Peer Assisted Learning Strategies for reading, otherwise known as PALS, is an approach to teaching children important reading skills. PALS uses peer-mediated instruction that pairs a high-performing with a low-performing reader in order to complete activities that promote reading skills. PALS uses highly structured acitivites, reciprocal peer tutoring, the use of scripted prompts, frequent verbal interaction in feedback, and competitive game format. PALS has shown improvement in the reading performance of students. PALS allows students to be actively involved and allows students with disabilities to spend more time in the least restrictive environment. PALS requires engagement in three activities designed to build fluency and comprehension
Shared book reading focuses on developing comprehension, alphabetics, and general reading achievement to enhance student literacy achievement. The teacher selects a text and reads it aloud to a student and/or group of students. The shared book reading program allows the teacher to model reading strategies, increase alphabetic skills, and activate and increase comprehension skills through targeted questions, prompts, and strategies. During the reading the teacher prompts students with strategic prompts and/or questions to engage the students in the text. Moreover, the teacher directs the students to key elements within the pictures, words, and/or text features. The teacher tailors the shared reading experience to meet the needs of the participants (International Reading Association Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Committee, 2012). Hence, educators are able to alter prompts, questions, and strategies to enhance the learning needs of
She is able to meet more students’ needs than she would be working one-on-one. She also creates reading stations and activities that will support their development as well where there are support activities that are specific to those guided reading groups. She evaluates students each nine weeks through PALS, a phonological awareness assessment, to see their growth along with problem areas that still exist. They also do Fundations as part of their curriculum to help students, but wishes she had more time to use this system with students.
(Counselors Affecting Reading Everyday). My plan would involve developing one-on-one counseling sessions where the students would start off by taking a learning style inventory as well as a reading interest inventory. The purpose of the learning style inventory would be to help the students as well as their teachers to understand how each individual child learns and processes information. The reading interest inventory would serve the purpose of helping the students to find a particular type of text that they may enjoy reading. Upon completion of the learning style inventory and reading interest inventory, the students would begin meeting with the counselor to receive one-on-one reading opportunities using books that students self-select based on their interest. This one-on-one meeting will serve to meet the needs of those students who stated that they did not have anyone at home to read with. The students will utilize the school’s Accelerated Reading program to take quizzes on the books they read with the counselor. After earning their first five Accelerated Reading points, a book will be purchased for the student based on their interest. This incentive plan will serve as a means to provide personal books for those students that do not own any as well as attempting to help them to get over the fear or taking reading tests. During these weekly meetings, the counselor will provide a variety of reading text (based on student
The intervention used first was the Peer-Mediated instruction with repeated reading (PRR). During this phase, the students were seated across from each other. The students were then given a copy of the passage, one in which to read, and the other in which to mark the time and note any errors observed, along with a stopwatch. Both students began reading from the selected text for the pair for a duration of twenty minutes at the beginning of the class. Next, the “paired reading” time consisted of each student taking turns reading using only a whisper. To ensure the fidelity of the intervention, measures were taken to ensure that one student didn’t have to be the first reader every time. During the read aloud, the student who wasn’t reading would follow protocol and read the following sentence “Stop. That word is _______. What word? Yes, ________. Please read that sentence again.” After the paired reading time, the reader would then be asked to read
The effects of the implementation of the Common Core Standard continues to affect students testing scores and, as a result, the demand for more and more volunteers from the Book Buddies & Classroom Book Buddies program. With more students not meeting the required reading proficiency level, particularly, low-income and minority students, the need for this intervention-type of program is in greater demand than ever. In the current program year, the program has experienced over 30% growth than anticipated. The Book Buddies program is stretched beyond its resources to meet the need of children struggling with reading, the demand for the program from schools and parents.
Back to school reading in the primary grades usually begins in the classroom assessment, and part of a formal reading assessment includes reading fluency. Teachers strive for students to read grade-level texts throughout the year with purpose and understanding. Testing students in reading by using a variety of formal assessments, such as DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) or PALS (Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening) provides a little insight into how well students read, but there is usually only one or two reading passages used. Fluency is one area that is extremely important, but seldom practiced because most students read independently to themselves. Together with phrasing, expression and punctuation, pace is can be evaluated by teachers in small group guided reading lessons. Students are given an opportunity to read out-loud in front of their teacher and their peers, but often will not receive daily practice with fluency everyday.
