Kae Treadway
RE 5715-375
Dr. Bloodgood
April 2005
Instructional Applications
Scenario 2
This group of students is having difficulty with fluency when reading orally. To increase their comfort with reading orally, they should always have the opportunity to read silently prior to the oral reading allowing them to gain familiarity and increase their fluency. Repeated reading strategies may aid these children and in particular, at their age, timed repeated readings are a possibility. Keeping a chart and allowing them to visually see their rate increase could be a powerful motivator. Reading to a “buddy” on a lower grade level also gives students with fluency issues an opportunity to build confidence and gain the much needed practice of reading a passage repeatedly. Additionally, choral reading as a whole group is proven in several studies to aid in building fluency. An extension of these exercises may be to present a reader’s theater to the entire class as a culmination activity to display this increased oral fluency!
Scenario 3
Sally exhibits a behavior common for struggling readers; reading in the content area is difficult for them as they reach about the 4th grade level when the texts suddenly jump from trade books into the language and structure of the standardized textbook. Sally has not had the support many of her peers may have had since she reads very little outside the classroom. Prior to reading her social studies and science textbook, she needs to preview the text with the teacher calling attention to illustrations, new vocabulary and the structure of the text in general. This preview strategy could also be carried into a DRTA or DLTA with the teacher asking Sally to predict certain aspects of the expository text and then returning to those predictions to confirm or refute them. To further aid with comprehending the textbook, Sally needs to re-read the text in a variety of ways including being able to hear the text on tape as she follows along in her book. Furthermore, allowing Sally time to illustrate sections of the text may provide her with a visual link and allow the teacher to monitor her comprehension.
Scenario 4
Though James has the asset of creativity as evidenced in his oral language, he needs specific strategies to allow him to translate all of these words into written language. When spelling is an issue, writers may become frustrated with how laborious writing feels causing them to produce shorter final products. To aid with the spelling issue, James would benefit from some individualized instruction including word studies. He should create a homophone dictionary to allow him to play with spelling and make connections that should manifest themselves in his writing. The teacher should also work with James to make a word bank related to the topic James will be writing about so that he can referto it for ideas as well as for spelling scaffolding. Prior to writing, James may need the support of using a graphic organizer to plan his thoughts thus allowing him to elaborate more within the framework prescribed in his plan. Since he is descriptive with his oral language, he may enjoy learning about figurative language and “playing” with keeping a notebook of idioms, similes, metaphors, etc. that he can include in his writing. Imitating patterns in texts may eliminate some of the anxiety that poor writers feel. Finally, James should be encouraged to write on topics of strong interest to him- namely outdoor activities such as riding his fourwheeler and hunting with relatives.
Scenario 6
Davis can read well orally, but silent reading is a real problem for him in terms of rate and comprehension. With few sight words, he seems to be loosing comprehension as he must use attackstrategies. Students who spend a great deal of energy decoding cannot comprehend efficiently. To increase this deficit in sight words, Davis needs word studies to increase automaticity. These individually structured word sorts will increase his automatic word recognition. As far as the silent comprehension, Davis needs the text divided into smaller sections with a DLTA or DRTA strategy used after each section. Re-telling and discussing after reading with a peer or with the teacher will help Davisidentify and review key concepts. These textbook comprehension problems are important to address at this level since they have the potential to inhibit his success in school for the rest of his career
Scenario 7
Karen has her motivation and ability in her favor, but it seems she may be inhibited by the idea of taking risks and possibly “failing” by having an imperfect paper. She seems to be “playing it safe” in her writing which is keeping her content uninteresting in attempt to eliminate errors. A word bank may make her more comfortable with using vocabulary words with unfamiliar spellings. She could provide the words orally while the teacher listed them on chart paper. With this type of attitude-related issue, establishing a comfortable relationship with Karen is crucial; depending on her personality, possibly even directly addressing this problem with an open discussion on how it is alright not to have everything perfect would be appropriate. She would also have more interesting and less repetitiouswriting is she were allowed to dictate some of her stories with Karen providing illustrations. Carefully choosing familiar writing topics may allow Karen to branch into a more creative realm. If writing habits do not change after these intervention strategies, the teacher may need to address the possibility that she does not have the skills necessary to improve her writing. In that case, the direct teaching of strategies like adding dialogue or creating an interesting hook in the beginning sentence would be beneficial.