Does any of the information presented in Chapter 15 influence your personal philosophy of reading? In what ways? How has your perspective this changed since you took the DeFord TORP a few weeks ago?
My personal model of reading has been influenced after reading Chapter 15. I found it interesting how studies have shown that children taught in a comprehensive literacy approach were found to benefit the most. Theses children focused more on shared reading and story meaning rather than phonics and oral reading. Round robin reading also didn't show much of a benefit compared to shared reading. This is so interesting to me, as I have always been for the "round robin" reading in my classroom. I think children are more focused on when their turn is to read and if they will read every word correctly, more than gaining meaning from the text. Research has also shown that the more children know about a topic, the more likely they are going to be able to gain meaning from a text related to that topic. I have often times given children passages that they had no prior knowledge of and became frustrated because they did not comprehend. I can see now how difficult this must be.
I teach in a Title 1 school, where many of my student have limited or no access to books at home. I see how important it is for children to have access to age appropriate books. This is more important than having instructional materials. Most see phonics as reading, rather than phonics as a part of reading (Weaver, 2002, p.376). This is very true for most people, outside of education. Standardized tests have been designed to show that children who don't know phonics, don't do well on the tests. This is backwards as reading is much more than phonics, learning to read is much more complex as background knowledge, access to age appropriate books, cultural schemas, and language play important roles.
When I took the DeFord TORP at the beginning of the semester I noticed that I put strongly agree for fluency and expression being necessary components for reading comprehension I would definitely agree with this statement a lot less than I did at the beginning of this course. I can pretty much agree with most other areas on this assessment.
I have always used the "round robin" technique in my classroom as well. I never really thought about it being ineffective. However, now that I think about it, it makes sense that students would be more focused on not making mistakes than comprehending the text.
ReplyDeleteI teach as title one school. Access to books is very important for all student to succeed. I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteI have also used "round robin" reading in my classroom and was very interested to read about the downsides to using this technique. It makes sense that students would be less focused on comprehension and more focused on accuracy. When I think about my experiences with "round robin" reading, I too am more worried about reading aloud in a classroom than about understanding what I was reading. This was a big take away for me.
ReplyDeleteHi Amanda! I agree with your posting on the effectiveness of round robin reading. I remember growing up where my teachers used this method. I was always thinking, when’s my turn, when’s my turn. I would end up reading ahead just to make sure I could pronounce all of the words correctly and I most likely took away no meaning from the text. It makes sense to me that it is a less effective method. I also like the point about introducing the story before students read them to help with comprehension. I think it’s important to give students a chance to access their pre-knowledge. It not only helps the students, but helps teachers as well to find out exactly how much they may know about the subject.
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