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Reading Skills and Strategies
Teacher's role in students academic achievement
Reading Skills and Strategies
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Introduction Approximately, 1.2 million students each year do not successfully graduate from high school; 7,000 students quit high school each day because they do have the basic literacy skills needed to be successful (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2006, p. 1). Over 8 million students in grades 4-12 struggle to comprehend texts in their academic content classes (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2010, p.587). This is a problem, which needs to be addressed within our classrooms in order to stop this trend from growing. In an effort to combat this problem, research has proven that when students are taught strategic reading instruction from “competent, caring, and qualified teachers” the students reading and comprehension skills improve (Ness, 2016, …show more content…
(Bryant, Linan-Thompson, Hamff, & Hougen, 2001, p. 252). Establishing a purpose is one way for students to start making a connection to the text they are about to read. Students need to know why they need to read a particular text. When the students are able to identify the purpose behind why they are reading it, they are better able to start making a connection to it. Another way to make a connection with the text before the student would read is through the activation of prior background knowledge. When students are able to make a connection before reading the text they are more likely to make inferences and elaborations that would lead to a deeper level of comprehension of the text (Massey & Heafner, 2004, p. 30). The way in which a teacher can activate prior knowledge is through discussion. When students activate their prior knowledge and make connections to background knowledge, comprehension is improved (Dymock & Nicholson, 2010, p. …show more content…
One way to synthesize information is through summarizing. Teaching students how to summarize what they just read has been proven to improve overall comprehension even though it may be challenging for the students (Boling & Evans, 2008; Neufeld, 2005). One way to create a summary is through the use of graphic aides. When students are able to create a mental representation of what they read, it helps them better synthesize the information (Massey & Heafner,
With such high numbers of adolescents falling below basic in reading, illiteracy is a battle that must be fought head on. The largest dilemma with the struggle is the number of variations that cause adolescents to become reluctant, unmotivated or struggling readers. Fortunately, a large number of strategies exist to encourage and strengthen readers of all ages, proving that adolescence is not a time to give up on faltering students. Rather, it is a time to evaluate and intervene in an effort to turn a reluctant reader into an avid one (or near enough). Ultimately, educators must learn to properly assess a student’s strengths and weaknesses (Curtis, 2009) and pair them with the proper intervention techniques. If one method does not work, countless others exist to take its place.
The Reading Strategies Book, by Jennifer Serravallo, is a tool that offers support to teachers in their planning and execution of literacy lessons situated within a larger curricula area. According to Jennifer, “the goal-oriented chapters address a plethora of strategies that can be taught in all genres, grades, and content areas, and they are differentiated for the teacher by clear descriptions that assist them in selecting the most apt and applicable lessons.” This resource provides teachers with an “Everything guide to developing skilled readers,” (Serravallo, 2015). Throughout this book, Jennifer introduced about 300 strategies that can be used in the form of lessons that are accompanied by teaching tips, lesson language, and supportive
For many first year college students, the idea of sitting down in an English class and being asked to write an essay conjures up anxiety and stress from their high school experience. Many students bring a secret of reading and comprehension illiteracy with them to college. There is a shifting definition of literacy occurring in the United States with the advent of technology. School districts are assuming that the issue of reading will be addressed in the home and are leaving many students behind in reading goals. Many educators assume that when a student enters the first day of their English 1010 course that their reading level is sufficient to complete their coursework and produce coherent compositions. It is only after the initial class meeting and composition assessment that the instructor is able to view the bigger problem of reading illiteracy in English 1010. How does the instructor address the literacy of each individual student without affecting the learning environment of the students who are able to read and write a coherent composition? The problem in regards to reading levels should be addressed before the student even arrives on campus. There can be many reasons for the cause of reading illiteracy: learning disability, poverty, and education of parents to name just a few. The school systems are placing the burden of reading comprehension in the home and not at the educational level when all parties should be a part of the issue. Administrators are assuming that students are read to from infancy and receive encouragement to read from their parents. The school systems also assume that children have abundance of reading materials in their homes and have initiative to pick up...
...ed by most, and how dyslexia can cause problems with reading comprehension. It also discussed ways that we can mitigate these problems for dyslexic people, but these skills can and should be used by all learners. Reading comprehension is a perishable skill, one that if you don’t work on increasing your reading ability by building your vocabulary, learn to read effectively, or using the correct reading strategies for the type of reading material being studied will diminish. Even with the largest vocabulary, if the words are not understood literacy cannot be achieved. Literacy is the key to comprehensive reading. It also gave some of the tools for reading and understanding different types of literature and how to get the important information out of each one. Edmund Burk said “To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting” (Gallagher, 2003, p. 11).
The years prior to when an individual reaches the opportunity to attend college, is one of much importance. Especially when it comes to Literacy, this alone spreads into all subject areas. Literacy should be considered one of the most important aspects of a student’s career, if not the most important. Research by Bob Wise (2009) suggests that the main problem in today’s districts is that a good amount of administrations believe that literacy comes after school reform on the list of important topics. The belief is that the problem is not associated to all adolescents; therefore it should be the responsibility of the English teachers. The problem there is that students start to fall behind in all subjects and many end up having to repeat grade levels. Teachers in all subject areas should put a strong emphasis on literacy, and when the student starts to struggle, there responsibility should be to refer them to extra help or provide assistance themselves, its never beneficial for the student if the educators belie...
