Reading Principles
1. I believe that every student will develop their reading skills at a different pace.
2. I believe that mistakes are tools that can be used to improve a students ability and proficiency while reading. 3. I believe that comprehension of a text is expanded with knowledge of vocabulary, sounds, and pronunciation. 4. I believe that the ability to read is one of the most important tools for success in any field of study. 5. I believe that reading isn’t easy. 6. I believe that in order to successfully teach a student to read, the teacher needs to scaffold. 7. I believe that there is no one answer/method in teaching any student to read. 8. I believe that anticipation is a key part in the learning and teaching of reading. |
In my experience in the field, I have had the opportunity to witness this principle in action, and when you get to know students on an individual level, how they learn become more evident. The rate at which different students develop and learn reading skills is something that is evident to teachers as a student progresses through grade school. However, it is not a bad thing. Having a student that excels at reading allows for the opportunity of peer tutoring, and since everyone has a different experience while reading, teachers need to adapt to each student's reading abilities. However, as a teacher, I must be careful not to cater to my class as one type of reader, but to each of my students as individual readers. Throughout my education and experiences, I have learned that building a differentiated curriculum is important, and it holds a substantial role in my teaching to reading. After reading some academic literature written by Nancie Atwell, I have become open to the idea of a workshop type classroom which allows for students to be working on individual texts towards one common learning goal. In the workshop environment I can more easily support the struggling readers while at the same time be challenging the strong readers..
Too often students are forced to notice the negative, however, I believe that making mistakes while reading isn't a bad thing. After studying and applying the use of miscue analysis in student learning, I have seen that by measuring and recording the mistakes that students make while reading not only show me, as a teacher, what needs improvement, but miscues tell whether a reader is understanding and seeking meaning from a text. The miscues and mistakes that a student is making tell me, as a teacher, what they comprehend, and how I can help my progress with the abilities they already possess. I will use this knowledge in order to help individualize student success while reading, and I will be able to use miscue analysis to help identify any trouble spots, as well as what students are doing well. Being a struggling reading is difficult, and many students feel that it is a natural talent that someone possess when they are labelled a "good reader". However, there are many aspects of reading that students many not even realize are important or relevant to think about. As a successful reader, I can do a variety of things without thinking while I read. For example, I have the ability to pronounce and identify different letters and sounds when they are put together in words. If a student is also able to identify sounds, words, and letters and how to pronounce them easily, then their comprehension becomes the focus of their conscious thought. They are now able to focus on what the words mean as opposed to how to say them. This can be done by having reading evaluations that identify strengths and weaknesses that each students has. For a number of years, there has been an emphasis on common core curriculum standards. With my knowledge of the common core, I have come to realize that nearly all subject areas are now finding the need to focus on literacy. What reading looks like is different for all subject areas, and for all walks of life. How reading looks and feels to a historian or a scientist, and how it applies to what we are learning through literature in my class is an approach that I find necessary to take. By studying literature and finding ways to apply it to a students life and future can be done by using meaning-making, syntax, analysis, interpretation, writing, etc. and while these things may all look different across subject areas, their foundations remain a similar place. Reading is something that they will use now and for the rest of their lives; it doesn't matter if they become an author, a scientist, or a mechanic. All of which require some form of reading. Reading requires thinking and, like anything we want to be good at, practice. Therefore, if a student wants to be a better reader, they need to a lot of it. There are many different ways to incorporate reading into the classroom, but I believe that showing students how difficult reading actually is can help demonstrate to them that you, their teacher, even has to work to read. One method that I have learned is the Think Aloud strategy. I like this method because it is easy to incorporate into almost any literature lesson by reading aloud to students and simply pausing when you think about what it is you are reading. Scaffolding is an method that I do my best to work into the majority of my lesson planning, but I find it is exceptionally relevant in the teaching of reading. Reading is a skill that I believe requires scaffolding from a variety sources, such as parents, teachers, and students. The activities that take place along side of reading and in pursuit of better reading skills such as discussions, reading workshops, reading itself all require a distinct set of skills. By demonstrating to the students and breaking down reading into a process allows them to better realize their thinking process while they read. Every student as an individual learns differently and at a different pace. How I teach reading, therefore, cannot be done through one activity or simple measure. It takes time to get to know my individual students' strengths and pace at which they learn. Having the ability to adapt to different classrooms of students and different learning habits is something that I continually need to keep in mind with this belief. Using my knowledge of different approaches, and knowing when to implement them will be a strong assets in the field, and I believe some of that comes with experience. Anticipation is something that as readers we do without thinking, and it is something that teachers need to do in their classrooms. Teaching anticipation is something that I strongly believe in, and I also believe that by teaching anticipation I would be scaffolding successful reading habits. One specific activity that I enjoy is an anticipation guide. With that guide students are able to literarily map out their anticipations, predictions, and implications about what it is they are reading. Not only do I want to build the skill of anticipation into my teaching of reading, but I would do my best to anticipate what the students need from me and what they can do on their own at the time. |