After reading the two articles and chapter four, I realized that there is SO much we can do for a child to help better develop their fluency skills and confidence. Because there was so much covered in the three readings, I wanted to pick out two of my favorite things that I took away from the readings. The first was the word wall. There are so many different things that a students can take away from a word wall. Word wall teaches high-frequency words, spelling, interactive activities, and serves as a reminder for all students. I loved the idea of chanting and writing the words. Yelling out, "where. w h e r e. where!" is a good way to learn how to spell and become familiar with that word. To me, fluency seemed like familiarity with words. I know that familiarity is how I really learned how to read. Like the articles, re-reading books and picking something that you are familiar with is not a bad way of helping a child progress to the next level.
The second thing that I took away, and want to use in my classroom is to pick out interesting books and assign reading parts to each students; almost like a play. I think that this type of involvement in the classroom is essential. Hopefully, it will increase each child's awareness of what they are struggling with. If there are ever problems that arise for a child reading the text, I think it would be wise to use that time and reflect on why it was so difficult and what ways that "we" as a class could remember to help us next time we come across that word.
I love the idea of assigning parts of a reading and discussing as a whole class where the problems were. I think it takes the pressure off of individual students. They might be more opened to reading out loud if they know they aren't being so heavily scrutinized.
ReplyDeleteI loved the idea of a word wall in the text as well, I felt like it was really beneficial to students to have a place where they could always see the words because, like you, familiarity was essential in my learning to read. I also think that it does build confidence in literacy and spelling when you see a high-frequency word every school day and it becomes second nature to you.
ReplyDeleteActivities, such as the word wall, definitely make reading more enjoyable for students. I think that students will be much more motivated to read when they are given fun and interesting reading materials, as well as when they feel comfortable in their surroundings. Both the world wall and class discussions foster a fun and relaxed reading environment in the classroom.
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