Theory to Practice

This course has been very insightful and informative for teachers delving into the world of reading instruction.  Looking back, I have learned about many important topics such as the impact early years of reading can have on a child, how deeply a teacher can affect a student, and how our experiences with reading can shape us as individuals.  While I’ve always known that reading was extremely important in the world of academia, I never understood the pertinence it held in everyday life. Ruddell’s article really stuck with me when he described the difference between an influential and non-influential teacher.  He stated, “influential teachers are those special teachers whom we recall in a vivid and positive way from our academic experience”. That was my purpose in becoming a teacher- to be one of those special teachers. Even though this course is specifically about teaching reading, I thought it was really great to include such an encouraging article in the reading.  The Peter Effect article also made me realize that the way I represent my own passion for reading can impact the students I teach. Peter the apostle said, “I cannot give what I do not have”. I am fortunate to have a love for reading and a passion for teaching that I can share and I think that really comes across in my teaching. This strengthens the teaching philosophy I have always followed.

I have realized that the reading process is way more complex than it might appear.  There are so many smaller pieces that people do not account for. Most think that you show students a word over and over and they either get it or they don’t.  I’ve learned that it could be a problem with phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, or a combination of factors. Students are so specific and individual that teachers really need to be aware of all the different needs floating around their classrooms. I have a better understanding of the reading process due to learning about early intervention assessments like the Yopp-Singer test.  Even though I teach high school students, I can more easily comprehend their backgrounds in reading. I also have gathered a lot of insight on metacognition. I have realized that students process information much better when they are aware and cognizant of their thinking. I want to use more metacognition activities to activate prior knowledge and encourage my students to explore the content we are providing.  I also want to take the time to teach them about metacognition and its benefits. I will be sure to model and scaffold during reading activities to help them grasp the most helpful strategies while reading.

Hallie Kay Yopp’s article, “A Test for Assessing Phonemic Awareness in Young Children”, describes a tool to measure a student’s phonemic awareness and predict his/her success with other branches of reading, such as vocabulary and comprehension.  The assessment is user-friendly and quick, taking only 5-10 minutes per student. The students are given an example by the teacher, practice words to ensure understanding of the task, and then 22 words to break down into phonemes, or sounds of a word.  The student is scored based on how many words they correctly segment. Each word is either correctly or incorrectly segmented. Therefore, if the student segments two sounds correctly but one sound incorrectly on the word, it is incorrect. If the student spells the word but states the letters and not the sounds, it is also incorrect.  This tool can help teachers profile a student’s reading ability and help them with his/her own individual needs. By analyzing the notes and scores, teachers can decide which students have proficient phonemic awareness, which are emerging, and which are still on a lower level. They can then adapt their strategies to help each student.

Although I am a secondary teacher, I still feel that this assessment could be useful to me as a special education teacher.  I have students with reading needs and have taught a resource room English class. I could use this measurement to go back to basics and see where the issue with reading lies.  I have actually observed a teacher in a similar setting that has had to review phonemic sounds on a weekly basis with a group of high school students who have disabilities that pertain to reading.  If I were an elementary school teacher, I would definitely take advantage of the suggested phoneme awareness activities, like changing phonemes in words of songs.

“Metacognition” by Nancy Clark is a very insightful article about incorporating the art of thinking about your own thought process while learning.  Clark discusses the importances of not only implementing strategies that teach student important content but also teach them to understand how and why they are able to learn.  Students should take time to understand their strengths and weaknesses in learning. When bringing metacognition into the classroom, it is crucial to tell students why these strategies are being used.  They understand that they are reflecting on their learning style and reviewing their thought processes. This approach is not about “tricking” them into anything. The key points of metacognition include assessing what the students know about the topic before getting into the lessons of that unit.  They should be able to discuss what they understand and what confuses them. Finally, they should reflect and think back on assessments, assignments, and so on, deciding what was done well and what could be done differently next time.

In my ninth grade classes, we are attempting to help students become more independent.  Using what Clark refers to as “exam wrappers” would be very helpful in assisting the students with self reflection.  We are constantly repeating strategies to prepare for a test, like staying for after school clinic, taking good notes, writing out questions that reflect the study guide, etc.  I think it would make a huge impact to have the students think back to what they had done to prepare in their own minds and if their grade reflects that preparation. Then, if they are unhappy with the grade, they can make a plan for what might work better next time.  We are also trying to teach them to take effective notes. While my co-teacher puts the slides on the board and speaks to the information, I verbally explain to the students the steps I would follow for taking my own notes. I sit and listen, write down only the most important things, and use abbreviation and short-hand, rather than writing what is on the board verbatim.  We also model annotation of readings that coincide with the content we are teaching in that chapter.

