Addressing challenges on acquisition of reading comprehension to second language English speakers. Where does the gap lie?
Background to the study
In our country, South Africa, we know that we are faced with so many socio-economic issues Some of these issues are poverty, high crime, HIV/AIDS epidemic, child-headed families, abuse in the family, illiterate parents and alcoholic parents just to name a few. These social make it even harder for us as teachers, how do you teach learners when they are hungry, the parents are employed and there’s no food in the house. We are also faced with educational issues which unskilled teachers, non-parental involvement, lack of motivation from teachers, the ever changing curriculum. Let me put emphasis on the issue I feel that if we as teachers were to work harder, we would be able to help diminish such issue. It is the issue of teaching reading comprehension.
We are very aware that in our schools we get diverse learners who teachers need to be trained for to cater for those students. The most of the learners in the school are multilingual; well it is my job as a caring teacher to adapt your lessons and curriculum for those students.
Almost all of the learners that are in our schools, do not have English as Home language, you find that English is a third or fourth language. We need to better equip ourselves with reality, when we get to tertiary English is the means of communication and medium of instruction between students and lecturers. The study materials are written in English and media like laptops and tablets are operated in English. Why must we let our children suffer because we want to show the world that we can integrate 11 eleven languages in the curriculum. I am not saying p...
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...so receive training on how explicitly teach reading comprehension. To avoid teachers being unmotivated about teaching it, this can often lead to learners not having any interest on the subject. Therefore I plan to use learning aids and regularly and frequently assess the learners.
References
Baumann, J. F. (1984). The effectiveness of a direct instruction paradigm for teaching main idea comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 93-115.
Beck, I., Omanson, R., & Mckeown, M. (1892). An instructional redesign of reading lessons: effects on comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 17, 462-481
Patterson, C. J., & O’Brien, R. G., (1980). Nonverbal indicants of comprehension and non-comprehension in children. Developmental Psychology, 16, 38-48
Pearson, P.D. (1985). Changing the face of reading comprehension instruction. The Reading Teacher , 38(8), 724-738
In the United States of America we have become a large melting pot of ethnic and cultural peoples. Along with these peoples have come many different languages and alphabets. However the US has been seen as a mostly English speaking country. Yet many of this country's newcomers do not speak English. Adults and children alike come into the US speaking and writing only their native tongue. This poses a huge gap in communication. If the adults are unable to teach their children English, then it becomes the school districts' responsibility. However to make learning easier on the child, many school districts choose to teach the child in their native language, while they receive English lessons on the side.
Teachers, according to Tompkins (1998), scaffold students’ reading to enable them to develop and use reading skills and strategies in guided reading. In particular, in scaffolding students’ reading comprehension, according to Palloway and Patton (1997), the teacher thinks aloud or talks through the steps he or she follows to reach a specific conclusion. They added that as the students begin to understand the process, they gradually take over the talking through procedure and the teacher acts only as a guide providing prompts when needed. The teacher, they add, models the scaffolding steps. In comprehension, they continue, the teacher helps students sort out the important concepts and ideas of the
Trepanier, K. G. (2009). The effectiveness of the orton gillingham instructional program when used in conjunction with a basal reading program. (Order No. 3355062, Walden University). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, , 101. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/305080674?accountid=458. (305080674).
As the human race continues to become progressively more intelligent, countries are becoming more and more competitive in a “race to the top.” Our society, and others alike, have placed increasing demands on citizens in an effort to ensure they go on to be productive, intelligent contributors. While this is a natural progression of the human race, those who were previously struggling to succeed are now fighting to close an even larger gap. When it comes to education, this is a clear and present concern for many educators and students. Teachers are being held accountable for raising the bar and ensuring that each student performs successfully, in accordance with the national (Common Core) standards. A big concern regarding these increasing demands of an every changing society, are students who are already struggling to succeed, such as those with learning disabilities. One of the primary targets of the Common Core is reading, as reading ability is considered to strongly predict whether or not a student goes on to be successful in the education system and in society. In order to service these children, educators have experimented with many research-based interventions in an effort to get struggling students up to grade level and prevent them from being taken out of the general education classroom. The following articles discuss various aspects of a popular research-based intervention, Fountas and Pinnell, and how this interventions benefit students with learning disabilities, specifically in the area of reading comprehension.
There are different types of questions that can be asked of students when assessing reading comprehension. Explicit questions can be asked as well as questions that require students to make inferences. In one study (as cited by Williamson, P., Carnahan, C., & Jacobs, J., 2012) Myles and her colleagues found that students with autism were able to answer questions that were found in the text rather than inferential questions. This suggests that students answer questions more fluently when they are able to return to the text for their information.
