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Diversity in the classroom
Essay on culturally responsive curriculum
Managing diversity in the classroom
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How Children Learn to Read
It is critical for each child to learn to read. Steps need to be taken to ensure instruction is done effectively. According to Rowe & Smith (2012) in Teaching Reading in Today’s Elementary Schools, recognizing words is an essential prerequisite for skilled reading with comprehension (p. 155). For teachers to be able to help students become independent readers, there are several components that need to be addressed for an effective reading program, the best approaches for instruction, and modifications for diverse learners.
One of the components of an effective reading program is for the students to learn sight words that they can recognize immediately. According to Rowe & Smith (2012) in Teaching Reading in Today’s
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According to Keyes, Carledge, Gibson Jr. & Robinson-Ervin (2016) in Programming for Generalization of Oral Reading Fluency Using Computer-Assisted Instruction and Changing Fluency Criteria, many children come to school at risk for reading failure if they live in poverty, have limited English proficiency, if their parents have low reading levels, or if the children have disabilities in speech, language, or hearing (p. 141-142). Computer-assisted instruction can be used to engage students who are having difficulty actively understanding what is being taught. According to Keyes et al., this type of instruction can be of great help to all students, particularly those with disabilities, who need mmore time and practice to learn how to read (p. 143). Another form of diversifing methods is the use of culturally responsive instruction. According to Toppel (2015) in Enhancing Core Reading Programs with Culturally Responsive Practices, the culturally responsive instruction is using cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them (p. 553). There are three themes to this type of instruction, the use of culturally appropriate texts, engaging students’ voices, and incorporating students’ funds of knowledge (Toppel, 2015, p. 553). When teaching in a diversified classroom, the teacher must be flexible, no matter how inflexible the reading program being used is. Every student, no matter what makes him or her different, deserves to receive the best instructional approach for
Fegar, Mary-Virginia. “I Want to Read: How Culturally Relevant Texts Increase Student Engagement in Reading.” Multicultural Education, 13:3 (Spring 2006): 18-19. [E Journal]
For teachers to be effective in providing equitable learning opportunities, they must be informed about the dynamics of diversity in the student population. This awareness should be aimed at providing meaningful and engaging learning activities that are sensitive to the linguistic, gender-based racial, ethnic, cultural, and exceptional needs of the students (Indiana University Teaching Handbook, 2012). However, before teachers can create meaningful opportunities for learning, they must be aware of their students’ strength and weaknesses. Diagnostic assessments provide detailed information that can help the teacher identify areas of weaknesses in order to help students evolve through the reading stages. After identifying students’ deficiencies
Reading Methods and Learning Disabilities. (1998, April). Learning Disabilities Association Newsbrief, 38(4). Retrieved December 18, 2013
Over a long period of time, the ability of a learner to read educational materials fluently has been taken as the most thorough learning method through which the learner can acquire literacy. Kuhn, Schwanenflugel and Meisinger (2010) argue that reading fluency should not only focus on automatic word recognition as a way to assess the ability of a learner (p. 231). The authors argue that there should be other methods to assess reading fluency through prosody, which can influence the rhythm of spoken language. Automatic word recognition helps a learner to read with speed, limited effort, with autonomy and without having to be conscious. All these attributes make the reading fluency of a learner to improve.
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.
Reading is a complex process that’s difficult to explain linearly. A student’s reading capabilities begin development long before entering the school setting and largely start with exposure (Solley, 2014). The first remnants of what children are able to do in terms of reading are built from their parents and other people and object around them as they’re read to, spoken to, and taken from place to place to see new things (Solley, 2014). As kids are exposed to more and more their noises quickly turn into intentional comprehensible messages and their scribbling begins to take the form of legible text as they attempt to mimic the language(s) they’re exposed to daily.
Literacy programs should be an integral component of every community. Not only do these programs serve adults and foreigners, but they also serve those that live with the problems of poverty throughout their daily lives. In 2000-2001, 15.7% of students missed 21 or more days during the school year. Students who miss many days of school because of illnesses beyond their control often fall behind in their studies. Many literacy programs help these students excel in what otherwise would have been a deficiency in their learning.
