Francie, I am teaching summer school and have a group of 28 second graders who have the following problems: --inattentive to print--not looking at pictures and at initial and final letters, thereby they read whatever or skip a word (some are reversal) they have little sense of monitoring their reading --they lack symbol sound relationships especially for the blends, dipthongs....they are unable to substitute to make new words---right--tight __they have little automaticity with high frequency words at their grade level --reading comprehension is not there-- and of course --they don't like to read
I feel so impotent because we have 28 different needs and I am drowning in the despair that I feel for them because I am unable to meet all their needs. BM (before mosaic) I would have said that these kids were jusst behind, but now I know that they are eons behind and may never catch up!!! SO what am I doing--lots of read alouds and think alouds and using that to address the concepts of print issues daily schema lessons and questioning to help them make connections to themselves to help them understand what they are reading have them read aloud so that they can hear themselves and monitor themselves I litterally have a million books in my classroom so I am urging them, cajoling them to select books that they can read and take them home to read---still some will not read a book as simple as "A color of my own"!!! We have difficulty reading word books with the pictures! I just wonder what these kids do when they are not at school! How did they go through? I have them for two weeks so I am adding reading the dolch words and dolch phrases (schoolbell) to work on automaticity as well as word sorts from words their way. Two additional glaring problems I see is penmanship---they don't seem to know letter shapes automatically---oh--becomes --on-- and then with a reversal it becomes-- no When they write they don't space their words and thus when they read they don't read words just a loooooonnnnnnggggg guttural sound. So, what I see as a help is AUTOMATICITY in letter recognition, letter/sound recognition, high frequency word recognition-- and of course all the comprehension skills and strategies. These students are have completed three to four years of Reading First. I just want to say something about fluency because it is a big deal at our school---I did find that while my kids were not RF fluent they had a good level of comprehension. They read slow but reread as needed to make sense of what they were reading!!! I think about when I read something new such as those little manuals that come with appliances---I would not be able to read them a 100 wpm and make meaning---I usually read each sentence several times to try to understand---so I guess wht is really important is to be able to read the words and monitor the reading----know what I don't know and what I do know!!!! Sorry this is so long but I have a lot of thinking to do with my summer group----now I have to focus on what they know-- olga --- Francie Kugelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have never appreciated the two 1-minute tests we > must do every 6 weeks > with the fifth grade Open Court program. We now > have permission to skip the > tests for those students reading 145 wpm or more. > > I do have to agree with Tim about the importance of > fluency and good > intonation for comprehension in reading. I had an > English speaking 5th grade > student with very low reading comprehension. I > taught her all of the skills > that a good reader uses for tests and stories. She > still only got 2 out of > 10 questions correct on an Open Court test. When I > analyzed her fluency, I > noticed she either skipped or substituted every few > words as she read a > fluency test. > > All I can determine is that she has little or no > comprehension in 5th grade > text due to the fact that she skips or substitutes > words. Contextual > meaning is lost to her. If there had not been > fluency tests, I might not be > able to determine that she needs help. > > Now that I understand the importance of fluency > testing, here is what I > would do when I have this problem again with > students: I have to go back and > do a specific miscue test and IRI (any suggestions > of books to purchase to > help me do this is appreciated). > > I then would have to re-teach the phonics and other > learning that she didn't > learn in primary grades. (Any suggestion of books to > purchase to help me do > this is appreciated.) If I don't do this, who > will? These types of > students will be lost when they enter middle school > and beyond. > > Fluency practice is like multiplication practice. > Students can't access the > materials without the basic sight words, just like > they struggle in math if > they haven't yet memorized their times tables. We > test to see who is > lacking these primary grade skills, and then have to > re-teach, and try to > get the family and resource specialists involved to > play catch up. > > What else can be done? Do I have the time to help > these students > one-on-one? Not really. But I continue to be > haunted about this student > who didn't succeed and improve in reading with me > this year. I found a way > to help her and others with math. Therefore, I > believe if I can make a > connection in math with these "Below Basic" > students, then I am determined > to make the same connection in language arts. > > Any help in reaching these upper grade students, and > re-teaching, or > assessing is greatly appreciated. I am not a reading > specialist, but I am > willing to use the materials necessary to get these > students to grade level > comprehension. > > Feel free to email offline if you want. > > Thank you! > > Francie > 5th > Los Angeles > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go > to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the MOSAIC archives at > http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
