Helping Struggling Readers

1. Helping Struggling Readers Reference: How to Teach Reading When You’re Not A Reading Teacher, Dr. Sharon H Faber

2. If students cannot read, they cannot be independent learners. • Teachers in all content areas must model the thinking processes they use for reading for content. • Break textbook assignments into managable proportions • Provide content related vocabulary • Highlight features of the textbook

3. Researcher Richard Bloom • The most critical age for students is 13 because of hormones, peer pressures, and social forces.

4. Students Fall Into 3 Groups • Students who sit in the front of the room. • Parents value school and education • Parents teach the rules of school: • Sit up front • Do your homework • Act like you like the teacher • Raise your hand to ask a question Red Birds = Reading Ready

5. Students Fall Into 3 Groups • Students who sit in the middle of the room. • Similar to group that sits in front with these exceptions: • Realist – know they have to go to school and what they have to do • Come everyday to see their friends • Do required work • Behave within requirements Blue Birds = Almost Reading Ready

6. Students Fall Into 3 Groups • Students who sit in the back of the room. • Farther back = More at-risk students • Wear coats and hoods • Don’t mess with them body language • Moved from, “I cannot read,” to “I will not read.” • Discipline problems • Stay in school until they are old enough to drop out. Could Be Jail Birds = Not Reading Ready

7. Tom Landry, Football Coach: • “Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan that spells success.”

8. Researcher Stephen Covey • “To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”

9. Take this Reading I.Q Quiz Number your paper 1-10. Answer T (True) or F (False). • Content reading strategies are useful only with printed text. • If students have not developed a strong inner voice, they will mumble and move their lips as they read. • Many students have difficulty reading aloud and comprehending at the same time.

10. Take this Reading I.Q Quiz • Prior knowledge is an important part of reading comprehension. • When good readers read, they look at every letter and every word. • Readers must know what most of the words mean before they can understand what they are reading.

11. Take this Reading I.Q Quiz • Comprehension is selective. Good readers focus on important information, and poor readers focus only on their interest in the text. • Good readers examine the structure of words and use roots and affixes to help comprehend new words. • Reading strategies and skills should be taught explicitly and systematically to both good and poor readers.

12. Take this Reading I.Q Quiz • Only trained reading teachers, working in pull-out programs, can teach struggling readers to read at the middle and high school levels, because it’s took late to teach them to read in their content classes. How did you do? We’ll discuss the answers at the end of the workshop.

13. Researcher David Sousa • “That the brain learns to read at all attests to its remarkable ability to sift through seemingly confusing input and establish patterns and systems. For a few children, this process comes naturally; most have to be taught.”

14. National Institute for Literacy and the Center for Educational Statistics • ______million adults in the U.S. are functionally illiterate. 40 40 • About ____percent of all 4th graders lack the most basic reading skills.

15. Matthew Effect • "For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." (Matthew XXV:29, KJV). This line is translated as, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." The gap between good readers and poor readers gets wider as they move through school. If a child is not reading on grade level by 4th grade = high school dropout.

16. 2000 National Reading Panel • What is reading comprehension? • “The intentional thinking during which meaning is constructed through interaction between the text and the reader. The content of meaning is influenced by the text and by the reader’s prior knowledge and experiences.” • Reading is purposeful and active.

17. Comprehension 2 Levels: • Literal Comprehension – identifying individual words and their meanings • Higher-Order Comprehension – analytical, and reflective comprehension.

18. Put Reading First • Reading Research from the National Reading Panel • Provides scientifically-based research n how to successfully teach children to read. • Identifies 5 areas of reading instruction.

19. 5 Areas of Reading Instruction • Phonemic Awareness • Phonics • Fluency • Vocabulary • Text Comprehension

20. Area 1: Phonemic Awareness • The ability to hear the sounds that letters make when they are put together to make words. Example: /b/a/t/ • Phonemes = sounds letters make • Sounds can be segmented (pulled apart) • Sounds can be blended (put back together) • Sounds can be manipulated (added, deleted, substituted)

21. Area 2: Phonics • The relationship between the sounds heard when spoken (phonemes) and the letters in the alphabet (graphemes). • Phonics involves sounding a word out. • If a teacher was taught to sound a word out, they will teach their students this method.

22. Area 3: Vocabulary Development • The ability to store information about meanings and pronunciations of words needed to understand content. • Denotation = dictionary definition • Connotation = real-life usage • Often short term learning.

23. Area 4: Fluency • The ability to read text with accuracy, expression, speed, and comprehension. • Reading with inflection (phrasing). • Fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding words, but can focus on content. • Fluent readers make the connection between the text and their own personal experiences. Fluency is the bridge between recognizing words and comprehension.

24. Area 5: Text Comprehension • The ability to understand, remember, and explain to others what you have read. • Comprehension strategies: • Prior knowledge • Text and picture support • Intensive writing