WEEK 5 / Reading as a Challenge: Engaging and Assessing Struggling Readers

Welcome to the challenge of reading, and for those who don't like pink, my apologies but I needed color on this bitter morning. Your peer teachers this week will be posting later on, but for now I will begin the conversation concerning why and how reader's struggle.

This week I've decided to structure my introductory dialogue to the Alvermann chapter readings as a Question Guide, adapted from Buehl's Before/ During/ After Guided Questions, p. 52. I'm doing this so that we can see how asking "thick" questions about the material at different stages of the learning cycle can support comprehension, especially for readers who struggle with large chunks of text. Buehl sets his up as a table and adapts the language of his questions to the developmental level of his readers. This is my adult version:}. Guides such as these--and you are welcome to use structures like this for your peer-research study guides--scaffold note-taking, journals or discussion involving reciprocal teaching, as well as modeling ways to question and synthesize meaning.

This journal is just food for thought as you compose your dialogue responses within your Peer-Teach dialogue journal pods this week. You are not required to answer these questions directly in your responses.

So, Stage 1: Make a Prior Knowledge Connection Before You Read 

Can you recall a song, poem or joke that you orally learned or memorized when you were young that has always stayed on your tongue, and you can still recite fluently? Is it something you learned in what you would consider your "home/primary" language, or at school? Why has it stayed with you?

Have you seen the film "The King's Speech"? If so, how did King George struggle as a reader?

Stage 2: Make Sense As You Read

When you think about reading out loud, how do you make sense of the three components of fluency ("speed, accuracy, appropriate expression", Alv p 139)?  Does your ability to read fluently or disfluently influence your comprehension? Do you let your view of your reading ability affect how you comprehend?

Why might student improvement in word recognition, vocabulary not automatically improve overall fluency?

How do informal assessment processes like checking prior knowledge with a KWL or KWWL Chart (see full description on p 240), keeping anecdotal records, or Performance-based Rubrics (Alv., Fig 10.2 p 190) help you assess and address student needs and progress in both reading processes and content knowledge?  Do you think they can support learning growth AND preparation for standardized tests?


Stage 3: Reflect After You Read

How can we integrate phonics and word knowledge as part of an engaging, natural reading recipe with target learners without using a "cookbook style" approach and losing sight of content objectives?

What oral experiences with the "melodies and rythmns of language" (Alv, p. 141) could you bring to your students from your own cultural experiences?

Where might fluency and word study "fix-it" strategies, like oral practice with rhyming trade books, or decoding polysyllabic words, fit into the context of guided reading frameworks like TSI (Brown, Week 4) or DRTA's (Directed Reading Thinking Activities) as read-alouds?
 

WEEK 5 GLOSSARY:

Struggling Readers: This will be a category to develop as we listen to our peer-teachers this week. Readers may and do struggle on so many levels, that having this broad category can be both helpful, and yet frustrating when solving individual reading issues. There are a laundry list of instructional scenarios in which a content-area teacher might raise red flags and even seek assistance from a Reading Specialist with their administration: a clinically diagnosed reading disability, like dyslexia; support for ELL/ ESL students, readers deemed "at risk" due to no home support; readers struggling to engage in particular content; prior labeling as "low achievers", unsuccessful in school literacy tasks, unmotivated or disenchanted due to disconnect between interests and school learning. Alvermann (2001) conceptualizes three main instructional approaches that have influenced our perception and treatment of readers and writers we assume will struggle, or who are at risk: *the Deprivation Approach, the Difference Approach, and the Culture As Disability approach (p. 143-147).   

Role of the Reading Specialist:  We will be discussing this role and how it might influence your classroom in class. A good description is available at Reading Rockets (a great site to explore anyhow) —www.readingrockets.org/article/78/

The International Reading Association's site, www.reading.org also provides some helpful documentation of this position in providing leadership and mediation as well as individual instruction, modeling for teachers and students: 

http://www.reading.org/general/AboutIRA/PositionStatements/ReadingSpecialistPosition.aspx


Comprehension involves understanding how to access and have different types of transactions with print and non-print text, including experiencing and connecting with narrative, gathering kinds of information, understanding text structure (including non-linear or visual texts), and knowing when and how to use reading strategies to unpack various text genres. Buehl and Alvermann work Bloome's Theory of HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) into their prioritization of which comprehension processes should be modeled to develop proficient readers. 

Fluency: Becoming a fluent reader involves reading at a reasonable speed or rate, reading with accuracy (85-90%), and learning to attend to phrasing and expression, often called prosody. Oral fluency eventually translates to automaticity in silent reading.
 
Word Knowledge encompasses both word study (site words, phonemic and phonological awareness, spelling patterns, etc) as well as word meaning (vocabulary/concepts). Word knowledge works on a continuum, working from early word recognition using site word and decoding practice, to a meaningful knowledge of words in many contexts.