1. Why is word identification in middle school texts difficult for many students? Although the core building blocks of reading (phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) apply to all ages and grade levels, most students will have mastered phonological awareness and the basics of phonics and decoding by the end of third grade. Once students reach middle school, however, the reading skills required for success shift and word identification replaces phonological awareness and phonics. A study of middle school struggling readers reveals that 47% have difficulty with word identification. In middle school, students are reading more complex texts with higher level vocabulary and multisyllabic and potentially unfamiliar …show more content…
The teacher models a couple examples of writing complex sentences like the students would find in a text that they are reading. Each sentence needs to have a minimum of two words from the list. Students are not required to write enough sentences to use all of the words in the list. Rather, they are directed to write 2–4 sentences that contain the words that they feel comfortable using. Although each student, pair, or small group will not use every word in the list, the intent is that all of the words will be used when the sentences are shared as a class. In order to make certain that all of the words get used, the teacher might have to supply a few of sentences of her own. After allowing time for each pair or small group of students to compose their sentences, the teacher should reconvene the class and ask students to select sentences to share out loud. As students read their sentences, the teacher can write them on the board. The teacher continues to request sentences from the students until each word in the list has been used at least one time. At this stage, the teacher does yet not evaluate the accuracy of each sentence with respect to what students will be reading. For now, the teacher is only concerned about whether the use of the words in the sentences makes
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
In Donald M. Murrays’s essay “What is Practical Education” he explains his reasoning behind why he allowed his students to write badly. He shares his own experience with police-like teachers who drove him to hate writing. In hopes of helping his students find their voice he allows his students to write the words down as they come, no matter how awkward they sound. Often times they find out that they have more to say then they thought. Rhetorical devices are used to help the readers relate to his point of view on writing.
Draw a line down the middle of the board; write lion and lamb on the top of either side of the line. As a class come up with words describing a lion. Write these words on the board under the lion (i.e. angry, mad, big, brave, fierce, strong, etc.). Do the same of lamb (i.e. shy, quiet, gentle, friendly, etc.). Educator needs to write down words (on paper) in case a student was unable to complete task. Inform the class that they will be writing a multiple paragraph
Students will get into groups and will take turns reading paragraphs of the text. This will enable them to adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. (Language standards 1,3 for 9-10th grade ELA)
Vocabulary- it is very difficult to understand a given text if a student is stopping at every other word because a student does not know those words. This is a very critical component and will be discussed later in this paper.
Students have the ability to read grade level text but continue to demonstrate difficulty with comprehension of information because they are unfamiliar with the vocabulary of learning. This problem appears to occur more frequently in English learners (EL) and Students with Disabilities (SWDs). Students benefit from specific and explicit vocabulary instruction (Hattie 2000).... ... middle of paper ...
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 causes of reading difficulties often arise because of learning disabilities such as dyslexia, poor preparation before entering school, no value for literacy, low school attendance, insufficient reading instruction, and/or even the way students were taught to read in the early grades. The struggles that students “encounter in school can be seen as socially constructed-by the ways in which schools are organized and scheduled, by assumptions that are made about home life and school abilities, by a curriculum that is often devoid of connections to students’ lives, and by text that may be too difficult for students to read” (Hinchman, and Sheridan-Thomas166). Whatever the reason for the existence of the reading problem initially, by “the time a [student] is in the intermediate grades, there is good evidence that he will show continued reading g...
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.
Four phases of reading development have been established (Ehri 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999) : pre-alphabetic, partial alphabetic, full alphabetic and consolidated alphabetic. These phases has led to the core understanding of children's reading development, apart from the pre-alphabetic phase phonological awareness skills are seen throughout the phases.
Unfortunately, that skill is rather ignored in middle school and is expected to be taught in elementary school. When those students do not grasp the concept in elementary and are pushed through to the middle school without the skill, they fall behind their classmates. With the reading skills for vocabulary lacking, these children are usually labeled with ‘learning disabilities’. All too often students read a passage and skip over the words that they do not understand. However, vocabulary skills in reading are essential to not only in the reading classroom, but in all the content area classrooms as well.
Consequently, with communicative goal as the main focus, writing activity in the class is set to a minimum. Students will use writing as a means to assist their speaking activities (e.g. writing interview questions, writing partners’ responses, and writing their preferences, etc.). This, however, does not mean that writing is a less important form of communication. The students probably also need writing in their working environment, so it becomes important to teach them how to use the targeted features in written communication. Therefore, to keep it balance, writing is given as homework and to make it relevant to the objective, the students will be asked to write a short email, which is one example of the way people write to communicate in the real life.
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...
Reading and writing is a key part of everyone’s life. There has been some encouraging levels of reading development in primary school assessments. According to the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy report (2015), 95.5% of students achieve at or above the national minimum standard of reading. It is important to know effective ways to teach reading so children can become active problem solvers to enable them to read for meaning or for fun. Over the years, there has been a big amount of research into the most effective ways to teach reading skills to students. There are some systematically taught key skills and strategies that help achieve these levels of reading. Some of these skills include phonological awareness, phonemic awareness,
How can what we know about the development of readers inform reading comprehension instruction? Reading instruction typically starts in kindergarten with the alphabetic principle, simple word blending, and sight word recognition. Texts read by early readers usually include very little to comprehend. As children develop reading ability, they are able read more complex texts requiring greater comprehension skills. Separate and explicit instruction in reading comprehension is crucial because the ability to comprehend develops in its own right, independent of word recognition. The ability to read words and sentences is clearly important, but as readers develop, these skills are less and less closely correlated with comprehension abilities. (Aarnoutse & van Leeuwe, 2000) While no one would argue that word blending and sight word reading skills be omitted from early reading instruction, vocabulary and listening comprehension may be at least as important in achieving the even...