In Teale and Gambrell’s article “Raising urban students’ literacy achievement by engaging in authentic challenging work”, they bring to light the brutal truth that students from low income areas with culturally diverse backgrounds are more likely to have trouble with success in reading.  However, they offer research that shows a few different programs that have proven to turn this situation around by implementing interactive and highly engaging activities that promote an interest in reading and participation. Specifically, this article focuses on a program called “In2 Books” (I2B).  This program allows these struggling students to correspond with adults that have voluntarily joined as pen pals to discuss books. I2B has had great results with improving performance rates at multiple grade levels. There are two keys to the program: the excitement of the interaction (writing a letter and waiting to receive one) and finding a text that is high-quality, age-appropriate, and appealing for the student.

I am not a teacher in a low income area and there is not a very diverse student population.  However, this article has sparked many ideas about different teaching practices I could implement in my classroom.  First, it has further instilled the importance of making sure students are choosing texts that fit them correctly. They are more likely to build adequate reading skills when they are interested and feel confident with the level of book they choose.  I also realized that no matter what age or background there is excitement in engaging in something special and specific to you. Those kids in the I2B program were happy to receive a letter that was just for them. It meant something deeper than just a reading lesson.  This year I am teaching World History to 11th grade students. They are going to learn about many different areas of the world. A pen pal based activity may spark the same interest in them as it did for the students in the article. It would make them more eager to learn the content because they feel a connection.  

In the article “Role of the Reader’s Schema in Comprehension, Learning, and Memory”, Richard C. Anderson does an excellent job of defining schema and uses many comprehensive and relatable examples to explain how schema can contribute to many functions of the mind.   For instance, I am using my schema acquired by reading this article to complete a short summarization. With this schema, I am able to choose the most important parts of the text that are necessary to highlight in this blog post. Anderson defines schema as “organized knowledge of the world”.  He discusses how schema can impact how we interpret the things we read based on our prior knowledge of the subject. Not only does it help with understanding individual words but also how the words relate to each other. Schema can help readers fill in missing gaps that authors may have left unsaid with through inferencing and predicting.  It helps us organize our thoughts, pay attention to the important parts of a text, and search our memories for helpful information. Anderson includes many different theories in his article that have been proposed about schema. He focuses on the impact that one’s culture can have on his/her schema about a particular subject. Schema is based on prior knowledge.  Therefore, people of different genders, races, cultures, etc. will have different schemata.

In my classroom, as mentioned previously, we build reading and writing skill lessons into a social studies curriculum.  It is very important that students acquire the appropriate knowledge needed to understand an article, excerpt, or story reading that is related to the content.  We also begin each note-taking lesson with a warm up prompt. The prompt asks a question that has the student relate a personal or academic experience with the upcoming lesson.  This activates the schema related to the content about to be taught. Anderson brings up a very reasonable point in the article about minority children. Through this reading, I have had a revelation that I should be more mindful of the minority students in my class.  It’s difficult with such a homogenous population in our school. However, I have a sprinkling of minority and ESL students in my classes. I will make it a point to explain references they may not have grown up learning, consider their background when giving assignments, and try incorporate more inclusive examples and ideas in general.  

My name is Jena and I am a high school special education teacher.  I work in the inclusion setting with 9th and 11th graders in the social studies content area.  In this course, Psychology of Reading, we will be learning about different theories that we will identify and/or apply in our own classrooms. Reflection of these interventions and techniques we are learning about can be extremely helpful in proper application and understanding.  Therefore, this blog will serve as a designated place to keep a running log of the theories we learn and how they have been applied.

In the article “The Nature of the Reading Process”, John B. Carroll discusses eight subskills of reading comprehension.  Because I work at the high school level and my students are mostly high-incidence cases, most of these skills have already been addressed and mastered for many.  The skills that mainly concern me are recognizing printed words by utilizing words and context around them and learning to reason and think about what he/she is reading.  When reading an article that connects to the content we are learning, I notice that students tend to skip over vocabulary words that they do not recognize. In our guided reading practice, we ask them to circle unfamiliar words.  Before giving the definition, I will ask students to read the sentence the word is a part of and think about what it could mean. Encouraging this strategy can reinforce this skill. The skill of learning to reason and think about what is being read can also be enforced by asking students about their own personal experiences or current events connecting today to history.  Much of the time, this not only encourages interest but can also help the students understand the importance and necessity of learning the material being taught.

I also have some English Language Learner students in my classes.  This article lists the first skill of reading as knowing the language being read.  While I am not an ESL specialist, it does remind me to be mindful of the difficulty these students may have with reading.  I can spend more time with them individually to answer questions and support their specific needs.