Module 6

Cindy Summerhill

READ 5772

Module 6 Reading Disabilities and RTI

Dr. Thompson

April 11, 2011

            Three things I gleaned from the reading are preventive designs, acceleration designs and improving comprehension. Preventive interventions are being started in early childhood programs as a strategy for reducing reading difficulties later.  Kindergarten programs that immerse children in books and opportunities to write about a variety of topics will significantly help students with their literacy development.  Some other preventive measures are class size reduction, phonological awareness intervention, and family programs.  Acceleration designs mentioned in the chapter are add-on instructional programs, tutoring and very small group instruction.  Add-on programs provide struggling readers instruction outside of the classroom.  The instruction was personalized, focused and used difficult texts. This type of intervention is successful when done properly.  Tutoring is done one on one. And the tutor can use a variety of strategies with a student to help them progress in their struggling areas. Small group instruction can be very beneficial to students as long as the group is not too large.  The smaller a group the better, two to three students is most effective.  During the group time students need to be reading level appropriate texts, something they will want to read and discuss.  Students with disabilities can be reluctant readers.  To help students build their desire to read and the understanding of what they are reading teachers need to increase student’s motivation.  To motivate children to read allow them to pick what they want to read and have interesting non-fiction texts that coincide with the text being studied. Another key to help with comprehension is tapping into a child’s background knowledge. If they have a knowledge base on a subject they will be more willing to learn more about it.  Struggling readers often have limited schema.  Teachers have to build new background knowledge.  If you can find a small amount of schema would engage a weak reader.  All of the areas I have spoken about are important for a student who just doesn’t want to read.  Any small group instruction, preventive instruction, motivation strategies will be a good step in the direction of improving a struggling readers reading level.

            The way I plan to implement this knowledge into my classroom is to do more one on one instruction for those students who are struggling.  I have a couple of students who will benefit from this type of instruction.  It can be hard to do this every day but I plan to try this at least once to twice a week.  I could put these two students together and work with them together.  I know I can play games with them and other strategies to help them with their reading.  I want them to want to read and to love it is truly my ultimate goal.

            I tried the activating background knowledge.  It is awesome to see their minds working.  We did a lesson over the life cycle of a butterfly.  Before I read the book and talked about it at all I asked them what they knew about butterflies and what colors had they seen on a butterflies wings.  They got excited telling what they knew and made them very excited to hear about butterflies.  After we read we spoke about what we learned that we didn’t know.  I guess it is similar to a KWL chart but I wrote it out differently.  By doing this they took ownership of their learning.  This will also go along way with helping them see the benefits of reading.