Literacy In Torgesen's Catch Them Before They Fall

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I previously have mentioned, in prior reflection essays, just how important literacy is for a person’s future. Notice how I didn’t say “student’s” future? Literacy fluency effects several aspects of life, not only academically speaking. Ultimately, the literacy level of a child can directly affect their future as an adult. The whole point of Torgesen’s article “Catch Them Before They Fall” is about preventing students with literacy deficits from slipping through the cracks without the best possible, research-based interventions. Torgesen (1998) claims that the top reasons students have difficulties with reading is because they have issues correlating letters and sounds in words, or phonological awareness. Many students also have trouble memorizing sight words and many also have an …show more content…

False positive and false negative scores do exist. Remember that these scores determine a person’s entire future! Okay, well maybe that is a little extreme; however, they do determine the frequency and type of intervention a student would receive. Another thing that Torgeson (1998) points out, is the fact that test accuracy varies so much with very young students. These students are most likely unfamiliar with testing and even sometimes a schooling environment in general. For example, my son attends Kindergarten, at a local elementary school. His teacher sent home a sight word list of ten words to master before moving on to the next. We practice the words at home, and he knows everyone of them; however, he has yet to pass the first sheet at school. He gets nervous and always forgets one or two words, coincidently the word “the”, which Torgeson (1998) states is one of the easiest words on the Word Identification subtest. According to this article, my son’s inability to recall the sight words is a red flag, but since he can recite them at home, I am not so

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