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.