Charmelle: Reading—The Places You’ll Go

Dr. Seuss once said, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” This quote truly resonates with me as I think about the needs of my students and their struggles in the area of reading.

Last year in my first year of teaching, I found it challenging to teach my students how to read. All my previous graduate coursework had prepared me to provide students with all of the strategies and tools to use when they were reading, but not so much on how to provide reading instruction. Like many special educators, I am committed to ensuring the growth and progress of my students. And just like Dr. Seuss’s quote I want to allow my students to read more and learn more so that the places they will go in life are limitless.

So this year, I’ve taken steps to better prepare myself in the area of reading instruction. I recently had the opportunity to sit through the CORE Elementary Reading Academy, which was a five-day training seminar offered through our Office of the State Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia. This training was GREAT! It was everything I had been looking for to learn about the foundations of reading instruction. The trainer was awesome in her presentation of the information. The training covered the five areas of reading instruction as laid out by the National Reading Panel, included the following:

• Phonemic Awareness
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Vocabulary
• Text Comprehension 

To learn more about each of these areas check out the National Reading Panel Web site. It provides great information and publications about the instruction areas, as well as evidenced-based research on reading instruction.

Another great perk of attending professional development is receiving free resources. I love free stuff! At the Academy, we were so lucky to receive this wonderful book and I just had to share with everyone because you will want to have it in your library. It is called the Teaching Reading Sourcebook by Bill Honig, Linda Diamond and Linda Gutlohn. I think the publication is well worth the investment.

With these new resources, I feel so much more prepared to embark on my road of teaching reading this year.

I would love to hear from you all about your experiences in what you have learned about reading or how you have taught reading. What programs do you use? What resources you have found helpful? By sharing our ideas, we can take our students many places in life through the power reading.

Comments

[Stephanie]

Nice article on the importance of reading! Reading is everywhere and without it, the extent of learning can only go so far. I feel that you can't get enough training on different reading teaching strategies. What I liked most about this article is pointing out the importance of professional development. I never realized how crucial it is to the teaching profession until I spent 16 weeks student teaching. I feel like you can never have enough information and resources to bring to your students. I can't wait to keep learning and growing, one of the best things about teaching!

[John Arthur]

Like Jennie, I completed the University of Utah Reading Clinic's Next Steps Certification Practicum and found it incredible helpful as a means of delivering instruction in phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and fluency. However, I have found that comprehension is often deemphasized with these scripted reading programs because it is difficult to quantify and a more abstract skill to teach, particularly when dealing with students who have special needs. While you can't have comprehension without fluency, phonics, etc., for me comprehension is the whole point -- students need to make sense of what they are they are reading if they are ever going to retain and utilize it in a meaningful way. That's why I find that having students read books, informational and narrative, at the same time that we guide them through structured reading programs is the best way to build comprehension along with the other skill sets. This sounds obvious, and yet most of the special education settings I have taught in have ironically excluded books from their reading programs. Children cannot learn the value of reading until they read books that have value.

[Jo]

Teaching students is so rewarding, but it can be a little intimidating. I took a course at my college that taught one of the reading programs. We then tutored students at a local school. It taught all that you addressed such as phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, etc. Kids get so excited when they are able to read independently and want to read to you.

[Kristine Harris]

I am currently teaching Scholastic's Read 180 and System 44. It is a research based system that has yielded great results. Scholastic's easy assessment reports differentiate students and chart growth for you. Our district has limited my licenses to 10 for system 44, which creates problems with a school of 850 intermediate students. The program focuses on phoemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, spelling and comprehension. It is teacher friendly and because of the structured nature of this program, very few bad behaviors surface. I asked the district for System 44 after a district PLC and collaborating with other teachers.

[Alison]

That sounds like a great program to be involved in! Other than special Education I am also a Elementary ed. major so I got to take 2 classes about teaching reading skills. My professor wrote his own notes for the classes so I have very good resources to look back at once I start teaching. Throughout those classes we focused on those 5 main concepts. He really showed us the importance of teaching reading strategies and taught us of the importance of finding great tools. Keep up the good work and enjoy the rest of the year.

[Sydney]

Sabrina, with regard to older students who struggle in reading. Really Great Reading.com is designed for older students.....and Language! (Cambium) is a total ELA program with three levels. They are important contributions to the field.

Also Lexia Strategies for Older Students is a supplemental phonics program....Keys to Literacy for Vocab, Comp...but sometimes, all too often, the problem is at a much lower level that people don't go back far enough to fix that issue.
I have taught struggling readers 8-80 (well, he was only 76)....and all too often, they suffer from "dys-teachia" or never had enough time at a lower level with others in a small group with their specific needs......and the schools never learned what they needed since assessments were too general. They were the ones who needed 50 practices with the digraph /sh/....but never got that practice. Then, the class went onto /ch./..so they develop "the Swiss Cheese Effect"....and know a little of this...and a little of that...

Teacher pre-service and in-service in Reading is woefully incomplete... Try the Florida Center for Reading Research, the Center on Instruction, the Wisconsin Reading Coalition, Reading Matters to Maine, and the Meadows Center in Texas with Sharon Vaughn.....also, adlit.org for adolescent literacy. We do know how to teach 95-98% of kids to read at or above their grade level....It is the last Civil Right....don't give up!

[Emily P.]

