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Critique of Reading Instruction Materials
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Ronald Maiuri
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Wilmington University
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MEE 7998
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There
are literally thousands of different reading instructional materials that can
be used in the classroom to aid in learning.
At times, having this many options can be overwhelming and
confusing. The key is to match the
proper material or strategy to the students and topic in question. In this paper I will be looking at five
different reading instructional strategies: page races, vocabulary grids, debating,
think-pair-share, graphic organizers, heterogeneous grouping, and debates.
Page
racing is a strategy to teach reading speed and fluency. Students are given a copy of reading material
of his or her independent reading level.
The student reads a designated page from their material while the
teacher closely observes. The teacher
times how long it takes for the student to read the designated page and records
any inaccurate words. The teacher goes
reviews any incorrectly pronounced words with the student and ensures that they
understand the correct pronunciation of each word.
This
process is repeated twice in an effort to increase the student’s reading
fluency and speed. This instructional
tool can be adjusted to increase the difficulty level in and continue to
challenge the students. The teacher can
have the student read more than one page during the reading sessions. The teacher can also add a pre-set amount of
penalty time for each word that is mispronounced.
While
page racing can certainly improve reading speed and fluency, I have some
serious questions about this technique of reading instruction. Speed and fluency are important aspects of
reading, but they are not the most important aspects in my opinion. People read different material and they read
for different reasons. Whether a person
is reading for information or enjoyment, he or she must comprehend the material they
are reading. In order to achieve
whatever the goal may be for reading a particular selection; comprehension of
the material is required. Since page
racing does not improve comprehension whatsoever, I would rather not spend
valuable instructional time on this particular reading strategy.
The
second instructional material that I would like to touch is the word
folder. A word folder is simply a manila
file folder with the alphabet written in grid squares that have been drawn on
the inside. Students keep index cards in
their desks with words written on them that have been misread during
instructional reading exercises. The
students will take out their word cards and read through them. Whenever a student reads the previously
misread word correctly and without help, they receive a check mark for that
word. Once a word has five check marks
on it the student will receive a sticker to place next to that word in their
word folder.
I
really like the word folder as a reading instruction material for many
reasons. The most important
accomplishment of using the word folder as a tool is that it focuses directly
on and targets specific words that a child is having difficulty with. It is a very efficient and precise tool to
help students learn words that were previously unknown. In addition to learning new words, this
exercise involves a certain amount of writing as well. Students will improve their writing skills as
a result of this activity. Finally,
students will learn and improve their spelling skills and again they will be
learning to spell specific words that they were previously having difficulty
with.
Another
effective reading instruction tool is the phoneme chant. In this strategy, students have a list of
words that they break apart and say as a beginning and an end. The students then put the beginning and end
together and say the entire word. This
strategy reminds me of when I was a child and used to love watching The
Electric Company. There were two faces
looking at each other and one would say the beginning or onset of the word and
then the other face would say the end of the word. Finally, the two faces would put them
together and say the entire word in unison.
For
instance, if the word was “stay” the students would say, “it begins with st and
ends with ay, stay.” The students can be
started off with easy words and work their way up to some of the more
difficult, blended words. This is an
extremely effective reading instruction tool.
This strategy focuses directly on phonemes which are the basic building
block of learning to read. As a
proponent of scaffolded learning, mastering phonemes is an absolute must in my
opinion.
Story
maps are another very important and useful material for reading
instruction. Students simply take a
regular sheet of paper and fold it “hot dog” and then fold it “hamburger”
twice. When the paper is opened up, the
student will have a grid of eight rectangles.
Students will use this paper and create a “map” of an instructional
level book of their choice.
In
the first rectangle, the students will write the title and author to their
story. In the other rectangles, the
students will write about or draw characters, setting, plot, and solution or
outcome of the story. This instructional
material allows the teacher to go as deep as he or she wants on each of the
categories. For instance, a teacher
could have the students do the entire map in one day or take an entire day to
focus on just one element and really take instruction to a deeper level.
This
tool can be changed as the teacher feels is necessary. One adaptation of this tool is to have the
students compare story maps with other students or compare them with other maps
of their own from different stories.
Students can also change the stories around and use the map as an
outline for a new story. In this manner,
the students could create a fractured story or even develop a completely
original work of their own.
The
final tool that I would like to touch on is debating. Debating is an extremely effective tool and
teaching resource. It involves a structured
contest in which two opposing individuals or teams defend and attack given points
of view on a topic. The debate is bound by rules that may be adjusted depending
on the particular age level of the students or other criteria. The debate can be judged or not. If the debate is going to be judged, have fun
with it and allow the other students to decide the winner.
While
the obvious and most pertinent benefit of debating is the reading that is
required to research ones point of view or argument. Additional benefits of debating are learning
about the subject matter and gaining confidence in public speaking. Debating forces the participants to consider
not only the facts of a situation but the implications as well. Participants
must think critically and strategically about both their own and their
opponent's position.
The
competitive aspects encourage active engagement and a commitment to a position. The position that is chosen is of less
importance than is the actual reading required in the gathering of facts. An effective mini-strategy in debating is to
figure out what position each student takes on a topic and assign them the
opposite view to argue. When a student
is given the opposite point of view to argue, they are normally forced to do
more research and thus more reading due to a lack of prior knowledge.
Debates,
story maps, phoneme chant, and the word folder are extremely effective
materials and tools for effective reading instruction. These materials target specific skills that
are crucial to the successful reading of a child. These materials can be adapted in many ways
to fit specific instructional situations as well as for differentiated
learning. They are all also very
effective at touching on multiple disciplines at once. I am less convinced in the effectiveness of
the reading race as a reading instruction tool.
I think the reading race places emphasis on speed of reading which is
not, in my opinion, the most critical aspect of learning to read. With the reading race, a teacher is not
getting the bang for the buck that they get from the other four strategies.
References
Essential reading strategies for the struggling
reader:activities for an accelerated reading program.
(Expanded ed.). (2001). Austin, TX: University of Texas System/Texas Education Agency.
Instuctional strategies online. (2004). Retrieved
from http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/index.html
