Abstract
It is the joy of every teacher to help his or her students learn and acquire skills on how to read and comprehend whatever a student sets out to read. A teacher’s knowledge of the stages of reading and writing development is not only important but also a prerequisite for effective and effective learning because it enables him or her to identify students with literacy difficulties at the right time and plan how to assist them accordingly Block (2003). This paper seeks to design an action plan for helping my student known as V whom I have realized has serious literacy difficulties after giving him the Bader Reader and Language Inventory for his pre-assessment. The assessment administered shows that V’s level of reading is Early Emergent a level in which a child pretends to be reading or is reading from memory. However, it is important to note that pretending and memorizing reading is fundamental to a child’s progress in the literacy process.
Introduction
I have realized that one of my students known as V is a struggling reader. V is a first grader with a remarkable desire to learn how to read and write in the English language. The results of the reading assessment administered at the beginning of his schooling showed that he was learning at a pace that is far below his grade in virtually all of his major subjects. This task is geared towards designing an action plan on the basis of the results of the assessment that will help me in guiding V in his literacy development.
Student Background Information
My dear V comes from a family unit that uses English as a second language meaning that he and his kins are learning English as a foreign language. It is also well to remember that V comes from an Asian socio-cultural setup that has been considered close to the western cultures for a long period of time. V is a Chinese who fortunately has embraced an open mind and thus his great desire to learn the English language.
It is common knowledge that a student’s social and cultural background inevitably affects his or her literacy development remarkably. Thus a teacher’s knowledge of his or her student’s background is vital especially in helping students with literacy difficulties like V in our case study. Helman (2009) argues that learners bring environmental experiences and ways of life into their real-life situations that guide them on how to fulfill life’s needs and wants for survival, even in accomplishing assignments they encounter in the classroom at school.
Helman (2009) adds that on the one hand when a student’s background is similar to the tests that are presented at school they are advantaged to know what to do. On the other hand, when their knowledge is different from the learning expectations they encounter, additional attention and work are necessary to be successful. Armed with this information I am confident that my guidance will be affective and effective in solving V’s learning challenges.
Word Identification
V had serious challenges in the word identification test. He was not able to identify and read words from the word identification list correctly and confidently. The results of this test were not impressive because he was able to pronounce seven words out of ten in list A, four out of ten in list B, and only 2 out of ten from list C. Now his score was evidently far below his grade level in this assessment and he was annoyed by this part and in fact, was relieved and ready to be assessed again when he learned that I had decided to move to another test after the short break.
In order to assist V, I saw the need of having an approach with which to follow his word identification ability so as to be able to show him and other struggling readers how to sound out words precisely. The approach adopted would assist me in finding out how V makes out words and especially the unfamiliar terms.
Some of the approaches that teachers of struggling learners can use include word-attack strategies and activity sheets which give a hand to struggling readers in decoding, pronouncing, and understanding words they are unfamiliar with. I will also assist V in word identification by having him start by sounding the first letter of a word and then move on to the other letters in the word. This way V will always be able to identify words by way of first recognizing the sounds of the letters that make up the word. Surprisingly however V did commendable work in completing the work sentences part of the Bader Reading and Language Inventory. Learning how to give the precise meaning of a word and using the word in a sentence will be helpful to V.
Comprehension
A student’s ability to understand or comprehend what he or she has read is very important since without it learning would be meaningless. In fact, reading means building sense from the text. It is a complex procedure that entails using strategies before, during, and after reading a text.
The first step in helping a struggling reader like my dear V involves finding out whether a student has sufficient background or prior facts of the reading task and if he or she can reach it when asked to do so Cooper, Kiger, and Au (2008). Identifying the student’s general level of comprehension is crucial. V’s level of comprehension is Early Emergent as mentioned earlier. When assessing and activating V’s prior knowledge of the passage chosen I realized that he had difficulties in predicting the story.
Instead of predicting the story, V wanted to talk about things he did during the holiday with his family and friends. This was an indication of his lack of proper prior knowledge of the passage as well as his inability to connect the passage to relevant day-to-day life experiences. During the pre-reading activity, I will teach words that can help him activate prior knowledge of the reading task in question. In order to help V do a meaningful and enjoyable reading exercise, I plan to guide him on how to use comprehension strategies such as identifying important information, inferencing, predicting and summarizing Cooper, Kiger, and Au (2008).
In the comprehension test, V got two out of the five comprehension questions correct. His reading was not fluent and he used his fingers to point at each word while reading. Even though V was able to state the problem in the passage he was unable to reaffirm the conclusion and solution. In the listening capacity assessment, V performed poorly. He got five out of twelve and was not ready to participate further after number twelve. Word pair differences were indistinguishable to V.
Summary of Strengths and Weaknesses
V has a profound desire to learn the English language and to be an independent reader. As shown by the assessments undertaken he has serious weaknesses in word identification, comprehension, and listening. However, it is important to note that he is relatively strong in completing the work sentences of the Bader Reading and Language Inventory.
In my attempt to help him attain meaningful and enjoyable reading I will during the first week help him acquire appropriate strategies of word identification. On each day we shall learn how to employ each strategy in the process of word identification. To make the exercise comfortable for him I will start by use of many familiar words and then slowly proceed to the identification of new words using the appropriate strategy. During the second week, I shall guide him in learning comprehension by way of using the recommended comprehension strategies that are in harmony with his general level of comprehension. During the third week, I shall guide him in becoming an effective listener by way of reading to him stories aloud beginning with the simpler and interesting ones then proceeding on to the slightly complex. In order to ascertain his ability to listen effectively I will ask him questions at different stages during the reading session and after. Also, I may ask him to note the most important information from a story.Action plan chart
Reference List
Block, C.C. (2003).Literacy Difficulties: Diagnosis and Instruction for Reading Specialists and Classroom Teachers. Edinburgh: Allyn &Bacon.
Cooper, J.D., Kiger, N.D., Au, K.H. (2008).Literacy: Helping Students Construct Meaning. Florence, KY: Cengage Learning.
Helman, L. (2009).Literacy Development with English Learners; Research-based Instruction in Grades K-6. Milton Park: Guilford Press.