Please watch this clip and respond by midnight on the 18th of July. You should write at least 2 responses. Be sure that you're responding to your classmates.
Happy posting!
Use the Beers text and Articles 1, 2, 3, and 4 to support your answers.
(REMEMBER -- there are not really any right or wrong answers, just non-supported answers.)
o What strengths do you see/hear in the clip?
o What weaknesses do you hear/see in this clip?
o What would you do to deepen the students’ literacy skills?
o What do you think about your classmates’ ideas for assisting the
student? Did their ideas help you? Do you disagree with their ideas?
The tutor and his student are sharing reading roles. The student uses “reading automaticity” skills, which Beers suggests is a key component of molding fluent readers. This student is only in kindergarten and seems to be reading at a level above his current academic placement. The weaknesses include that the tutor speaks in a much louder voice and tone than his student almost overpowering his reading. Also, the tutor helps the student sound out the words he struggles with without waiting a few seconds for the student to sound out the word. In order to deepen the student’s literacy skills I would have the student read the story aloud on their own so that they can come in contact with more words and strengthen their ability. – Carolina Castro
ReplyDeleteThis clip sounds painfully unenthusiastic when it starts off. The teacher does seem to gain energy when he begins reading. I like that he verbally identified that the student was using the strategy of predicting, thus reinforcing it. However, I think that as making predictions is a critical skill he should have praised her to positively reinforce the strategy. Instead he merely checks to see if she was correct and then makes no more mention of it. As Beers states ‘…we’ve got to show these students how we use strategies to enhance our understanding of a text as we “think aloud” a text for them.’ This moment was a wonderful opportunity for the teacher to model what and how he was thinking about the reading. Perhaps he could have thought aloud about where he predicted the character to be.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with Erik. The student makes an inaccurate prediction when asked where he believed the woman in the story was. However, he was only asked to predict once, which cannot help accurate assess whether or not the student completely understands the entire story, or they just made an educated guess by referring to the photos of the comic (which seemed to have word bubbles coming out from behind the bathroom door.) Additionally, I really like the quote Erik used from Beers ‘…we’ve got to show these students how we use strategies to enhance our understanding of a text as we “think aloud” a text for them.’ It appears that this student is capable to jumping to the next level in their thinking, and the opportunity is not being taken. This would be a great opportunity to move the student up the Brigance ladder.
ReplyDeleteInitially I believed that the tutor was reading too much of the text, and the student not enough. Eventually, he seemed to start to let go and give the student more time to read aloud himself. Like Carolina said, the tutor had an overpowering voice, though I believe that this actually helped the student. When the tutor assisted him in starting to sound out larger, more complicated words like "princess" the student seemed more confident as he was being led to recognize the word.
If the tutor read in a more interesting and "animated" manner would the purpose of sounding out the words be lost in the actual story line? (as it is clear in the only prediction the student made that he is unaware of what the story is.) Or would it instead reinforce comprehension? A better way to assess this without interrupting the story may be to give the student a Semanic scale at the end. This, rather than focusing on details, helps the student reflect on his interpretation of the story. Beers refers to the scales as "a way to help students shape their thoughts" and one of the students in the case study believed them to be "easier than real questions because you don't have to look through the story for just one right word for an answer, but you get to use your mind." This may be a more effective way to assess the student's basic understanding.
Also, I failed to hear how old this student was. They mentioned that he learned phonic in kindergarten, but how long ago that was, I do not know! Therefore I am unsure of how successful of a reader he is.
Yes Joelle, it would be helpful if that ambiguity about the student’s age was cleared up. The teacher does however mention that he ‘was’ in kindergarten, which suggests he is past the kindergarten level. He mentions that the student reads aloud quite well because he used phonics and then makes a comparison of this student versus another student who reads poorly and that “the difference is quite clear.” Actually the difference is anything but clear because we have no idea what this 2nd students skill set is.
ReplyDeleteObviously, the strength of this video is that the teacher is reading aloud with the student. According to the “Just Plain Reading” article by Ivey and Broaddus “…students clearly preferred two types of activities, free reading time and the teacher reading aloud.” In a sense, the style this teacher uses combines these strategies. The article also mentions that students saw teacher read-alouds as “scaffolds to understanding “ and ultimately made the text more interesting and understandable. This concept will deeply influence my lesson planning and instruction as I’m confident that it will have a tremendous impact on student literacy.
