Reading Aloud

The read-aloud was a much different experience than what I was expecting and it did not go as smoothly as I anticipated. One issue of the read-aloud was that my student was very withdrawn during the entire read-aloud because he didn’t recognize me. So whenever I asked him questions about the book he only answered by shaking his head yes or no. Moreover, he had a flat affect and this caused difficulty whenever I was gauging whether or not he was enjoying the book. While I don’t think the student enjoyed the book as much as I thought he would, he did try to peek at the next page during an exciting part. I think that I would have had better outcomes if I changed the book and increased the amount of rapport between me and the student.

The reason I conclude this is because I was unable to read the book in less than ten minutes with emotion. Though I manipulated the ‘I do, we do, you do’ strategy, I was incapable of properly using the strategy. Because I have never utilized the ‘I do, we do, you do’ strategy, it was challenging to carry out. What I think would benefit me for future read aloud lessons would be to create my own detailed lesson plan. Also, for future read aloud lessons, I must practice at least a week in advance before I teach, because the time frame in which I had to get prepared was

The intervention used first was the Peer-Mediated instruction with repeated reading (PRR). During this phase, the students were seated across from each other. The students were then given a copy of the passage, one in which to read, and the other in which to mark the time and note any errors observed, along with a stopwatch. Both students began reading from the selected text for the pair for a duration of twenty minutes at the beginning of the class. Next, the “paired reading” time consisted of each student taking turns reading using only a whisper. To ensure the fidelity of the intervention, measures were taken to ensure that one student didn’t have to be the first reader every time. During the read aloud, the student who wasn’t reading would follow protocol and read the following sentence “Stop. That word is _______. What word? Yes, ________. Please read that sentence again.” After the paired reading time, the reader would then be asked to read

voice can help make sense of the text being read. Hearing modelled reading can lead to an

“Anderson, what’s the DOW stock valued at today?” inquires a wealthy businessman, with a hint of concern. In the world of wealth management, this is not an uncommon question, considering that stock holders obsess about their return on investment. Similarly, in the world of academia and educational research, authorities obsess about effective instruction and frequently ask, “what is the current value of literacy?” Educator Jim Trelease uses his book to answer this (The Read-Aloud Handbook, 2013). Academically, Trelease gives readers a synopsis of why classrooms need reading aloud time and how they can capitalize it; in addition to the facts, Jim uses a personal tone to remind readers that literacy education is an investment in everyone’s future.

“A Read Aloud Curriculum integrates intentional direct comprehension and explicit vocabulary instruction into read alouds while maintaining the integrity of an authentic read aloud experience that would be highly engaging for students (Fien, et al., 2011).” The Read Aloud program is structures as to “(a) set a purpose for reading, (b) building vocabulary knowledge, (c) making text-to-text and text-to-life connections, and (d) having students retell stories or information on a regular basis (Fien, et al., 2011).” The problem is that Read Alouds by themselves do not help close the gap between children who enter school with strong vocabularies and children who enter school with weak vocabularies, accordingly the gap between students with strong and weak vocabularies only grows as the children progress through school. Another setback for students with weak vocabularies is that there is a direct link between word knowledge and comprehension, consequently the children with weak vocabularies will struggle with comprehension. Small-group instruction shows promise in improving student’s vocabularies thus improving their comprehension. By spending more time with the text and receiving instruction in a group of 2-5 students, those with weak vocabularies have shown improvement in their word knowledge and

A doctor once said ‘the more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go’. That doctor was, of course, Dr Suess in his book 1978 book, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!. Reading is the orchestration of many skills. It is much more than simply decoding words. The National Reading Panel Report (A Closer Look, 2004, p. 1) summarised a child’s reading process and teachers’ effective reading instruction into five essential components. These five critical elements are phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Each element is individually important; however, each cannot occur independently of one an other. The most effective way to teach these elements is through a balanced

This week reading has brought back memories of when I was in high school and my first day I started my job as an Instructional Aide. In high school, I was the student sitting in the back of the class hoping the teacher would not call on me to read aloud. I have always struggled with reading comprehension and reading aloud.

Grace worked on reading fluency during the tutoring sessions. Through the use of a fluency rubric, Grace was observed on the different parts of reading fluency, which included reading smoothly, reading at a good rate, reading with good phrasing, and reading with appropriate volume and expression. At the beginning of our tutoring sessions, according to the rubric, Grace read quietly, with little expression, and hesitated while reading as she tried to figure out a word. To strengthen these areas of reading, Grace was read to so she could see modeled the different areas of fluency. Grace also read out loud. She read through repeated readings, where she would repeat sentences that had been read to her and she would read aloud in unison with us. Grace would also listen as a book was read to her and then she would re-read the book with the same smoothness, reading rate, phrasing, volume and expression. Grace would read books over and over again until they were read fluently. Poems were also

Reading aloud can be used to provide motivation and enjoyment, build background and develop academic vocabulary, teach specific strategies and skills for comprehension, and model fluent reading. Along with these purposes there are two different kinds of read-alouds: general and instruction. A general read aloud is used to great enjoyment in reading for the students and also create a motivation for students to read independently. Instructional read-aloud builds background knowledge for the students and introduces new concepts they may have not heard or learned

For the second interactive read aloud, teachers should read the book for a second time

As a child, reading was an activity that I loved and grasped from the moment I opened my eyes and saw the world around me; one full of big letters, long syllables, descriptive words, and jazzy sentences that combined to create exhilarating descriptions of everything I would come across in my thrilling adventures. From the earliest stages of my life to my first simple words, to recognizing how a colorful picture matched the plot of a story, I grew, developed, and spent time with the wonderful people around me whom I was blessed to call my uncles, aunts, and cousins. They had spent hours upon hours pouring their time into teaching me the arduous process of reading, instructing everything they could about sounds, syllables, pronunciation, and

On Friday, February 16, 2018, Dr. Shari Robertson CCC-SLP, a professor of Speech-Language Pathology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania spoke at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Centers National Student Speech-Language and Hearing Associations spring conference. Dr. Robertson's lecture was about strategies to build a better reader. In her session, Dr. Robertson discussed interactive reading strategies, as well as ways to engage a child in his or her reading with the teacher, speech-language pathologist (SLP) or parent.

However, the second method being discussed in this paper, the whole language approach, focuses much of its attention on making sure the student understands and enjoys what he or she is reading. Whole language instruction occurs when a student acquires language rather than learning it through direct instruction (Brooks 35-36). This method is more child centered than teacher dominated, because the objective is for the student to learn how to read through talking and doing rather than through passive listening. Unlike phonics, whole language uses a variety of ways to give students the opportunity to interact with the text they are reading. Questioning, discussing, problem-solving, listening, writing, drawing, and dramatizing are among the ways students interact with text. Students are also encouraged to implement simple strategies while reading such as: reading the sentence and guessing what word will come next, looking at the picture on the page to help figure out the sentence, and also rereading the sentence for clarification. This method also does a good job in allowing the students to engage in text at their own speed and often in their own ways (36).

As I reflect on my initial blog entry (see Appendix A), I realise that my understanding of literacy has developed expeditiously, from a simplistic view into a multi-faceted outlook that underpins learning throughout the curriculum. Although I had indicated an awareness of the interrelationship of speaking and listening, reading and writing (SLWR), I did not conduct in depth analysis that considers these elements specifically with the process of learning. This essay will discuss how my understanding of SLWR has evolved, and in examining the links between lectures and workshops, further reading and school based training (SBT), will reflect on how this has impacted on my development as an English teacher.