The reading selections for this week provide a historical perspective of comprehension instruction at various grade levels. The authors describe characteristics of learners at various grade levels, examine previous instructional goals and discuss the goals for the future, examine previous learning contexts and what learning contexts should become and how assessment strategies can be improved to meet the challenges of learners at various grade and proficiency levels. It is important to note the influence of multiple literacies and the challenges of integrating conventional discourses and nonconventional discourses in the learning context. Wharton-McDonald and Swiger (2009) said, “Instructional practices that repair the disconnect between students’ public and private literacies—practices that form connections between what is personally interesting to students and the material they are asked to read in school will support the development of comprehension processes” (Developing Higher Order Comprehension in the Middle Grades, 2009, p. 523).
Wright, S., Caputa, F., & Fugett, A. (2013).Using e-readers and internet resources to support comprehension. Educational Technology and Society, 16(1), 367-379. Retrieved from Scopus database
Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) is a component of many school-reading programs and has been widely used in the classroom for almost 40 years. The implementation of SSR varies to a large degree and research has been mixed regarding it effectiveness in relation to reading attitude and reading comprehension. Lyman C. Hunt, Jr. from the University of Vermont originally introduced the idea of Sustained Silent Reading in the early 1960’s. It gained popularity in the 1970’s with the guidelines provided by reading experts Robert and Marlene McCracken (Pilgreen, 2000; Trelease, 2001). National attention was given to SSR when Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading was published in 1985. The focus of the study was to examine the difficulties American students were having in the area of reading (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985). The report also stated the act of reading for pleasure is the best predictor of reading comprehension growth of vocabulary and reading achievement gains in elementary age students (p. 77-78).
According to Irwin (as cited in Tompkins, 2015), comprehension is “a reader’s process of using prior experiences and the author’s text to construct meaning that’s useful to that reader for a specific purpose” (p. 215). “Comprehension is a creative, multifaceted process in which children engage with and think about the text” (Tompkins, 2015, p. 214). Readers use four levels of thinking literal, inferential, critical, and evaluative as they comprehend. The lowest level is literal comprehension. At this level readers identify the big ideas, sequence details, notice similarities as well as differences, and identify explicitly stated reasons. The highest level is evaluative and at this level readers integrate their own knowledge with the information presented in the text.
A question that should be asked often is what impact does reading comprehension have on early childhood students? Two articles pertaining to this question were Improving Reading in the Primary Grades by Duke, Neil K and Block, Meghan K from The Future of Children and Early Literacy Instruction in the Climate of No Child Left Behind by Margaret Taylor Stewart from The Reading Teacher. The first article deals with different approaches in order to better enhance children’s comprehension and reading skills. The article is broken down into six different recommendations for the improvement of reading such as promoting reading comprehension, comprehension strategies, promoting out of school reading activities, access to kindergarten, word-reading
Comprehension is a process in which readers construct meaning by interacting with text through the combination of prior knowledge and previous experience, information in the text, and the stance the reader takes in relationship to the text (Pardo, 2004). As educators, we should use strategies that will build student comprehension. These strategies are called before, during, and after reading strategies. Before strategies activate the students’ prior knowledge and set a purpose for reading. During strategies help the students make connections, monitor their understanding, generate questions, and stay focused. After strategies provide students the opportunity to summarize, question, reflect, discuss, and respond to text (“Classroom Strategies,”
That is the goal of being a fluent reader. Mrs. Baughman uses the components of a story to teach comprehension. The components of the story are the setting, the plot, the conflict, and the resolution. If students can easily pick out the answers for the components of a story then their comprehension is growing. Another way to teach comprehension is by using graphic organizers like Venn-diagrams, story maps, and cause and effect charts. Teachers can also ask questions to make sure students understand the text. Not only does the teacher need to ask questions, but so do the students. If a student can ask questions, and with guidance answer it themselves they understand the material. The same goes with summarizing texts. A good way to check comprehension is to see how well the students summarized the texts. Doing so, can show if they really understand the material or they are just reading without thinking about it. Group work is a good way for students to share their thoughts on texts and help explain it to others in an easier way. If students do not comprehend text then their reading skills for the future will not be good. Teaching comprehension is not by just asking questions. There are many ways to check it that give a better view on how students are
Many students have a hard time when it comes to reading. There are many reading inventions that can help students out. Reading inventions are strategies that help students who are having trouble reading. The interventions are techniques that can be used to assist in one on ones with students or working in small groups to help students become a better reader. Hannah is a student who seems to be struggling with many independent reading assignments. There can be many reasons that Hannah is struggling with the independent reading assignments. One of the reasons that Hannah can be struggling with is reading comprehension while she is reading on her on. Reading comprehension is when students are able to read something, they are able to process it and they are able to understand what the text is saying. According to article Evidence-based early reading practices within a response to intervention system, it was mentioned that research strategies that can use to help reading comprehension can include of activating the student’s background knowledge of the text, the teacher can have questions that the student answer while reading the text, having students draw conclusions from the text, having
comprehension instruction: A comparison of instruction for strategies and content approaches ―[Electronic version]. Reading Research Quarterly, 44(3), 218–253.
Just, M.A., & Carpenter, P.A. (2010). The psychology of reading and language comprehension. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.