I had to view this clip a few times to begin to meaningfully respond to it. At first, I too thought the student might be in Kindergarten, not only because of the Tutor’s reference to the boy’s having been in K, but also because of the boy’s apparent level of articulation and fluency in reading. In revisiting the clips, I believe that the student is in the equivalent of Grade 2. The tutor compares this student’s abilities to another student (in Grade 3) that he tutors and suggests that second grader’s reading abilities are much stronger because he was taught phonics in K, whereas the third grader apparently was not.
ReplyDeleteThe NRP article suggests “that guided repeated oral reading procedures that included guidance from teachers, peers, or parents had a significant positive impact on word recognition, fluency and comprehension across a range of grade levels.” The Just Plain Reading article suggests that students (albeit older than the student reading in the clip) prefer that teachers read aloud to the students doing so themselves. Based on the information in both articles, I think it is good that the tutor is working with the student so that both of them are taking turns to read aloud. In respect of teacher guidance, I like when the tutor helps the boy find his place in the script by pointing to the illustration of the woman whose dialogue the boy should read. I don’t, however, like that the tutor often begins to read longer or seemingly more difficult words for the boy before giving him adequate opportunity to use decoding skills, context clues or other strategies to figure out those words for himself. I also agree with Erik and Joelle that, while the tutor gives some recognition to the boy’s trying to predict the location of the character, he does not take this strategy far in enough in helping the boy to explore the text.
This student can obviously decode words well (when given the chance to do so by his tutor) but doesn’t seem to read with fluency just yet. According to the National Reading Panel, “Fluent readers are able to read orally with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. Fluency is one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension” (p 11). While this child reads the words accurately, he does not read them quickly (his sentences are very broken), which leads to questions of comprehension. When making predictions, the student seemed to be going off of the pictures more than the text; it read “Nobody is in here,” but he still believed that the little girl was in the bathroom (or hiding in the toilet), even though the text said she was not.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Erik about the “Just Plain Reading” article, and how this tutor seems to combine independent reading and teacher read-alouds, which students seem to enjoy. However, it’s also important that the teacher-selected choice is engaging (p. 361), which doesn’t seem to be the case here. I also question the choice of a comic book reading for a child so young; comic books seem to make it harder for a child to follow along with his or her finger, which can be useful.
According to the National Reading Panel, guided “repeated oral reading procedures that included guidance from teachers, peers, or parents had a significant and positive impact on word recognition, fluency, and comprehension across a range of grade levels” (p. 12). Thus, the type of work the tutor is doing with the student is good, but there should be a bit more guidance from the tutor. Like many others have responded, the “prediction” was a good place for a think-aloud and could have been a teachable moment, but the tutor passed it up to continue with the story. The tutor could make more deliberate pauses like that in the guided reading to assess student comprehension. And lastly, when working with this student I would let the student choose which book to work with, as he did not seem very engaged with the story they were working on, which may not encourage future reading. According to “Just Plain Reading”: Students were motivated [to read] by finding good materials to read and having choice in the selection of these materials” (p. 361).
I agree with Kassie. The child is able to decode very well and read most words aloud. However, the child needs to work on his fluency skills. After each word there is a short pause each word is read individually rather than as a whole sentence. The teacher I beleive has a good strategy when teaching the child. He reads parts of the text while the child reads the rest. Therefore, he is not placing everything on the child and overwhelming the child. I do beleive, however, that the teacher should have given the child the longer parts because then the child would have had more to read. The teacher also seemed unethusiastic about reading the book with the child and the praise given to the child was dull as well. As someone said ealier, the teacher's voice overpowered the students and I thought that was an issue as well that was not addressed in the video. I think that it should have been if it was not an issue created by the recording device.
ReplyDeleteThe teacher uses a prediction strategy here and the child makes a prediction of what is going to happen later in the story. In Beer's it says, "The extra time we have to spend early in the school year working on these strategies pays off later in the school year when students are more strategic readers." It is important to note that the teacher did this with the student. With this the teacher would be able to know if the child was understanding the material while they read or if the child was just reading without knowing.
