Reading Activities Help Students Comprehend A Complex Text

In chapter five, by Cris Tovani, “Why Am I Reading This” explains how educators need to establish a clear reading instructional plan. In order to accomplish understanding students need to concentrate on main ideas from the readings. Tovani explains that it is vital for teachers to model how students should hold their thinking or slow down their reading. Throughout the chapters she gives examples as question strategies, highlighting text, or summarizing key points. As this will benefit students in their reading assignment. Tovani also explains throughout the chapter that teachers should model thinking aloud. This strategy will benefit students on how to negotiate difficult text.

Explain the Simple View of Reading and its applications for teaching in relation to your SE1 context, with particular reference to strategies for teaching and assessing reading.

The second learning outcome is General Outcome 2, “Comprehend and respond personally and critically to oral, print and other media texts” (Alberta Education, 2000, p.16). The educational assistant was successful in developing this learning outcome by having the students re-read and pre-read chapters together. Repetition helps improve speed, memory, confidence and understanding. The students are spending a lot of time sharing ideas, discussing, exploring and explaining their understanding with each

Starting from the parents, the child must inherit the instinct of wanting to learn to read, developing the curiosity that comes with the increase of knowledge, interaction with others and building positive memories, that motivate the child’s learning to read. An approach that Vygotsky supported promoting scaffolding, a guided process that adults use to teach students how to master a skill, in this case a reading and writing skills. Children begin from the womb recognizing parent’s voices, singing tone for then building connections through prints and letter sounds in an environment that promotes literacy with stories, songs, games, group activities with families, “All about me” share, and “Show and tell”, to display and build a sense of belonging in the class. Nevertheless, incorporating strategies or methods that facilitate learning to read stimulated by own personal learning style. Most young children learn kinesthetically and are visually-sensory prompted to hands on experiences, using appropriate materials in a different setting. Foremost, with an ongoing informal and formal assessment to evaluate students’ pre-knowledge at the beginning of the scholastic year, students’ way of learning, feelings, and connections through the year, and at every lesson, check for understanding, and ways to improve the next step. Ongoing assessment is part of the whole learning process, it will tell you how the students learn, and achieve appropriate reading and writing goals. A good reader promotes a good writer and vice versa, but a firm stepping stone during the developmental stages, in rich literacy environments, attempting to positive interactive experiences, and always monitored, influences the chances of the child sense of wanting to learn to

Tyner’s Small-Group Differentiated Reading Model builds on each individual component and supports each of the other components. Each lesson of the model introduces new text for the students to read, interpret, comprehend, and synthesize. The re-reading of the text increases fluency, identification of sight words and their meanings, and comprehension

Give each student a copy of Student Close Reading Text – Copy 1. Read it aloud to students as students follow along. Read it fluently, not stopping to

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

additional groups to work independently, reading at their own specific level. The roles of the teacher

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).

Each of these modes is used to help meet the needs of each child in the class. Instead of just focusing on one mode the students are introduced to multiple modes throughout their learning. The five modes for reading include; independent reading, cooperative reading, guided reading, shared reading and read-aloud. Independent reading is when students read to themselves. Cooperative reading is designed for a small group of students to take a book or a passage and take turns reading. Guided reading is designed to help readers develop fluency. Shared reading is when the teacher reads a book to the students and then asks them to respond. Students could respond using art, drama, writing, or other ways. Read-aloud is used to help children better understand a certain reading. Read-aloud could also be used for a teacher to help the students decode a difficult piece of material or a material that may be at a higher reading level than they are able to

We want to create knowledge depth in students. To do this we need to have students engaging in close readings of complex texts. Moreover, our lessons need to teach students how to approach text analysis, as opposed to using question and answer drills or practice tests as test preparation.

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.

The activity of shared reading includes the students participation in the reading process, unlike modeling where the students just observe the teacher reading. Shared reading is used because it gets the students involved in the reading even if the activity is difficult for them, helps students experience success which encourages future reading, and provides experience for the students before they work independently.

However, the second method being discussed in this paper, the whole language approach, focuses much of its attention on making sure the student understands and enjoys what he or she is reading. Whole language instruction occurs when a student acquires language rather than learning it through direct instruction (Brooks 35-36). This method is more child centered than teacher dominated, because the objective is for the student to learn how to read through talking and doing rather than through passive listening. Unlike phonics, whole language uses a variety of ways to give students the opportunity to interact with the text they are reading. Questioning, discussing, problem-solving, listening, writing, drawing, and dramatizing are among the ways students interact with text. Students are also encouraged to implement simple strategies while reading such as: reading the sentence and guessing what word will come next, looking at the picture on the page to help figure out the sentence, and also rereading the sentence for clarification. This method also does a good job in allowing the students to engage in text at their own speed and often in their own ways (36).

Explicit instruction is important in connecting to prior knowledge and skills when beginning a learning sequence (Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority, 2016). It helps to lay the foundational areas of reading and literacy as a whole in the early years of schooling. Effective reading instruction builds on what children already know, how students learn and on what degree of support they need to become successful in reading/learn and apply new information (Archer, 2011, p.18). Here the idea of scaffolding is evident where “the support provided by the teacher (or another student)…bridge(s) the gap between their current abilities and the intended goal” (Rupley, Blair and Nichols, 2009, p.129). It is important for students who are learning something new, to have the opportunity to have it explained, the opportunity to apply that information guided by their teachers and the opportunity to apply it independently (Archer, 2011). Through an explicit approach the responsibility for learning shifts from teacher to student as they gain confidence and competence with reading. Reading is not an automatic process and must be taught, “explicitly, systematically, early and well” (National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, 2005, as cited in Hempenstall, 2016,p.5). Building on this, it is not enough for explicit instruction to be effective; it must also be efficient so that students can meet outcomes as soon as possible and are given the opportunity to apply it. This highlights