Lecture 8: Intervention for Struggling Readers Flashcards
What is the difference between ‘whole-language’ learning and phonics?
- Whole Language: teach words as whole units and learn to read that way
- Phonics: break down words into smallest parts to make them decodable
What’s so bad about picture cues?
they don’t usually help to figure out the meaning of the text
What’s so bad about looking at the first sound?
Not always representative of the word
Which is more efficient: spending a lot of time on sight word ‘drill and kill’ or explicitly teaching the phonetic code?
- teaching the phonetic code!
- can be transferred to a vast number of words
How should irregular words be taught?
They should be provided during guided or shared reading without a lot of explanation about why they don’t play by the rules
they are high freq. and students will encounter them a lot and eventually memorize them
What is ‘touch decoding’?
one finger for a sound is represented by a single letter
In touch decoding, what happens with digraphs and diphthongs?
put two fingers together for a sound represented by two letters, or two fingers divided for a sound represented by two letters and split by a consonant
What are some teaching tips?
- say the sounds as they print them
- practice flexibility
- talk through their game plan
What’s the difference between leveled books and decodable books?
- leveled books: assigned a level of difficulty based on criteria such as number of words, picture support, length of words, etc.
- decodable books: follow a pre-planned scope and sequence, with each successive book containing only previously learned pieces of code, plus one or two new pieces
Which type of book is better for at-risk readers? Why?
Decodable!
- contain low proportion of sight words
- contain words that are highly controlled for phonetic environment
- allow struggling reader to focus on one task at a time
- allow struggling readers to achieve a high rate of success every time
In guided reading groups, what is traditionally done?
- focus on variety of reading strategies
- focus on comprehension strategies
- regular teacher interruption for our struggling readers
- on the spot teaching of new code
When using decodable books, what does a guided practice lesson look like?
- phonemic awareness review
- highlight the code
- apply to decoding/encoding
- read for accuracy
- read for fluency
What should happen when the focus is on reading?
focus on the mechanics, not on comprehension
What should happen when the focus is on comprehension?
kids should be listening to books read aloud
