Module 1: Activity 4

Use Table 1.1 “Summary of Proficient and Less Proficient Reading Behaviors” to observe a reader.  Highlight the characteristics you notice and provide an example of what you see. (Opitz, p.14)

     The student I observed demonstrated behaviors listed as “less proficient reading”.  The student was concentrated on identifying all the words correctly.  She did not attempt to make the reading sound like it made sense.  For example, she made some miscues that did not go along with the text.  She also did not try to self-correct her miscues so meaning from the story was lost.  Also when she came to a word that she didn’t know how to pronounce she more or less did not even want to try to read it.  She looked at me for the answer or she just skipped it all together.

Module 1: Watch & Learn: Assessing Reading Skills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDZlUXUwRYk&feature=related

      After watching the video, it reinforced the importance of assessing the students in order to know their strengths and needs.  Using assessments, teachers are able to plan instruction to help the class better meet their needs.  The instruction could be held in different types of settings like a one-on-one basis, small group, or a mini lessons that could benefit the entire class.  It is important for the teacher to meet with his/her own students for individual conferences to not only assess students skills in fluency, sight words, decoding, and comprehension, but also evaluate the students’ motivation to read and self-confidence.

     I liked how Dr. Lyon explained how a teacher needs to know how to diagnose reading difficulties.  That the student should not keep practicing reading while continuously making the same miscues.  He said that you cannot allow the child to move along while they are doing things wrong.  The teacher must catch it while it occurs and fix it.  Just like a teacher would not let his/her class to continuously practice addition or subtraction skills wrong.   

     I liked how in the video the instructor assessed the student on both fluency and comprehension.  Sometimes students are able to read a list of words without making any miscues and when they read those words in context they are unable to comprehend because they are only focusing on pronouncing the words correctly.