Reading Is A Basic Skill

According to Carnine, Silbert, and Kame’enui, many students will not be able to become successful readers, unless their teacher is able to identify the essential reading skills, find out the skills that their students do not have, and teach those skills to their students.

As a child, I read non-stop. I used to spend entire nights reading, so much so that by the age of 9, I had developed grey circles under my eyes, which I wore like a badge. In school, I would use every free second I had to get just a little closer to finishing whatever book I had on hand. Ms. Carpenter, who always seemed as though she didn’t like teaching very much, frequently yelled at me for keeping my books on my desk so I could get to them quicker whenever I finished my classwork. She insisted that they were a distraction. But I always had a book to read, because every Friday each class walked in a neat line

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).

Francine Prose’s commentaries on the issues of high school students who have are apathetic toward reading hold weight for several reasons. Her love of literature stems from the fact that Prose is an avid reader herself who enjoys the art and has “preserved a lively and still evolving passion for good books.” Prose’s basis for vocalizing her concerns and frustrations about the topic of mindless readers comes from her desire for her own children to have an appreciation for the therapeutic values of a good book, in addition to the lessons that they teach. Francine’s status as an avid reader, a writer and a mother all lend themselves to establish her credibility in her essay. The reader can easily comprehend the struggle of the bookworm mother who is unamused that her sons have to dredge through the same tiered literature that has been taught for ages.

The lack of interest in reading is due to many things, but tends to begin with young children. Schools and parents do not encourage their children to read for fun (Charleston). Parents do so because they were not taught to enjoy reading, or they do not have time. Schools, on the other hand, create an environment where reading becomes more of a chore than a fun activity (Denby). Schools do try to teach kids to enjoy reading, teachers will set times or page numbers for their students to read. A study on this method has shown that when told to only read a set amount of time or pages, children will only read the amount required by the teachers. The things that children read are normally not something they chose. This decision creates a hatred for reading in children, even if they loved to read before. “In many case, such as assignments make the students hate the book they have just read, no matter how

Since I was a little girl, I have expressed a great interest in and love for reading. I know my love for reading is one of the reasons I became a teacher. I was excited to pursue a career where I could share my love of reading and books with my students. As I began student teaching, however, I realized not all children have had the same experiences as I have had with reading. Although I am not sure I want to be a literacy specialist, I chose the literacy Master’s Degree program because I wanted to help all children, especially struggling readers, develop a love for reading and become successful readers and writers. If I had not seen children struggle with reading, I am not sure if I would have ever chosen literacy for my Master’s program.

The child I decided to interview is a seven-year-old girl named Chloe. Chloe is an energetic young lady who even at her age makes the people around her feel welcomed. Coming into this interview I had preconceptions about Chloe. I presumed that Chloe is a student who enjoyed books, love to read, and maybe be a collector of books. However, these preconceived ideas stemmed from my interactions and observations of Chloe’s personality and interactions with others and were not necessarily true. The Commission on reading, as cited in Michael C. McKenna and Dennis J. Kear (1990) article, concludes that “ Becoming a skilled reader requires… learning that written material can be interesting.” ( as cited in McKenna and Kear, 1990, p. 1). I agree with

My principle, Mr. Brown, had the fourth and fifth graders competing to meet their AR goals. The top 5 readers in each grade got to go on special lunches at the end of the nine weeks. I remember telling myself “I’m going on every lunch.”, and that’s just what I did all the way through fifth grade. Everyday he would end the morning announcements with “Reading is power, don’t let anyone take it from you.” This pushed me to read any book no matter how thick it was. Every time I would place either third, fourth and fifth until my last time in fifth grade; I got second. Once in middle school I loved reading still but, we had to start reading books that were picked in class and do assignments on them. To myself I thought “Why can’t I read what I like.” I was just being stubborn due to being able to read independently in elementary, until seventh grade, in which I finally got books that I enjoyed. My two favorites from middle school are The Outsiders, a book about a teen gang, the Greasers, and their beef between a rival group; and Night, a book about the author Elie Wiesel’s experience in the Nazi German concentration camps at the climax of World War II. These two books made me feel the same feeling I felt when I was a young reader, a feeling I hadn’t felt in so long. Every since that time in my life I decided to give any book a chance and I try to read at least one book every couple of

Learning to read is one of the most important and critical skills you learn in you're early years of elementary school. For some kids it clicks no problem, but for other such as myself it is one of the more difficult skills you learn through the your time in school. For me I was lucky enough to have a teacher who wanted to invest her personal time to help me grow and conquer my struggle with reading.