Culturally responsive teaching is very important in today’s day and age. Classrooms are filled with students from different backgrounds, races, and ethnicities. Teachers need to put into consideration those differences when building curriculum and creating a classroom atmosphere. Subcultures might also need to be considered when teaching, such as the culture of the disabled. The culture of students with disabilities is one that may appear within many classrooms due to the increase of students with disabilities. Teachers who are able to maintain a culturally responsive classroom and curriculum will provide ideal learning opportunities for all students and encourage them to succeed. (Darrow, 2013)
Reading is one of the most difficult and important forms of learning. While we often think of reading as one thing, our brains are actually engaging in a number of tasks simultaneously each time we sit down with a book. (Learns, 2015) There are five components to the process of reading: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, reading comprehension and fluency. These five components work together to create the task of reading. As children learn to read they must develop skills in all five of these areas in order to become successful readers. Reading or learning how to read is a combination of all the components. The combination of each of the five components makes it difficult to teach them one at a time or in a particular order. It is more important to use the individual child’s knowledge and stage of development as a starting point for instruction. However, since there is a constant give and take among the components, one will sometimes be emphasized over another. (Learns, 2015) The term zone of proximal development comes to mind when discussing the components of reading. Vygotsky is one of the most well-known psychologists in the educational world. The zone of proximal development is the
There are many challenges that teachers encounter when teaching children with learning disabilities, learners that are English language learners, or learners who are culturally and linguistically diverse. As a nation we are faced with the challenged that our schools are becoming more diverse. The majority of our schoolteachers are still predominately white females, but our student population is slowly changing. We are seeing more minority groups in our schools that are facing different challenges. The scary part of it all is that our teachers do not have the skills to accommodate those differences. “The nation’s changing school demographics are creating a demand for new teaching skills” (Utley, Obiakor, & Bakken 2011, pg. 5). Our student population
The program works with more than 100 schools in seven states. The program is geared toward students from low-income families. The statistics for children’s literacy in the United States are astonishing. “In 2011, just thirty-four percent of the nation’s fourth graders in public school could read proficiently” (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011). The program itself has had exponential success.
Throughout this course, my beliefs have been reaffirmed regarding the literacy needs of culturally and linguistically diverse learners in a few ways. First, I have been implementing sheltered instruction observation protocol in my classroom. “Sheltered instruction teachers use the regular core curriculum and modify their teaching to make the content understandable for ELLs while at the same time promoting their English language development” (Echevarria, Short & Powers, 2008, pg. 42). The sheltered instruction I have been using in my classroom includes slow and clear speech, scaffolded instruction, visual representations, connecting prior knowledge to learned knowledge, cooperative learning, and targeted vocabulary development (Echevarria, Short & Powers, 2008). This course has reaffirmed the importance of using sheltered instruction to support the needs of the diverse
Independent reading is children reading of text such as books, magazines, and newspapers on their own, with very little or no help from adults. It can consist of reading in or out of school, including purely something the child chooses to do, but is not required reading for pure enjoyment or assigned reading for homework. Independent reading plays an extremely important role in the development of reading fluency and speed and ease of reading, vocabulary, background knowledge, and even spelling. The desire to read is motivation it is related to independent reading; children who are interested in reading are motivated to read more independent. Instructional reading is the highest level at which a reader is not independent, but has enough foundation information about the topic and can get to content rapidly
Reading is an essential skill that needs to be addressed when dealing with students with disabilities. Reading is a skill that will be used for a student’s entire life. Therefore, it needs to be an important skill that is learned and used proficiently in order for a student to succeed in the real world. There are many techniques that educators can use to help improve a student’s reading comprehension. One of these skills that needs to be directly and explicitly taught is learning how to read fluently for comprehension. “To comprehend texts, the reader must be a fluent decoder and not a laborious, word-by-word reader” (Kameenui, 252). Comprehension can be difficult for students with learning disabilities because they tend to be the students that are reading below grade level. One strategy is to incorporate the student’s background knowledge into a lesson. This may require a bit of work, but it will help the students relate with the information being pres...
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