Slavin (Ch. 1)
Is there a reading crisis in America?
No the press makes out that there is one but in all truth students’ reading abilities are not diminishing. They are just not improving.
Are we doing as well as we should in elementary school?
I think many teachers just teach one way of reading when a child needs to get many forms of it in order to learn.
How instruction can impact children:
Example: Average School (Hardin Park)
100 first graders in 4 classrooms (25 in each)
Categories of Students Percentage in School Count in Classroom (100) Count (25)
Natural Readers (40-50%) 50% 50 12
Teachable (30-40%) 35% 35 8
Tutorable (10-20%) 13% 13 4
True Dyslexics (1-2%) 2% 2 1
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Morris (Ch. 2)
Explain what Morris means by the traditional role of kindergarten is “to level the playing field” in terms of literacy experience.
In kindergarten is where every student should be brought up to the same level of reading.
What literacy activities should be included in a kindergarten reading program?
⋲ Reading aloud to children
⋲ Guided contextual reading
⋲ Letter-sound study
⋲ Writing
Why read aloud to children? (5 things children learn)
⋲ It extends their experiences beyond their immediate surroundings
⋲ It provides them with a vocabulary to name the new experiences
⋲ It acquaints them with the characteristics, rhythms, and structures of the written language
⋲ Listening involves the child in creating a mental image and sustaining it over time
⋲ They can use language symbols to create a mental world beyond the present context
Why is guided contextual reading important in kindergarten?
The child will not only learn how to pronounce the word correctly but also how to sound it out for themselves.
What is echo reading?
When the teacher reads and then the child echoes what was read.
Describe dictated experience stories (language experience approach—LEA)
It is when you use children’s own experiences, recorded in their own language to teach them to read.
Describe big book approach (shared reading approach)
It is a book with large print and pictures so that everyone can see and read along with the teacher at the same time.
Why include both LEA and shared reading methods in kindergarten?
It will extend children’s experiences and nurture their language development.
Why is finger pointing so important for early readers?
It is important for the teacher to finger point to the words they are reading so that students can see where a word begins and ends.
Questions about letter-sound study:
⋲ How long does it generally take a child to learn letter-sound correspondence?
Questions about early writing:
⋲ How do you do assessments of writing at that age? Do you even grade early writers?
⋲ Is writing a part of the Standard Course of Study?
⋲ Should writing or reading come first? Could teaching one or the other first hinder a child’s understanding of language?
Is there a role for independent reading in kindergarten?
Not at this stage. At this level the elements of the program include: reading stories aloud, guided contextual reading, letter-sound work, and early writing.
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Morris (Ch. 3)
What does Fraatz (1987) mean by “paradox of collective instruction”?
Not only do teachers have to provide reading instruction for everyone but they also have to simultaneously address individual differences among their students.
What are the three critical components of learning to read?
⋲ Attend to individual sounds within words
⋲ Decode printed words by matching letters to sounds
⋲ Automatize decoding or word-level processing so that the mind can concentrate on the meaning of what is being read
List the four tasks that the first-grade teacher can use to assess individual children’s reading ability during the first week of school. Describe what each task is used to assess?
The four tasks are alphabet, concept of word in text, spelling, and word recognition. When assessing alphabet knowledge the teacher should make sure that the student is able to name letters as he/she is pointing to them. When assessing concept of word in text the teacher should make sure that the student is able to identify individual words within a sentence one echo-reading has been performed. When assessing spelling the teacher should pay close attention to the number of phonemes that the student is able to identify within a word. When assessing word recognition the teacher should pay attention to the number of words that the student is able to correctly recognize.
What are some of the challenges of small-group instruction that face students and teachers?
⋲ Just getting a class of a manageable size
⋲ Providing affective instruction
⋲ Supporting children in reading a text when they lack vocabulary
⋲ Tedious reading lessons with stumbling
How does Supported Oral Reading (SOR) differ from round robin reading in guiding children’s contextual reading?
The teacher reads the section aloud while the children mumble read and follow along with their fingers.
Why is appropriate leveling of books important and how has it been used in intervention and classroom settings?
Aiming instruction too low wastes time and effort. While aiming too high frustrates a student. Word recognition should be taught in the small reading groups. This way they get what they need and do not fall behind.
Describe the developmental sequence of word study instruction. What does the continuum consist of? Why is it recommended that teachers follow such a sequence of instruction?
The sequence of instruction begins with beginning consonants, next word families, third short vowels, and finally one syllable vowel patterns. The continuum consists of what the child knows. It focuses more on broader conceptual levels rather than discrete skills. It is recommended that teachers follow a sequence of instruction because there are so many individual differences among children within a classroom when it comes to their word knowledge.
How could you assess where a beginning reader’s is at on the continuum of word recognition skill?
Analyze their inventive spellings. It tells a lot about where the child is in their word recognition process and how they are doing with letter-sound correspondence.
Describe word sorting activities to teach beginning sound consonants and short-vowel word families.
A teacher could give a child picture cards and ask them to sort the pictures according to their beginning consonant sounds. For example a picture of a ball would be placed under the letter card “b” or under another picture that also starts with that same letter. This helps students understand beginning consonant sounds by giving them a hands-on activity. Learning short-vowel families is a little more complicated than beginning consonant sounds. Students will learn five short vowels, one at a time, using rhyming words. A word sorting activity that would help with this would be when a teacher places three “header” words on the table. The students will then read these words and must be able to do so independently. Next the teacher will demonstrate the activity by sorting the next set of letters under the appropriate header word. For example if the header word was “hat” the word that the teacher would place underneath it would be sat or if the header word was man the teacher would place ran under it.
What skills does word sorting help develop in beginning readers coupled with word games and spell checks?
It helps them “master the high frequency short and long vowel patterns” which will help them begin to make sense of other spelling patterns they come upon in reading. Good phonics instruction will lead students to fluent reading.
What is instructional pacing? What factors were found by Barr (1974, 1982) to affect effective pacing?
Instructional pacing refers to the teacher’s skill in leading his/her students through a set of graded reading materials. The first factor was that when teachers used a more difficult basal they were less successful because it did not help the lower readers in the class. The second factor was instructional time because the more time teachers spent directly working with children on reading the farther advanced they became. The third factor was the number of low readiness or low ability readers that were in a classroom. The larger the number of struggling readers added difficulty in the way that the teacher could pace reading instruction. The final factor was the number of years that the teacher had been teaching first grade.
In what ways can writing help beginning reader’s development?
Writing can help develop phoneme awareness and later in first grade it can help students assume the stance of the author which is also important. Writing can allow students to experiment, practice, and internalize letter sounds along with spelling patterns and site words.
What are three tasks that could be used to assess end-of-year reading achievement? Describe the tasks briefly.
⋲ Word recognition task-The student attempts to read a list of forty words graded in difficulty from early first grade to mid-second grade.
⋲ Spelling task-The student attempts to spell a list of fifteen words. There is a special scoring system that is used for this spelling test.
⋲ Passage reading task-The student reads up to six passages ranging in difficulty from early first grade to late second grade.
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