Does any of the information presented in Chapter 15 influence your personal philosophy of reading? In what ways? How has your perspective this changed since you took the DeFord TORP a few weeks ago?
The information that Chapter 15 provided, made me believe even more the importance of having every child become successful in reading. While this is important for test scores and other standardized items, reading is what all education stems from. If we do not make our students successful readers at their young age, we are basically making them unsuccessful for the rest of their educational career.
The chapter also made my philosophy that reading should be done for meaning and not word identification even stronger. Studies show that while traditional ways of teaching, such as decodeable texts and focus on phonics, sometimes work they do not compare to the amount of success comprehensive programs show. As educators, it is our responsibility to stay up to date on the latest models and ideas in education. The same is true for reading. Despite what those in authority tell us, we know that phonics and letter-sound correspondence alone does not work for our students. We need to find ways to give students a variety of opportunities and tools to become successful readers and writers.
When scoring myself on the DeFord TORP earlier in the course, I determined that I scored a 79 which put me on the low to mid range of believing in teaching reading skills. Since then, I do not think my perspective has changed drastically. I still believe it is important that teachers introduce, use, model and teach students the skills they need to become good readers. Much of this can happen during the different elements of a comprehensive literacy program, which I now strongly believe in. When I took the TORP then, and still now, I do not believe that phonics instruction should dominate reading instruction. In the same way, I do not strongly believe that whole language should dominate either. Instead, educators should use a balance of all these approaches and ideas and work towards making each individual student a successful reader. While it is up to the teacher to design their literacy program, they have much to keep in mind and balance in doing so to meet the needs of all readers.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteI was also influenced by the information presented in chapter 15 of our text. I was truly encouraged to implement the comprehensive literacy approach into my own classroom in the fall due to the benefits it gave to students. I also agree that educators should use a balanced approach to teaching reading to meet the needs of all learners in the classroom. All in all, great post!
Hi Mary! I loved what you said in your reflection. Throughout this course it has taught us to teach students to read for meaning and not for word identification which I think many teachers do focus on. Using a balanced literacy approach to teaching reading will give students a comprehensive experience where they are able to be exposed to language from whole to part.
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