As Carolina said, I would also have the students read aloud an entire story on their own. I would however make sure that they were ready to do this by practicing with them the way they did in the video. Reading alone would probably be more to the middle or the end of the school ear because I would need to understand what level they were on first. As Kassie said, I would make sure the material was interesting for the student. In the video nether student or teacher seemed interested in the story. Both of these things are important to get the students engaged with the text. I would also have extra time throughout the day where I would ask students to come in and we would work on different strategies and read alouds on student's choice texts. This would be extra practice alotted to the student which they might not be having at home. I would ask students various questions about the text throughout the text to make sure I knew that they understood the material.
Carmen Auwarter
I would first like to begin with a discussion of the material chosen for the student to read. I have mixed feelings about using a comic book to teach students to read. I agree with Kassie that using a comic book makes it much harder to follow along when reading aloud, especially when each reader is reading more than one part. One reason why I do think a comic book is a good choice is because it can help the student associate the words with a picture. If a child does not completely understand what they are reading, they will be able to look at the picture and use inferencing to figure out what is happening in the story. As cited by many of the other posts, neither the child nor the tutor seem interested in the material that is being read. The “Just Plain Reading” article says that “students indicated that materials may be the biggest factor in their inclination to read in class” (361). This student seems to be going through the motions and reading the material but he does not seem to be enjoying it or making personal connections t the story.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when you listen to the student read you can tell that there is not strong fluency. As pointed out in the NRP article, a good reading flow makes for a better experience. The student is choppy in his words. He does do a good job of decoding, which is knowing the sounds of the letters. He does sound out words, but the teacher tends to jump in and give the student the word before the student gets the chance to read it himself. I think that the tutor jumping in and giving the word also makes the fluency very choppy because it becomes two people reading one sentence. This lack of fluency may be one reason why the student had a hard time making an accurate prediction in the story.
Finally, I like the point that Carmen made from the Beers article about prediction. She used the quote: “The extra time we have to spend early in the school year working on these strategies pays off later in the school year when students are more strategic readers." I think that it is good that the student is getting the skill of prediction, however when the student makes a prediction there is no future prompting. Also, when the story is finished and the prediction does not come true, the teacher does not make an attempt to make sure the student understood what actually happened. I think it would have also been helpful to work on a think aloud with the student, with the teacher modeling the first two panels, and the student taking it from there. It seems that in much of the clip, the tutor begins to employ good reading strategies with the student, but never seems to take it to the next level.
Carrie Bino
Kassie raises some interesting issues with the choice of reading material by the tutor. My initial impression had been that this boy must have expressed an interest in comics and that, given the limited text and strong visuals in comics, the tutor must have chosen this text to facilitate the oral reading. Interestingly, neither the boy nor the tutor seems to excited by this particular comic. I also agree with Kassie’s comment, that the comic format makes it difficult for the boy and tutor to use their fingers to guide themselves through the text.
ReplyDeleteIn this clip, it was evident that the student was able to decode words that were unfamiliar to him and was developing strong phonic skills. The tutor’s use of phonics instruction is salient to the development of phonic and reading understanding. In the Report of the National Reading Panel, it states the main focus of phonics instruction is to help beginning reads understand how letters are linked to sounds to form letter-sound correspondences (p. 8). The tutor seems to do good (at times overbearing) job in assisting the student sound out words and/or pronounce words in the correct way. Overall, the student’s phonic skills are above average for a kindergarten learner. The reading of the comic book was a strength in this reading aloud process because it both interesting and engaging for the student and it allowed for the separation of reading parts (the student read the female captions and the tutor read the male parts). According to the article “Just Plain Read”, when learning to read aloud, it is important that the material is personally engaging for the student and there is a match between interest and content (p. 353). Content and interest mismatch is often a reason for middle school students shying away from reading aloud activities. It is apparent that the student was connected to the comic and invested in the storyline because he later began to infer the ending and the responses of the characters. Joelle and Erik make a valid point of the student making a wrong prediction and probably the reading comprehension component of weak for the child, he is still actively engaged in the reading and willing to make a hypothesis.
