The World of Reading

World of Reading1

The World of Reading

Amy Gregory

RE 5100

Fall 2006—Midterm

Part 1: A First Grade Reading Plan

As a fourth grade teacher, it takes a LOT of imagination to picture myself in a class full of six year olds. Their needs are entirely different than the needs I am accustomed to meeting. However, I often encounter fourth graders who are on a first grade reading level, and I am constantly reflecting on ways to tailor a program to assess and meet their needs without slowing the growth of others. My reflections and research have led me to some conclusions about assessing reading ability, units of literacy work, and classroom organization.

Assessments: Separating the Oil from the Water

Assessing student ability is the key to developing an effective reading plan for any grade level of student. However, all too often, the rigorous state-mandated assessments do little more than separate oil from water. These assessments only give teachers a general idea about student ability, highs and lows, oil and water. Effective assessments must show specific information about what skills students have already acquired and which skills are not yet mastered.

With this in mind, I use a mixture of both formal and informal assessments to help me determine my students’ ability level. The formal assessment assesses knowledge of alphabet letters, concept of word, phonemic awareness (beginning/ending consonants) and sight word recognition. This assessment provides a baseline to compare and evaluate growth over time for each student. After the formal assessment, I begin a battery of continual informal assessments which happen daily and are usually not recorded. These occur during small and whole group time and include activities from finger-point reading, choral/echo reading, sight word recognition to journaling activities.

Literacy Work Emphasis: A Reading Vitamin

In the world of health and wellbeing there are supplements for almost every kind of deficiency. Anemic people compensate for their iron deficiency by taking vitamin supplements, and to build up the immune system, people take Vitamin C. Just as vitamins are the supplements for poor/preventative heath, units of literacy work are the vitamin supplements that improve skill and pique student interest in the world of reading. In my imaginary first grade classroom, I use four basic activities to supplement reading deficiencies.

Word Sorts

In my imaginary first grade classroom, I emphasize recognizing letter patterns in words. I use word sorts to boost student ability in identifying letter/sound relationships. I begin with easy word sorts that provide much success and interest and progress throughout the year to words that are more complicated.

Graded/Leveled Readers

Added to the word sorts, I give students ample opportunity to explore graded reading material tailored to their level of achievement. This allows students the opportunity of success at their level. As students experience accomplishment, their interest in reading grows, and they can begin experimenting with reading material on the next level up.

Shared Writing

Shared writing is crucial to my literacy work emphasis. One of the most basic instincts to a child is telling a story. Shared writing provides students the opportunity to collaborate as a whole group and create a story to read. This activity provides a safe place to pour out ideas without the threat of spelling/grammatical mistakes. It fosters a community of learners, no matter what their ability. Shared writing also supplies abundant teachable moments to solidify the cement of reading ability and vocabulary development.

Student Selected Read Aloud Material

The final component of my literacy work unit is student selected read alouds. I allow students to bring in favorite stories, or choose stories from the library to be read aloud. These choices increase student interest in reading, because students do not feel limited to exploring topics on their reading level. Student selected material encourages affinities which turn into areas of expertise. Students who are enthralled by tractors don’t have to wait until they are on the reading level of tractor books to find out about tractors.

A comprehensive plan for increasing student skill and interest level in reading must include word sorts, leveled reading material, shared writing, and student selected read aloud material. These four pillars of reading work and a well organized classroom plan are the vitamins that compensate for reading deficiency.

Classroom Organization: Putting it all together

Organizing a reading class is one of the most important and challenging jobs a teacher faces. The most practical way to organize seems to be the creation of reading groups that follow a daily rotation. This way, the needs of both high and low ability students can be met. In my first grade class, I would have a whole group meeting followed by 3 or 4 small group meetings. In the whole group time, I would teach general concepts, challenging and new to all students. During small group time, I would teach specific skills to the groups based on their ability needs. In this way, the students who have mastered a concept don’t have to spend time belaboring it and possibly losing interest in reading. While I am meeting with a group, the other groups will have independent work to do ranging from journaling, and skills games to independent and shared reading.

In conclusion, a comprehensive reading plan for first grade must begin with formal and informal reading assessments. It must include literacy work that increases student ability and interest such as word sorts, shared writing, student selected read aloud material, and exploration of leveled reading material. This plan must also provide opportunities for students to be grouped by ability and receive whole group instruction. Teachers must continually monitor student success and make changes to the plan as they see necessary.

Part 2: Decodable Books

Decodable books are an excellent tool to use in teaching early readers to read. There are many benefits to using these books in early reading instruction. Decodable books allow students to chunk letters and look for patterns in words, which provides a strong foundation for reading. Even with the obvious benefits of these books, there are also some limitations that must be addressed and compensated for when a teacher uses decodable books. Both benefits and limitations should be considered when designing and implementing a reading plan.

One benefit of decodable books is the concentration on words and word families. This concentration gives students the opportunity to practice sounding out words and recognizing words within text. Students are likely to learn small chunks of words at one time, which is easier than considering whole words at one time. When the chunk is found in several words in the decodable book, it becomes concrete in the student’s mind.

In addition to word family and word recognition skills, decodable books provide early success for struggling students. Students using decodable books learn to sound out words and recognize word families. This makes them feel confident in their ability to read, and increases their interest in reading. The feeling of success is vital to a young reader, because without it, he/she will give up. There are however, some limitations to including decodable books in the reading program.

One such limitation is the fact that decodable books will not teach reading alone. Students cannot decode words, unless someone first teaches them how the letters behave. Decodable books will not work as the sole resource in teaching reading.

In addition, decodable books only meet the vocabulary needs of basic sight words and certain word patterns. Our language however, is a difficult one, which rarely follows its own rules. Students cannot learn enough vocabulary through decodable books to help them perform at their graded reading level.

Another limitation of decodable books is that they usually lack creative writing and elements of reading that students encounter in other areas of reading. As a result, some high ability students may lose interest quickly. Students may mock decodable books when writing, which may cause writing ability to be stunted.

To compensate for the above limitations, a teacher must create a comprehensive reading plan. There must be a strong phonics foundation in the curriculum to provide students with knowledge of how letters work to carry forward to decodable books. To make up for the narrow vocabulary and limited comprehension skills involved in decodable books, teachers must couple these books with the reading of exciting and though provoking stories. And, to keep written expression skills at a steady pace of growth, teachers need to include a plan for creative writing in the classroom.

In summary, decodable books are valuable to a reading plan, because they provide students with early success and interest in reading. However, as with any plan, teachers must stay aware of how students are performing and responding to the decodable books. There must be constant reflection on what limitations are affecting the class and how to compensate for these. The best reading plan uses decodable books as one facet to its many aspects.