Recognizing that illiteracy is a family issue, our Book Buddies and Classroom Book Buddies programs recruits volunteers to read one-to-one once a week with a child who is struggling with reading in the 2-4 grades. Our goal is to prevent adult illiteracy by helping children achieve grade-level or better reading skills at the critical time when children are transitioning from learning to read to reading to learn.
The Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) program compared to the Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) program proves to be a more effective reading experience for students. The DEAR program provides exploration and a better understanding of what students are reading, which is more than the SSR experience where they are just sitting and reading silently. Teachers are able to incorporate structured time to work with each student periodically to assess their progress and plan corresponding instructional goals. More importantly, students are given the time to read books that are of interest to them, discuss with the teacher what they have read, and obtain the support they need for further reading explorations and considerations (Gardner, 2016).
100 middle school boys will receive tutoring services after school to improve their reading proficiency skill levels. Backfield in Motion will provide a Reading Specialist for one hour of one-on-one and small group instruction, four days per week. The expected outcome is for each student to improve their fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary skill development by 50% each
The ‘Fun-to-Read’ program is a reading program that helps students improve their reading skills. They provide students with assistive reading systems, reading specialists, who help the kids and also training to the teachers. Due to the lack of funding, the program is unable to teach students or keep the program going. Many of our students suffer from learning disabilities, such as attention deficit disorder (ADD) and dyslexia, or other language based disorders. Many of our students are dropping out and parents are sending letters saying that they’re now worried
Researchers Harper and Maheady (2007) combined two peer-teaching procedures and three strategies into a hybrid peer tutoring program implementation. In the first procedure, Classwide Peer Tutoring (CWPT), students were assigned to different pairs each week with each pair on an opposing team (Greenwood, et al., 1991). Using weekly study guides, a deck of cards and paper, each team answered questions to earn points toward a cumulative team total, which resulted in the highest scoring group being recognized as the “Winning Team of the Week” (Harper & Maheady, 2007). The researchers also implemented Numbered Heads Together (NHT), which incorporated cooperative learning with in-group contests. Each pair worked with another pair to form a team. Each team collaborated to structure their best answer in reply to a question given by the teacher. One group member was chosen randomly by the teacher to give the group’s answer to the question while each member worked to ensure a correct answer. Each correct answer earned team points. Results revealed that student quiz scores increased with the utilization of Classwide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) with Numbered Heads Together (NHT) and students of all learning abilities benefited.
Most of the other students in her 2nd grade classroom are able to read classroom text and complete work independently. They also read books for enjoyment on their own. The reading time in her classroom consists of a block during which the teacher works with small groups and the children are expected to work quite independently when they are not working directly with the teacher. The class uses a trade book format and this is utilized across the curriculum. Students are provided with short skills building lessons in large and small groups. Most of the time spent during explicit reading instruction is targeted to helping students develop reading fluency.
Students can struggle to read for many reasons. “They can lack the talent, the cognitive wiring that is necessary to easily unlock the printed code of English” (Shaywitz, 2003). These students have been categorized by many names such as learning disabled, dyslexic, and ADD (attention deficit disorder). There is only a minimal amount of students who actually suffer from a neurological or cognitive issue which causes them to be behind in learning. Student’s which are considered “at risk” because of their poor achievements on assessments actually have average intelligences they just lack a strong literacy environment at home. A child’s learning foundation begins at home so students who tend to struggle with reading are not being read to. These
Families are often encouraged to provide a variety of reading material for their children, especially at an early age, to give children plenty of options when learning how to read. When children are provided with a variety of reading material at home, they see that a high value is placed on reading. If parents value reading at home, children tend to value it also, and the more a child is encouraged to read at home, the more they will want to engage in reading in general. By being involved in their child’s reading development, parents can give their children a firm foundation to reading prior to entering grade school which will lead to a lifetime of reading enjoyment and
Last school year, three of my peers and I decided that our high school needed a peer-tutoring club, so the last few months of my junior year and the first few weeks of my senior year were dedicated to starting this organization. We organized the structure and goals of the club, and presented our ideas to the administrators. Once we got our approval, we immediately began planning lessons. Two days a week we meet with groups of students that come to us for help on improving their ACT scores or general grades. Our service is open to any and every student. We have tutored students in dual-enrollment courses and in standard academic classes.