After reading the two articles assigned for this week, I began to think about my strategies for teaching reading. I learned to read strictly through a phonics approach, but I know that this way may not work for each individual child in a classroom. It is important to have many techniques and options handy while working with beginning readers. The Cunningham and Cunningham article suggests an activity called "Making Words." I enjoyed reading about this lesson, because of the unique twist it puts on spelling and gaining word meanings. It allows children to learn to spell with a hands on technique that is meaningful and engaging to them. They will be able to understand that some words have other, smaller words inside them. They will be able to make so many connections with words. In the Yopp and Yopp article, they suggest providing texts that have rich vocabulary repeated several times throughout the book. The more that children see a word, the less they need to think about decoding it and what its meaning is. They also suggest using a technique in which children choose the ten most important words out of a book or passage and provide a definition for them along with a small summary of what they read. Choosing these novel words forces the children to reread sentences and use context clues to conduct the word's meaning.
-Question to consider: How would you modify these lessons in order to fit the needs of struggling readers?
Struggling readers could maybe have simpler words or put in groups with better readers for help. In my elementary school, struggling readers were partnered with a student a few grades above them who was a accelerated reader. This gave the students a role model and made learning seem "cool" while simultaneously improving the level of reading!
ReplyDeleteI was wondering the same question that you were wondering. Have you thought of any things you could alter? I feel that children that are ESL will not benefit as well from a game like this if they are IMMENSELY behind in the English language.It could become more confusing for them, but I imagine you could have them create words that they DO know and build on that individually.
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