Jessica Dover
RE 5100
Midterm
Jessica Dover
November 18, 2009
Question 1
A. In order for a student to make a year’s growth in reading in one year, he or she needs to spend between 1 ½ to 2 hours reading each day. (Richard Allington, John Guthrie University of Maryland) The 1 ½ to 2 hours of reading each day is the amount of reading that each individual child should spend reading; this includes reading during the language arts block as well as reading in other subjects and independent reading outside of school. The 1 ½ to 2 hours that a child spends reading must be at the appropriate instructional or independent level in order for it to have any effect on the child’s overall reading progress. Reading at a level that is above the independent or instructional level will cause the student to become frustrated and in that situation learning or growth cannot take place. An appropriate instructional level is one in which the student is making fewer than 5 mistakes per hundred words and less than that is desirable. For independent reading students should make no more than 2 errors per 100 words. If students are in material that is above their instructional level they will become frustrated and will not make 1 year’s growth in one year. (Patrick Shannon and Richard Allington) “It would take four school years of two hours a literacy activities each school day to make up the time the privileged had spent before coming to school.”(Gill) Good readers are only ever given material that is at their independent reading level or below and yet they make more than one year’s growth per year in reading. By the time that students reach middle school the reading levels in a single classroom are far broader than they were when the students first entered school together. The students who came from homes where literacy was not a main focus had children who had already lost out on years on instruction that more privileged children received through reading with their parents about 1500 hours before they entered school. Without spending about 2 hours a day at the instructional or independent level students will not be exposed to enough material to give them a chance to catch up with their peers. It is important that these students receive lots of literacy activities and reading at the appropriate level in the early grades to work toward lessening the gap of the middle school classroom. (Abouzeid, Gill)
B. This reading time is to be accomplished throughout the entire day. Students spend between 1 ½ to 2 hours in the language arts block but not all of that time is spent reading. If students spend about 30 minutes of the language arts block actually reading, then they need to spend another 30 minutes in the afternoon reading during social studies or science instruction; then they need another 30+ minutes of independent reading outside of the classroom. During this time the reading can be self selected and on their independent level. Students should also reread at home what they read during their guided reading instruction. Rereading can count as part of time spent reading and by rereading independently what has already been read during instructional time students will build their fluency. Rereading is not the only way or necessarily the best way to build fluency, students also need lots of practice reading at their independent level.
C. For students who are reading below grade level their reading time should be increased. For example for a 5th grade student reading at a 2nd grade level that student would need to read more than 2 hours a day in order to make more than one year’s growth in a year and to help in closing the gap between the grade they are in and the grade level they are reading at. This can be accomplished with the help of a literacy coach or reading teacher. Extra instruction can be given to these students on their instructional level in order to speed up their progress and put them on the road to being at grade level. All the books that a particular student is assigned to read should be on their reading level whether the subject is reading, science, math, or social studies. Whenever possible the student should receive extra time with a literacy coach or reading tutor. Also the student should be encouraged to read at home. A way to make books available in the home can be through resources such as the public library, a school library or other community organizations that work to bring books to children who do not have them readily available in their homes.
Question 2
A student who is reading on a 2nd grade level but is in the 5th grade would need to read more than 2 hours per day in order to gain more than one year’s growth in one school year and to ensure that they are on their way to catching up to grade level.
The book Roller Skates is an easy reader book on a second grade level. The book contains about 320 words. A student reading it on grade level could read the book in approximately 3 ½ minutes. If the student is at the beginning level of 2nd grade reading they would read approximately 60 words per minute, meaning the book could be read in 5-6 minutes not the 3 ½ minutes that I originally put.
In order to read for 2 hours a day over the course of the school year the child would need to read at least 34 book equal size. Reading 34 books per day a student would need to read (34 x 180) 6,120 books over the course of the school year.
It sounds nearly impossible to expect that a child can read 6,120 books over the course of a year, but rereading can count as part of that number of books. Also basal readers, information books, and chapter books on the appropriate instructional level can count toward this goal. This could also be accomplished in fewer books by reading books that contain more than 320 words.
In order for that same student to make more than one year’s growth/ progress in one year they would have to increase the reading amount from 2 hours a day to 2 ½ hours a day that way within a few years that student should be able to catch up with the other students and be reading on grade level.
