Week 2 - Reader Response

This is a reflection on 2 readings for the class:

Organizing instruction for struggling readers in tutorial settings & Linguistically responsive teacher education
What jumped off the page the most for me in this article was the adaptive use of Roller's (1998) tutoring framework to help struggling learners, consisting of 1). reading easy books to help build confidence, 2). reading new books, 3). writing activity,4). incorporating a mini-lesson, and 5). introducing a new, more challenging book.

My five-year-old is just learning how to read and write, but is considered a struggling reader compared to her twin and peers. She also has lots of energy and a difficult time staying on task. After reading this article, I was inspired to give her a tutoring lesson of my own. I pulled her aside and got her interested in reading books about Snow White, Cinderella and other princesses. (She is quite a fan of royalty). I noticed that I had chosen books with varying degrees of difficulty. Even though some of the text was a grade or two above her own, she was interested in the content material which kept her interest. She tried sounding out words, but became frustrated. When it was clear the text was too difficult for her, she asked me to read it to her, but she pointed out the experts words she already knows from prior knowledge.

Each week our girls have library, and let's face it, at five years old, that is a big deal. This emerging reader of mine also seeks out new books featuring the character "Fancy Nancy". The main character is a precocious 1st grader who is always dressing up and using fancy words. (i.e. Precocious is a fancy word for cute). Reading these books with my five-year-old girls is one of the great pleasures in my life. Afterwards, they like to dress up themselves and will be seen leafing through the book on their own trying to read it (including the fancy words) while dressed up like movie stars or princesses.

Having emerging readers at home while taking this class is a wonderful real-life teaching tool that will help me when I am faced with students in the classroom. In order to help my own children in their academics and learning, I myself have to implement some of the at-home strategies parents may choose to employ to help their own children.

Preparing classroom teachers to teach English Language Learners


Both articles mentioned the idea of students using informal, social interaction and new forms of media such as computers and cell phones to foster communication. These types of social interaction and communication help students develop language outside of the classroom setting. Student engagement is another important aspect of helping struggling readers and ELL students. Helping students to identify interests, using grade appropriate curriculum and adequate scaffolding of activities are effective strategies to help struggling learners. Teachers must identify each student's academic ability whether the student is a native English speaker or not. If the student is an ELL learner, the instructor should be aware of the student's academic ability in their native language as well as in English. Having an in-depth profile of each student in the classroom can help the teacher scaffold learning activities.

While I am not certified in any foreign language, I did take Spanish throughout high school and have 12 college credits in total. Mind you my undergrad was a long time ago, but children's media today has many Spanish speaking characters. I have been Mr. Mom for 2 years now and have been exposed to A LOT of children's media. The fact that I was exposed to a foreign language myself, I understand things about that English that maybe another teacher who was not exposed to a 2nd foreign language. For example, English and Spanish have many common roots.

Spanish and English share many of the same root words due to the fact that Spanish is a Latin based language and English borrowed heavily from Latin and French in its earlier days. Words that are the same in two languages or very similar are called cognates. See if you can guess the meanings of the following Spanish/English cognates. Cognates are a good way to learn a lot of words fast. Note that these words are not pronounced the same in English and Spanish. 

aburrido	la música	la idea	el piano
contento	la guitarra	el elefante	la computadora
desordenado	el/la radio	público	el estereo
enfermo (hint: infirmary)	la televisión	el apartamento	el teatro
furioso	el beisbol	el departamento	el basquetbol
nervioso	el evento	permitir	la historia
ocupado	el tenis	observar	rápido
ordenado	la universidad	la cultura	el boxeo
preocupado	el autobús	la dieta	el aeropuerto
inteligente	el tigre	misterioso	la dirección
independiente	las matemáticas	el auto	la biología
paciente	el taxi	el doctor	la ciencia
responsable	el chocolate	el/la turista	la vitamina
terrible	el carro	la novela	la economía
horrible	el arte	la práctica	el volibol
importante	el problema	ideal	el esquí
necesario	la opinión	el león	la bicicleta
flexible	el animal	privado	decidir
eficiente	el golf	el plan	el banco
generoso	la oficina	curioso	robar
la montaña	el desierto	el océano	el actor
la fruta	el café	la actriz	las vacaciones
religioso	romántico	el ingrediente	la gasolina
serio	tropical	el hospital	la diferencia
tímido	el cassette	el supermercado	típico

Source: http://www.palomar.edu/etv/courseinfo/summer2002/span50handouts.pdf