In my SPED 433 class we focused a lot on struggling readers and how we could help them within the class. Reading this chapter was just another valuable resource and a refresher on this topic. As an English major, I know that reading will be a serious part of the class and I will need to help my students learn how to read and write at the appropriate grade level. With that being said, I want to reiterate a point from the reading, "I'm a physics teacher, not a reading teacher". This is true for every teacher, including English. In a high school English class, it is not my responsibility to teach the students how to read... I teach them what they can do with their reading skills and I help them analyze advanced texts.
The problem is that if every teacher says "that's not my problem/responsibility" then we are doing a disservice to our students. Its easy to see the problem and ignore it (because of lack of time, need to focus on more students, need to care for your family) but there is one reason to take the challenge head on... and that's the student! We have talked a lot about how students need to be our main focus, and if there is a problem with the student we need to help and guide them... but what happens when a high school student is in your class (any content!) and they can only read at a 7th grade level? It is our responsibility as a teacher to help every student in our class! It is our responsibility to work with the student's other teachers, or resource teachers, or their parents to work out a plan to help that student to succeed. I want to clarify that in this specific instance I am not talking about strictly students that have IEP's or have a documented disability that requires extra time... I am talking about any student in your class that is having trouble.
The wake-up call for me was when we discussed in my class that struggling readers don't see pictures in their mind as they read. To be honest, I couldn't understand how this could not happen for some people. From a young age I enjoyed reading and I couldn't get enough. I got that from my mother. I recently talked to my dad about reading (because he doesn't read very often) and he told me that he was never able to connect to the reading. He was never able to form the movie in his mind. This is when it clicked for me! Imagining what you are reading is A SKILL that must be TAUGHT. Students don't just make pictures in their mind, at some point we are taught to do it (or in many people's cases, they aren't taught how to).
Reading would be a nightmare without the movie playing out in your mind! We need to make sure that students are understanding, relating and imagining what they are reading! Regardless of content or form of text.
Follow this link to learn about ways to help a struggling HIGH SCHOOL student. The author explains the strategy of "annotation" which truly changed the way that I read anything. Annotation is when you write notes in the margins of the text. Any thoughts, notes, questions that you have get put right onto the text itself for you to recall. This is a great technique for students to use with articles and even assignment sheets.
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