It is important for students to be reading on their instructional or independent reading level because that is the only place where they can make progress. Vygotsky talks about the zone of proximal development; if a student is not being instructed within that zone then the instruction is meaningless. If you are trying to lift 50 lbs but are unable to, the best way to reach your goal is to train with smaller weights in order to build up your strength and eventually reach your goal of lifting the 50 lbs. The same thing is true for reading, if you are reading at a first grade level in the third grade giving the child third grade reading material is a waste of time. The child might not be able to make enough progress to be reading on grade level by the end of the year but unless you intervene by giving the child reading at an appropriate level they will not make progress and will be even further behind at the beginning of fourth grade. I would phrase it to the principal in this way “Would you rather I work with this child at his level and help him to make a year’s growth this year or would you rather I instruct him on his frustration level and cause him to be even further behind next year?” The state test may be written at a level that is above that of the student but if I only give them instruction at the wrong level they will become frustrated with school and never catch up. When a baby is first born you do not start feeding them table food. In much the same way it is of no benefit to try to force upon a child reading that is beyond their ability to read. It is important that schools have access to reading materials at many different levels and students have the opportunity to read throughout the school day and at home. Right now I see budget problems with buying the amount of books it would take to make a year’s growth in one year. The only solution I see is for schools to quit wasting their money on all the latest intervention programs and text books and instead buy books that are leveled so students can have access to material that is on their instructional level. The instructional level is the level at which a child can read fluently with at least 95% accuracy. Right now students if students are in classes where all the reading is at grade level at least half of the class is reading at a level of frustration. In class we read a paragraph where most of us were reading with about 90% accuracy, we did not understand what we read and became frustrated trying to read it. Many students who put in this situation become frustrated with reading and often times frustrated with school.
Question 3
A. A working orthographic knowledge is necessary to become an accomplished reader because a reader needs a basic knowledge of letters and how they work in print to be able to read or decode what is written. Students need knowledge of beginning and ending sounds because they need to be able to accurately track. Once student have a concept of word they can start focusing on the letters that make up each of the individual words and begin to understand how vowels work. Students need orthographic knowledge to keep the words pat, pet, pit, pot, and put apart. In order to become an accomplished reader a student needs to pay attention to all the letters in each word. Even after a reader becomes an accomplished reader he or she still pays attention to all the letters in a word. When the vowels are removed from a word it becomes extremely difficult for even an accomplished reader to read even a short passage. Also when mistakes are made within words the brain subconsciously detects this and sometimes makes the substitutions for us without our conscious attention. An accomplished reader can read more easily because they have a bigger sight vocabulary and have a greater understanding of spelling patterns and are therefore able to read even nonsense words if they follow familiar spelling patterns. An accomplished reader could read nonsense words like blick and wugging.
B. Reading for meaning in subjects such as social studies and science can help students not only increase their knowledge in the content areas but can also help them to improve their reading skills. Reading at independent level means that students are making 2 or fewer errors per 100 words. By independent reading for pleasure students are learning to enjoy reading and are able to practice comprehending as well as increasing their phonics knowledge. By using context clues students can figure out words that they probably could not read out of context. By reading these new words students are using context as well as what they know about how phonics / letters and sounds work to figure out words. Students are also increasing their book language knowledge when a teacher reads to them from an informational book. When a student has a question about a particular topic it is always more beneficial for the teacher to answer the question by reading from an accurate informational source rather than simply giving an explanation for the question; this way the child is learning how to search for answers in books and from other print media and their book language knowledge is being increased by listening to and comprehending ideas that are written rather than communicated orally.
When students feel free to make spelling mistakes when writing for genuine purposes they will try to write words that they don’t already know how to spell. They might start applying spelling patterns they have seen in reading or word study, but most importantly they will begin making a hypothesis as to how something is spelled. They will then make accommodations in their own theories as to how words are spelled when they see the correct spelling. (Vygosky) Students will increase their phonics knowledge because they will have to try to find what letters make the sounds they hear in the words they are trying to spell. At the beginning students might only be able to spell using letter names and beginning sounds. As they have more practice they will begin to use ending sounds and eventually start using vowels. With more practice students will learn how to spell in a more effective manner than if spelling correctly is forced upon them before they are ready for it. Students will come across more words in reading than you could possibly teach in word study of vocabulary lessons. Reading is the best way to help students to learn these new words because they are used in a real world context rather than being memorized in isolation. With more reading, word study and writing for genuine purposes students will increase their word recognition in and out of context; helping to build their sight vocabulary.
Question 4
A. In the sentence; “The none tolled hymn she had scene a pare of bare feat in hour rheum” an accomplished reader feels confused because the words used to make up the sentence are homonyms for the words that make up the meaning of the sentence. While reading the sentence an accomplished reader translates the sentence into “The nun told him she has seen a pair of bare feet in our room.” For a person who is an accomplished reader the meaning processor works together with the orthographic processor to understand what the sentence is trying to say. For a less accomplished reader the orthographic processor is working so hard to figure out what the words say that the meaning process might not recognize that the wrong words are being used. After students learn that the English writing system uses a spelling system that combines phonics and meaning they will see why someone would be confused reading the sentence. If a student is relying heavily on phonetically decoding the sentence they will be unable to focus as much on the meaning, however when the decoding becomes more automatic they will be able to focus on the meaning and become confused by the misuse of words.