Charmelle-

I love this post on reading. It seems that I’ve learned much on instructing math, social studies, language arts, etc. but reading is one of the most important skills our students need. There are explicit tactics to use to teach other subjects, but with reading, each student learns differently. It is clear that the more a student reads, the better they will become at this subject; however, as teachers, we must ensure that students feel comfortable reading before they begin to do it on their own. We must also be sure that students use appropriate approaches for decoding.

One of the methods I’ve used is a decoding unit that I’ve taught to many students in the past. It is a list of various techniques students can use when they get stuck on a word while reading. I’ve put up posters around the room to help students. The first poster would be a picture of an eagle with the title “EAGLE EYE”- ‘are there pictures on the page to give you a hint?’ The second poster would be a picture of a monkey with the title “CHUNKY MONKEY”- ‘chunk the word into smaller words you know.’ The third poster would be a picture of a snake with the title “STRETCHY SNAKE”- ‘stretch out the word and say is s-l-o-w-l-y.’ And so on (there are many more). I’ve found that students are very receptive of this approach, and it is something they can do independently and be successful.

It’s important for us to stress that reading is something students will be doing their entire life, as it is crucial for their success. Practice makes perfect!

[Natalie]

I had a special education teacher tell me once that, our main priority should be teaching our students to read, "why" I asked and she said because it will save their life. I still think of that to this day. It seems crazy to think it will save their life, but in terms of going places, I think that it is true. The more the student can read and use it functionally in their lives, the better off they will be. The students who can read will get jobs, have more chances of learning how to do personal shopping, reading a recipe and doing things on their own. As difficult as it is, our students rely on us to teach them how to read. The multi-sensory approach is a great one to use to have the students explore what they like and how they learn best. Having enthusiasm while reading with the students is important too, even if it is frustrating, and seems like it is going nowhere, the day it clicks will be so rewarding! Keep up the good work.

[Andrew]

Hi Charmelle,
Thank you for you post. I'm guessing you are hearing this a lot, but we were fortunate to have a class that dealt with teaching reading. The five concepts you talked about were the basis of the class, and the approach was orton-gillingham. I am still going to check out that teaching reading sourcebook, because I know I will need as much as possible when I finally start my teaching. Also, I love Dr. Seuss so that quote is awesome. Thanks.

[Kristin]

One of the courses I am in right now is Orton-Gillingham and multi-sensory approach to teaching reading. In this course we learn to teach reading using multiple senses such as tactile and kinesthetic senses along with teaching reading. As I was learning how to use the Orton-Gillingham system I am see how students are more likely to remember and recall the information later using tactile and kinesthetic. I have also used the ITA reading which is a bit more confusing but it works for some students.

[jennie]

I was lucky enough to have a very experiential experience in one of my courses where we got to go and work with the University of Utah Reading Clinic over the summer and learn the next steps reading program. That is an excellent resource for teaching reading. The resources are online as well, at http://www.uurc.utah.edu/Educators/index.php.
In this program you work on high frequency sight words, phonemic blends, accuracy, fluency, and phonics. I found this program to be so helpful and it is set up to provide good data as well for accurately measuring the student’s progress.
Other than the things I learned there, the only other techniques I have in my reading tool box are reading strategies...which don't come in handy too well if the students can't read.

[Kaylee]

Along with Brenna's post, I too have heard about the Orton-Gillingham and multi-sensory approach. I have found these very helpful while teaching reading to students of all ages. It gets more challenging to incorporate tactile and kinesthetic senses when you get into the higher grades. I have run up against poor attitudes and the students think it's "stupid". I would love to see more information and learn more about how to teach high school students who are at an elementary reading level. Finding age appropriate material is very difficult. Also in high school, it surprised me that some teachers have the philosophy to not teach reading skills anymore. They choose to focus on more functional skills (i.e. how is that student going to function after high school with the reading level that they're at?). Thank you for the resources in this blog! I think as long as you are passionate about teaching and willing to search for new strategies that your students will benefit!

[Sabrina]

I am currently student teaching at a school that has started a brand new reading curriculum. It is called Action 100. The students are placed on levels (color-coded) according to their accuracy in each of the following areas; Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary and Comprehension. In order to move to the next level, students must pass certain requirements as outlined in a manual called the IRLA. Every class in the whole school sets time aside for students to read for 30 minutes (independently) out of the normal school day. The students who are "on target" read the 30 minutes in class. The students who are considered to be "at risk" must read 30 extra minutes. The students who are "emergency" (most of our kids) must read 60 minutes extra. I have mixed feelings about it. The goal of this program is to get 100% of the students on grade reading level. Well, we all know (as special education teachers) that there are times that this will not happen for some students. I talked with a Professor of mine, he thought it sounded like a remnant of "No Child Left Behind".
On the other hand, some of our students who have Specific Learning Disabilities have made progress. Five of our students have passed the level they started on.

[Brenna]

One of my college courses last year was all about the Orton-Gillingham and multi-sensory approach to teaching reading. I really liked the idea of teaching reading using multiple senses, not just writing and not just reading. By using the tactile and kinesthetic senses in addition to reading and writing, students are more likely to remember and recall that information later. We also covered the 5 essential elements of reading, which I think is the most basic, yet important, thing to know when teaching students how to read. Without combining each of these 5 elements, students will not receive the important instruction that they need. I hope to continue to learn new and inventive ways to teach reading that keeps my students interested and motivated.