Pay me now, or pay me later:
In chapter 3 Dr. Clay makes a strong case for early identification and intervention of emergent readers who struggle. She maintains that school systems cannot afford to wait until a child is two reading grade levels behind before remediation begins. As we all know, the gap widens with every tear of the calendar unless intensive support raises the trajectory of the struggling reader. Yes, I’m a middle grade teacher, but I see the value of substantial investments in early reading. Such investment benefits all future learning, including that done in middle school.
Run, Run, Run Records Away:
I have now had the opportunity to conduct several running records with a handful of my students. While I still get a bit “deer in the headlights” before (and during) a session, I’m starting to see some direct application to my instruction. Using the QRI-5 I’ve noticed some characteristics and tendencies of my sixth grade readers that I’m sure that I’d not have observed otherwise. For example, this week I did a running records with a student that I’d thought was about an early fourth grade level. I based my assessment primarily on his difficulty with fluency during a few short oral readings. However, I’ve discovered that his comprehension is much higher than “he sounds.” Even when I bumped him up to a sixth-grade level selections he was able to comprehend the material with fairly high accuracy. Who knew?
No comments:
Post a Comment