Effective Reading Instruction

The first article I read was Frey and Fisher, Identifying instruction moves during guided learning. The main thing that stood out to me the most in this article was the charts of the instructional decision-making tree and the types of questions to determine student knowledge. The first chart of the tree was one that I had seen in my Elementary Ed. 422 class. I think it is a very helpful chart for new teachers to follow. It is often difficult to determine what the next step is after asking a student a question. This chart guides teachers along this process. The second chart is also very helpful for beginner teachers. I have had trouble figuring out what type of questions I should ask to find out how much the student knows. This chart gives multiple different question types, the purpose of the questions, and examples for each.

The second article I read was Pinnell, Every child a reader: What one teacher can do. I felt that this article summarized all the things we have discussed in class. Under number two, Put Your Theory into Action, listed multiple techniques that we have learned about. Two points in this section really stood out to me. The first was ensure students read continuous text every day through reading workshops. This gives the children the opportunity to pick out their own book and have control over what they were reading. I think it is very important to allow students to read books they are interested in. If you do not allow them this freedom, students become discouraged from reading. The other point that stood out to me was make sure students write continuous text every day through writing workshops. I think sometimes teachers forget the importance of writing in reading instruction. Writing is crucial for a child to become literate and a fluent reader. Students need to be able to exhibit the ability to create words and put them together in a meaningful way.

Real Life Reading Inquiry

I observed fluency in a fourth grade classroom at a local elementary school. During my time in the classroom I was able to observe and compare choral reading and popcorn reading. The class was reading a chapter book together. The teacher, Mrs. S., had designated passages of the book to choral reading and the rest was read popcorn style. Mrs. S. began the reading lesson by selecting volunteers for the popcorn reading sections and told those students what parts they would be reading. Next, she showed the class what sections they would read as a group and asked them to highlight those sections so they would not miss them. Finally, it became time to begin reading. I have never been a big fan of popcorn reading so I was very skeptical when the teacher announced the reading lesson for the day. I thought the popcorn method may not be as bad because she was not forcing anyone to read and it would be combined with choral reading. However, it still did not work well. Among the volunteer readers there was a wide range of reading fluency skills; some readers could pronounce every word while others struggled greatly. When the students that had difficulty pronouncing words and read slowly were reading, other students in the class would begin to laugh or be very quick to correct the reader. The reader started out very excited to read but as the other students laughed, he became embarrassed and discouraged from reading aloud. I think as teachers, we must be very cautious to how our students interact with one another before we decide to use a method such as popcorn reading.

I also observed choral reading. I felt this technique was much more effective in encouraging the students to become fluent readers. During this section of the reading lesson, the students were very excited and enthusiastic about reading. They worked together to get softer and louder where it was necessary in the passage. This added more meaning to what they were reading, and therefore, made a bigger impact on the students. It was very interesting to see the comparison of how the children read when they were reading alone in the popcorn sections and then how they read during the choral reading. Every child was comfortable and not embarrassed to be reading when they all read together; they did not feel as if they were singled out.