ReplyDeleteSome of the weaknesses I found in the read aloud were the difficulties of following along with the comic book and the lack of fluency in the reading. As an observer it was also difficult to keep track of the reading because of the nature of the comic book. Although the student and tutor had specific reading roles, it seemed as though the student was not clear as to where and when he was to begin reading. The nature of the comic book because more visually appealing probably distracted the student and impacted fluency. The lack of fluency in the read aloud was the most critical weakness, the words were often choppy and the student repeated words before the tutor corrected him. In my classroom, one method I would use to increase fluency would be one of the instructional approaches provided by the National Reading Panel. The panel recommend guided repeated oral reading, encourages students to read passages orally with systematic and explicit guidance and feedback from the teacher (p. 12), which the tutor provided.
Evita Bullen
-Shanetta Cathey
ReplyDeleteFrom the start of the video I questioned the tutor’s choice of reading. I immediately thought a comic book was a difficult type of reading in terms of sharing the responsibility of reading. It was clear that the student did not always know when it was his turn to read. However I later realized the student was very interested in the comic book as he began to eagerly use his inferential comprehension skills. Although his inference was incorrect this just shows me that he needs to work on inferential comprehension but that is not a reflection on his interest in reading. I think the tutor did a phenomenal job assisting the students with pronunciation. Ultimately, I think the use of the comic book was a good choice but perhaps it should have read aloud solely by the student. I just found that the shared responsibility confused the child as well as me as (the observer). Beers stated in the article that reading automaticity is a key component of molding fluent readers. I noticed that student clearly possesses this skill as he identified words fairly fast and effortlessly. Overall I do not know the age of the student so I can not give an appropriate assessment on the students reading level. It was stated that the student learned certain skills in kindergarten but that doesn’t give me an idea of what grade the student is in now.
James Bleshman
ReplyDeleteI wanted to emphasize a point made but not fully developed by other classmates regarding this particular student’s literacy. Kassie and Carmen correctly identify decoding a skill which is both practiced and assessed; fluency certainly is in the same category. Though it is not a skill among Beers’ mechanics of reading skills, reading comprehension seems to be the most important weakness in this approach. While decoding and fluency are practiced and assessed, reading comprehension is not assessed at all. The tutor has no sense of level of understanding and only emphasizes that the content of the cartoon matters at all one time, when he asks for a plot prediction. Considering that the student struggles significantly with fluency, which is critical in making for “a stronger reading experience,” the tutor should be aware that reading comprehension is worthy of devoting time, even if the exercise was to practice decoding.
I also agree with the comments that questioned the legitimacy of using a comic for this type of read aloud. The main strength of using the comic is the visuals, which should help with comprehension. Because comprehension is not a skill emphasized or assessed by the tutor, it makes even less sense to use such a text.
Reading some of the other posts for this clip, I noticed that a number of people criticized the teacher for neglecting to encourage the child in developing comprehension strategies. While I agree, I think we need to remember that he seems to have made this video clip mostly in order to demonstrate the child's ability to decode the words in the text. I was impressed by the way he waited patiently for the child, used his finger to guide him in places that the continuity of the text was confusing, and prompted the child with difficult letter combinations - like the 'ph' in 'phew'. As far as comprehension and enthusiasm go, if this teacher were trying to work with the child to improve his reading, he might try moving more slowly through frenzied moments in the story and checking that the child is able to summarize the action based on the words, not just on the pictures.
ReplyDeleteThe teacher explicitly refers to prediction and affirms the child's thoughts, which is good. He could definitely incorporate summary and prediction and think alouds more though, as Ayesha and a few other people have mentioned. The teacher reads with emphasis and animation. He points to things/follows with his finger when the student is lost, and doesn’t give the student much time to figure out what he’s reading on his own.
ReplyDeleteA few people have cited the "Just Plain Reading" article, and I agree that it is important to remember student's preferences. I think the combination of teacher read-alouds and independent reading can be especially effective, and I like the interactive session here.
Although the student seems to get more into the reading as he gets warmed up and as something more exciting is happening (Ex: “Oh no, what has she done?…) I agree with others that a comic book might be better for a student who is reading more independently but still needs guidance, a picture book that is simpler and easier to follow along might be ideal for this student, as it seems like the student is having some trouble following along at times. On the other hand, I like Carrie’s point about how comic books allow you to associate words and pictures directly in order to make inferences.