Last school year, I took a college class that required hours of field experience in a high school English class. I was able to observe different English classes and different high school grade levels. What made a big impact on me was to hear some of those high school students struggling with reading more than the third grade students I was teaching that same school year. These students were expected to read and comprehend grade level text when they were reading at an elementary level. Illiteracy “is considered the blackest mark of a person’s finally in school and the greatest failure in the American school system” (Tchudi, and Tchudi 75) and there are around twenty-five million functional illiterates in the United States (75). Why are our middle school and high school students still struggling with reading? What can English/Language arts teachers do to help these struggling readers?
At least 40 million American adults need stronger literacy skills to take advantage of more lifelong learning opportunities (Knowles 12). Low literacy limits life chances, regardless of how it is defined or measured. According to The Random House Dictionary literacy is defined as “the quality or state of being literate, esp. the ability to read and write.” Another breakdown of the word, from the same source is “possession of education.” Basic skills and literacy abilities are widely viewed as necessities for lifelong learning and the development of success among individuals, families, communities, and even nations. Better knowledge about literacy is an essential condition for improving it. Helping children improve their literacy skills can help them develop the capacity for lifelong learning, keep pace with changing educational expectations and rapid technological change, and achieve their life goals. Today in society there are many adults with poor literacy skills who lack the foundation they need to find and keep decent jobs, to support their children’s education and help them mold a literate future. I have taken one small step towards this problem by tutoring at two schools. The more time people put towards helping the youth of America is the more literate our population can become. Every small action can help, even if it is just tutoring at local middle and junior high schools.
...ents to make a good reader. Therefore, without a certain piece of reading students skills the scaffolding is unstable. Due to a student’s faulty scaffolding, reading does not work cohesive to make the end product a successfully understood story. This concerns me. If I feel like they are falling behind on these skills and their other teachers, my colleagues, are not teaching them these skills, I will and do my best at making it appropriate for my class. Without reading skills, they will be faced with horrible ramifications from their problems to comprehend and understand the vocabulary words they see in their textbooks.
Every child deserves a positive, safe, nurturing, and stimulating learning environment where they will grow academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. My role as an educator is to provide my students with this type of environment as well as an education that will help them succeed academically and become life long learners. It is the responsibility of a literacy educator to provide students with this type of environment, but also to provide instruction that will help students become successful readers and writers. There are numerous programs and philosophies about literacy and reading. Through years of experience and research, one begins to develop their own creative approach on teaching these skills. After looking at different programs and seeing the positive and negatives of each, an integrated and balanced approach of literacy seems to be the best way to teach the differing needs of each student.
... for teachers to choose materials that will hook students and motivate them to engage in their own learning. Teachers should provide multiple learning opportunities in which stu¬dents can experience success and can begin to build confidence in their ability to read, write, and think at higher level. By connecting strategies for learning, such as searching, compre¬hending, interpreting, composing, and teaching content knowledge, students are given the opportunity to succeed in their education. These elements include: fundamental skills such as phonemic awareness, phonemic decoding, and other word analysis skills that support word reading accuracy; text reading fluency; strategies for building vocabulary; strategies for understanding and using the specific textual features that distinguish different genres; and self-regulated use of reading comprehension 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
It is a “reading world” we live in and students should be guaranteed every opportunity to succeed in this information driven society. Children today are overwhelmed with more reading material than ever before on billboard, television, the Internet and at school, causing reading to become a relevant and essential need in the life of every child (Lumpkin 1972). Being able to read has become the core of our information driven society. Yet, reading difficulties continue to plague the foundation of our education system creating a problem that only seems to be escalating. Hasselbring affirms that reading difficulties are a serious concern to our nation’s students claiming that, “as many as 20 percent of 17 year olds... [are] functionally illiterate and 44 percent of all high school students…[are] described as semi-illiterate”(2004). This is a harsh reality to face – a reality that stems from difficulties developed at the elementary level where reading complications arise and usually go unchecked. These reading difficulties are carri...
Taking a close look at a text takes much more than looking at words or fining word and phrases to answer questions. Close reading is define as the mindful, disciplined reading of an object with a view to deeper understanding of its meaning (Cummins, 2013). According to Fisher & Frey (2012), the practice of close reading is not a new one, and in fact has existed for many decades as the practice of reading a text for a level of detail not used in everyday reading. Therefore, teachers need to foster this skill on students in early stages of literacy skill to become proficient in comprehension. In order for students to examine complex text, teachers need to model and guide them through various strategies that would support their understanding
In this information–driven age, preparing students to read a variety of texts with complete understanding should likely be one of our educational system’s highest priorities. Understanding is more than just the ability to produce information on demand (knowledge) or the ability to perform learned routines (skills). “Understanding is the ability to think and act flexibly with what one knows.” (Active Learning Practice for Schools, n. d.) A review of the literature in the area of reading comprehension of elementary-age students shows two principle areas of focus. There is a body of literature that examines the development of proficient vs. struggling comprehenders and another body of literature that compares methodologies for teaching reading comprehension.
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