While reading Chapter 3 of Literacy For the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach, I was struck by the information on page 76 about the different reading levels and choosing reading material appropriately, not because it was anything terribly new to me as I'd learned about those levels before, but because it reminded me of something that I learned in another class that I thought was really important information, so I wanted to share it here.

Not only is it important for teachers to be able to judge a book's reading level and how appropriate it is for a particular student or the class as a whole, but it's important to teach the students how to do this as well, so that they can also choose books that match their own interests and abilities. For example, if a student likes sharks, then they might well want to read a book on sharks, but it could be discouraging for them to pick up a book on sharks that is massively too difficult for the student, especially since they might be doing this on their own or with limited help if it isn't school reading. And, what I think is the most worrying part of that is if they don't feel as though they can read well on their own because they are discouraged by their book choices, then they might feel as though reading in itself is not a fun activity and lose their internal motivation to do read even when not being prompted by a teacher, which is the last thing that I think most teachers want to see happen. But if you teach your students what they should be looking for, then they will be less likely to end up frustrated because they will know when they look through the book that this is a book that they either should wait on or read with someone else.

The main method that I've learned about to teach students how best to choose their own books is by teaching them that before they begin to read a book, they should flip through the first few pages and identify the number of words that they can't decipher and understand. For example, if the student sees that on the first page alone that he/she counts between five-ten words that the student cannot identify at all, then perhaps that's a book to read with a parent or a teacher or a friend, rather then by the student alone. That's not to say that new vocabulary in itself should veto a book as it's wonderful to learn new vocabulary while reading, but if there seems to be too many words on a page that are above the student's level then perhaps the book is above the student's level and it's important that the student identifies that before he/she becomes frustrated and discouraged by trying to read the book. It's good for students to feel challenged, but too much challenge can lead to frustration and disappointment instead of pride of an accomplishment and students need to learn how to tell where that line is for them. While the students are learning how best to decide on books to read, it might be helpful for teachers to encourage the students to bring potential books to them, so that the students' can learn more about this process and become better at it.

This website is a fantastic one that was recommended by the teacher of the other class that I took and, while it has a great deal of value when it comes to teaching reading, I'm posting it here for the links to lists of books that can be recommended to students and used in the classroom as well as the articles about how best to evaluate reading levels. The first link is only the general link to the websites main page, but here is a more specific link so that you don't have to really search for it.

Response to Chapters 1 and 2

While reading the assigned chapters for the week, I was struck by some of the stuff that was said about the importance of setting up the classroom environment, mostly because of how true it rang to the stuff that I've experienced in my own teaching experiences.

On page 16 of Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach, the author discusses the importance of setting up a learning environment that is "safe and respectful" to help motivate the students to become involved and learn. This, in my experience, is vital. From what I've seen, when students are frightened or intimidated by the environment, they tend to stay quiet and hang back, participating as little as possible for fear of getting into trouble or getting teased, while students who are comfortable with their surroundings and their community are more willing to jump right into thing and experiment. Many children learn best when truly engaged in the material and, more importantly, when trying new things. A child who feels comfortable and safe is more likely to try and reach out to try things that they've never done before because they don't fear making mistakes as a child who feels uncomfortable with their environment. The issue, of course, is that the students who are likely to learn the most are the ones who are willing to take those risks. It's never wrong to take a risk and make a mistake because you can learn from that and perhaps succeed the next time or figure out a better way to approach their goal.

To put this in terms of reading instruction, since that is the point of this blog, a child who feels comfortable is probably going to feel more willing to try to tackle reading harder words and books as long as trying harder reading exercises, while a child who is not is not likely to want to stray outside of his or her comfort zone. And, in the end, leaving that comfort one really needs to be the child's choice, once they feel comfortable because if the teacher makes that choice instead of the student, then it is only likely to scare the already nervous student more.

Something else that is brought up in the book on this topic on page 18, is that teachers should make use of the first two weeks of class to put all this into motion (That is the book's suggestion for length of time. I'd have to imagine that length of time needed for this would vary depending on the class. For example, younger students who haven't had much school experience might need more time focused on this topic, whereas older students who have a large amount of time in school might need less time for this.). As is pointed out by the author, students need to be introduced to the classroom policies and rules as to what will be expected of them as it's unlikely that they will come in knowing what you want and expect of them. Even if they are coming from another classroom, each class's rules are a bit different and expectations can vary from teacher to teacher, so it's important to lay all this out right at the start. This is also important though because you want to make it clear to your new students that the classroom is a safe place and that our goal here is to learn. The earlier that this is all set into place, the more ingrained it will become. Plus, it can be difficult to put new stuff into place after the fact.

This matter might seen trivial on the surface, but I really think that it's something that should be taken very seriously. The tone of the classroom set at the start of the year will affect everyone throughout the year and, depending how the situation is handled, it can either affect the students' learning very positively or very negatively.

Welcome to my blog!

This blog will be used to reflect upon what we learn in class, so that I can better absorb the information from class and increase my knowledge of teaching strategies for the benefit of my students.

As a bit of an introduction into myself, I will say that I love to write and read. I look forward to getting further into the material for this course and I hope to become an elementary school teacher in the future!