The student reading the Adventure Box, More than a Book, has good decoding skills as he is able to read words that seem unfamiliar to him. I agree with the tutor that the student’s prior knowledge of phonics has positively influenced his reading skills. However, he is not yet reading for comprehension, as his read-aloud lacks expression. Beers would definitely classify this student as a dependent reader as he exhibits many of the characteristics she lists: reads aloud with little or no expression; reads very slowly, paying no attention to punctuation; does not predict without prompting. I appreciate the tutor’s effort to get the student to think about the text they’re reading, even if the student’s prediction was incorrect; according to Beers he was practicing an essential comprehension skill. I would continue the tutor’s strategy of finding texts that are enjoyable to read and allow comprehension skill practice. I think when the student’s fluency improves his comprehension skills will strengthen, as he will be able to read more for enjoyment than proficiency.
ReplyDeleteThe student uses prediction which the teacher/tutor points out. The student should use think alouds more and the teacher should assist more with pronunciation and offer more affirmation. I feel the teacher's enthusiasm and vocal inflection could use a little more work; though, because we as educators are trying to teach kids not only how to read but that reading is exciting. Using his finger the teacher shows the student how to track their place in the reading which is an important reading skill.
ReplyDeleteI also like how the teacher chose a comic book because the pictures help with prediction and the child has to do little work to associate the words with an image.
The teacher seems to be using a holistic approach to teaching reading: not only is sounding out words and phonics skills developed, but the teacher encourages the development of phonemic awareness, fluency, and text reading comprehension skills. All of these skills are recommended by the article about the National Reader Panel Recommendations. Furthermore, the use of Guided Oral Reading is recommended by this article because it is highly effective.
After seeing Nicole's comment I too agree that the student is not yet reading for comprehension and could be labeled as a dependent reader according to the Beers criteria: the reading aloud with little expression, reading very slowly (remember that this is the pace that they process and flow with, not exactly the flow of comic book dialog, little attention to punctuation, poor prediction without teacher prompts, etc. Also, I agree that it is/was important for the teacher to pick student liked texts.
ReplyDeleteKassie, Carrie and Shanetta, I agree with you regarding the effectiveness of the text selection. I think if the read-aloud was arranged differently (each reader taking a page, instead of male/female characters) the student would not have seemed so lost. He really has a hard time following the text and figuring out when it is his turn to read which negatively affects his fluency and comprehension. However, I think the comic book format is a good way to teach expressive reading and the tutor models this skill well.
ReplyDeleteMaya, thanks for pointing out how much more involved in the reading the student becomes as he and the tutor read aloud. It is apparent that the student has picked up cues from the tutor about what type of expression (mainly surprise) is appropriate for the text.
ReplyDeleteIn response to a few of my classmates, I agree that the teacher’s goal is to assess the child’s ability to decode information while reading with the use of visuals. The visual cues aid in the child comprehension. I disagree that the tutor was unenthusiastic. As a matter of fact, I think his voice inflection assisted the child in understanding the scenarios and the plot of the material although the child was unable to identify actual characters. The child’s inability to display this does not hinder the tutors presentation as he is able to get the child to identify and decode a substantial amount of data based predominantly on visual cues.
ReplyDelete- Hassan Brown
What I thought was a definite strength in this clip is that the adult reader used inflection in his voice, which would help the student understand the relationship punctuation has with how you read the words. The student goes from saying the initial words in mono-tone, to then showing more a slight bit more expression later on. I have to disagree with Erik, the student was enthusiastic about reading the student needed to work on fluency. According to the National Reading Panel: Fluent readers are able to read orally with speed,
ReplyDeleteaccuracy, and proper expression. Since the student lacked expression, this is an obvious sign for the tutor that he needs to work on this skill. Continuing guided oral reading could help improve this.
I also like how the tutor chose a work that had illustrations for each part of the story. This will help the student associate the words with pictures and can assist with: visualization, and inference. The pictures can help activate prior knowledge of words and provides context clues if they are having some issues with the text. We see an example of this when the student begins to make predictions for what will happen next in the story. While this is good, it can also be problematic for the reader. Since the tutor did not ask any comprehension questions, the student may be making the prediction based upon the illustrations and not the words.
~Sarah