Marcus is a student
who very frequently miscues by substituting words that start with the same
letter or first few letters of the word in the text, but his substitutions
often are not syntactically or semantically acceptable (they neither sound
right grammatically nor make sense). What possible teaching strategies would
you suggest to help Marcus? Post your response to your blog and name the
posting "Module 4: Instructional Challenge."
While reading over this assignment, my
mind referred back to Weaver’s text on page 243 about “Matching Instruction to
Readers’ Varied Needs”. I found this section very helpful in many ways, just
thinking about possible strategies I can use in the future. Thinking about
Marcus, I immediately referred to the section on page 245 about the reader not
recognizing words and shows little knowledge of letter-sound patterns.
Underneath this characteristic the text states that possible evidence could be
the student skips or misreads words and cannot pronounce the first letter of
many words. I referred to the text for possible strategies. The strategy I felt
would best fit Marcus’ needs is working on onsets and rimes while reading. This
strategy would allow him to develop more letter-sound relationships while
learning about onsets and rimes. These are important parts of phonemic awareness
and phonics, which is a foundation for reading and comprehension in the future.
I would also make sure to have comprehension checks as we read and work on
onsets and rimes. It is important that Marcus is understanding what he is
reading as well as identifying and relating letter-sound relationships and
patterns.
Jaclyn,
ReplyDeleteFocusing Marcus's attention towards onsets and rimes is a great way to get him to look at the whole word. As we learned, he is able to read the beginnings of words but tends to make up different endings. However, if he could see and understand that endings have the potential and sound the same then maybe he will be able to recognize various endings. This would also lead him to recognizing "chunks" of words, which will enable him to further identify unfamiliar words while he reads. If he is unaware that he is making these kinds of mistakes, would you want to call if to his attention or just begin having him focus on these onsets and rimes? I think it is important for him to know what he is making mistakes on so that he can try to focus on these miscues while he is reading independently.
Jaclyn,
ReplyDeleteI took a different approach to Marcus' miscues. My first suggestion was to record Marcus reading and then have him listen to it with the teacher. During this Retrospective Analysis, the teacher could help point out some of Marcus' miscues and hopefully he would be able to identify some of his own. I still think this would be a good thing to do, but focusing on onsets and rimes might also be the type of direct instruction that Marcus needs. The scenario indicated that he often began the words with the correct sounds, so he might need additional practice with middle and ending sounds too. There are a variety of other strategies mentioned in the Weaver text such as cloze activities, shared readings, and opportunities for modeling appropriate reading. Marcus can definitely benefit from as much modeling and oral reading practice as possible. In addition, activation of prior knowledge is key in helping gear the reader’s mind in the direction of the topic or book. By doing so, the student is less likely to make miscues which distort the meaning of the text. Within a comprehensive literacy program, many strategies would be employed to help address Marcus' needs as well as the needs of the other diverse learners in the classroom. Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Jaclyn,
ReplyDeleteI too said to work on comprehension. I also suggested maybe giving him a passage with missing words to see what types of words he was substituting to see any patterns in the mistakes he was making so we could talk about what words should fit and why. Comprehension checks are always a good way to help students realize they maybe didn't understand what they read and should go back and work on some of it. Phonemic awareness is important but as I've noticed throughout Weaver's text it isn't the MOST important to reading success. Good suggestions on what to do with Marcus. There are going to be all different types of students in our classrooms and figuring out different strategies to use with them can be very much supported by what we have read in our textbook.