The tragedy of my experience in elementary school is that the reading program I participated in set out to make me and my peers active readers, but distracted us too much with material gain to teach us the skills it intended to impart. Because of this, it took me a long time to understand that reading is an exchange, and that how I read each novel affects me much more deeply than the amount I have

The authors decipher the most useful 15 principals that will help guide reading instruction for educators. For example, Principal 13 is the process of encouraging self-direction and self- monitoring. The authors clarify how good readers are able to decide when they don’t understand a passage, and are able to figure out ways to better decipher the material. It is evident that principal 13 is extremely important for us as educators to use when teaching our students. Self-direction, and self-monitoring are important because they help teach the reader that it’s okay to not understand what they have read. It pushes them to reevaluate what they read, make inferences, and figure out a way to break down the passage on their own in order to better understand it. This is important for the students as they grow because they’ll be able to read difficult passages, and self-direct themselves to decode it. Furthermore, Principal 13 teaches readers how to go on, and figure it out themselves, to ultimately expand their cognitive thinking. Even for adults, there are readings that may need to be broken down for them to better understand. When, and if taught Principal 13 as a child, they can clue in on that skill they learned, and break down the difficult parts of the reading. In conclusion, Principal 13 is important for overall student growth as a

When a book is opened, it instills possibility; when a book is closed, it leaves thought. Those thoughts with which I have been left have shaped the way I think, and the way I look into my dreams and my future. Since the first time that I visited a library as a homeschooled toddler, books interested me. In elementary school, my afternoons were spent snuggled between my mom and my sisters listening to Mom read Laura Ingles Wilder’s words aloud from “Little House on the Prairie.” But after a time, those words were not enough, and I began to scratch my own words down with little hands that did not yet know cursive or multiplication.

Few things motivate students more than chances to connect their learning to the real world, build on their interests, and sharing what they know and can do with a public audience (Cervone, 2010). Once reluctant readers feel secure with their teacher and peers, they are more likely to take risks, try to excel, bring their out-of-school experiences to the discussion, and succeed with new found confidence in literary. Contrary to labels and negative attitudes reluctant readers experience, the person inside the student that is often overlooked, wants to give the teacher what they want. These students should be given the opportunity to independently read books that will draw upon their experiences in class, allow them to cultivate their considerable background knowledge about a topic, enhance their growing strategic repertoire and understanding of how texts work, to make sense of a complex text and to connect that text to other texts they haves read. When expected and equipped to thrive in literacy reluctant readers will enact the new identity as knowledgeable, confident, resilient readers, undaunted in the face of complexity, interested in the outcome of the book, and able to bring a repertoire of text-based, discipline-specific, problem-solving strategies to bear on their reading. Martin Maehr and Larry Braskam say it best, "People do what they believe they can and what they believe is worth doing.”

Many students, past students, parents, and teachers have developed the idea that children should be forced to read several books over the course of their education. By forcing children to read, dissect, and understand every aspect of the words that they are viewing, educators expect them to become intelligent and well-read. Conventionally, this has been a valued idea among many, but recently, there are many who believe that this is not the most effective approach to modern education. There are many educators who no longer force kids to read books against their will, no longer force children to read aloud in class, and no longer force children to speak publicly of what they’ve learned. Many teachers even believe that they should no longer test students harshly on what they’ve learned because this can cause stress and dislike for learning. Found within John Holt’s article, How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading, there is much evidence that this unorthodox approach is effective in teaching children and making them want to learn.

Although the story of my outlook on reading initiates in preschool, it didn’t genuinely develop until the following year. Kindergarten, the year succeeding preschool; kindergarten, the year I uncovered the answer to my year long enigma; kindergarten, the year when the oscillating battle between discouragement and encouragement emerged. All seemed well throughout the beginning, though maybe excitement just blinded me, and I failed to see the underlying problem. Nevertheless, ignorance is bliss and pleasant activities lasted for a curtailed while