Chapters 10 &11 reflection

Chapter 10

"One of the best ways to improve fluency is through the repeated rereading of texts..."

page 217

I have found the above statement to be quite true during my field placements. If a student has difficulty decoding throughout a sentence, he/she is prompted to re-read it. This allows the student to practice the words again and increase his/her fluency. Also, book bags are used to encourage students to re-read entire books. This helps them not only with fluency, but also with reading comprehension or even to notice other elements of the text. Re-reading should be an aspect of any future teacher's classroom. 

"Whether done out of kindness, offered out of frustration, or offered because we don't know other strategies, telling the dependent reader the word encourages more dependence."

page 217

Although a student's reading can be painfully slow, teachers and peers must remember that learning to read well is a process. I think sometimes we as the listeners are too impatient to encourage correct decoding and fluency skills for time's sake. We are actually doing students a disservice rather than aid if we automatically give them the word. 

Chapter 11

"Once called 'word families' rime patterns help readers identify chunks of words quickly. Instead of decoding phoneme by phoneme, readers decode by onset and rime."

page 233

In my limited teaching reading experience, this has really help students recognize patterns in words. I used manipulative paper letters for the students to spell a word such as 'cat,' and would have them make it into the word 'bat.' Usually, after about three words, one child would discover the pattern. I think this would also help older students. 

"...remember that studying prefixes, suffixes, and root words not only helps with vocabulary but helps them move through big words quickly."

page 241

As much as I hated studying root words growing up, I now realize how consistently I use this knowledge to either decode a word or figure out a definition. It also can help one explain a concept or word to another. For example, a word may have the prefix 'sub,' by explaining that 'sub' means under, the listener can better form their own definition or word picture. In order for readers to become independent, we as educators, must give them a variety of tools.