I am a secondary school, business teacher. I have been teaching for the past15 years. I have done teacher training in the primary school and I have taught at all levels of the Secondary school and spent some time lecturing at the tertiary level Through out my time as a teacher I have found students with reading disabilities at all levels of the school system. Some of these students suffered physical set backs such as poor sight or hearing but by and large the poor readers were of sound mind and body physically able to read at their appropriate reading levels. I was curious about the reasons for this growing problem of struggling readers and how I might help them. Having completed part of the programme, I can make some suggestions as to the reasons behind the failing readers. These include:-
1. Students may have early on, been left behind in a class full of mainly emergent readers. They were never allowed to reach the stage of reading readiness on their own.
2. Many of these students have not been exposed to quality children’s reading material
3. They often have many socio-economic issues to deal with taking attention away from school and reading. All of these together make for low self esteem and lack of motivation.
It is my hope to learn from this programme the best techniques to deal with these struggling readers to get them on the path of reading for success, to identify from good readers, strategies which weak ones can use to develop their reading capabilities and most of all to motivate all students to become life long readers.
Hi Syndy. I just want to commend you on your interest and enthusiasm. Having known you for a short time I know that it is genuine. :) Permit me to add to your list some other reasons that I perceive result in the staggering increase in the number of struggling readers.
ReplyDelete1. Some of us as teachers do not know how to identify certain disabilities like dyslexia and so the student does not receive the appropriate attention.
2. Family literacy. There are too many parents who think that the onus is on the teacher to teach their child to read and so do not provide the supportive learning environment at home. This includes checking on the child's homework, reading to them, letting the children see them read and even having discussions on what is read.
3. Classes are too large and so one teacher cannot reach all of the children often enough,and especially with an omnibus syllabus, the amount of time is insufficient. There are no teacher aides in many Infant departments to assist.
Hi, I enjoyed reading your blog and applaud your enthusiasm.Some years ago, I also was a bit overwhelmed when faced with a particular group of students who were especially challenged in Reading and several other areas.I then decided that I didn't have the skills, although I was a trained teacher, to deal with these issues. In fact, I felt that I was failing these children. I then did a diploma in Special Education which made me better able to deal with my challenged students. I know that at the end of this programme you will be empowered to deal with the many issues with regard to reading failure and I am sure you already are making a difference.
ReplyDeleteI thank you both for choosing to participate in my blog. I agree with you Heather that parents don't recognize the value of reading o their children and discussing with them waht is read.If parents were to introduce their children to this early on it would make a vast improvement in student motivation to read and learn. Also, I know that classes in the primary schools particularly, are too large. Often too, work is fast paced, in order to finish a syllabus, without catering to the real and immediate needs of the students.
ReplyDeleteCindy I would like to reiterate the fact that there is so much that parents can do to help children even before pre-school.It is my conviction that parents always want the best for their children and given the knowledge that they themselves have a key role to play in their children's language development they will do what they must.The trick then is to educate and empower parents to give thier children the kind of environment and opportunities that stimulate their interest in reading from a very early age.
ReplyDeleteI had the opportunity to speak with parents at an ECCE PTA meeting last term and they welcomed the advice and insight brought to them about how they could assist with their children's language development and interest in reading.The majority of them,prior to the meeting, did not appreciate the importance of reading to their child.Perhaps there should be some national initiative whereby parents are given this guidance about how to help their children even before they get to pre-school.This would surely dispel the notion that parents have, that, according to Heather,"the onus is on the teacher to teach their child to read".While we as teachers do not want to shirk our responsibilty, it is important that parents are enlightened about their own power to ensure that their child has the edge.
Hi Syndy,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog and the accompanying comments. isn't it interesting that we recognise that we will be dealing with students who struggle with vbarious forms of learning disabilities, yet there has been no focus on this as part of our Med in Reading? We have gained a wealth of knowledge, but I feel that there should have been some focus on the various forms of learning disabilities.
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ReplyDeleteI am responding to your post because I think that you were able to summarize the main factors that hinder reading development as it relates to students in my school. Most of the struggling readers have been affected by one or more of the factors that you have mentioned. However, the point that stands out the most is the impact of the soci-economic factors. There are too many children in this rural learning environment who are faced with problems such as drug abuse, lack of finance, incest, lack of parental support and absentee fathers. Children who have to deal with these pitfalls often experience challenges with reading and writing. Teachers need to understand the extentuating circumstances of these students and use every means possible to assist these students out of this vicious cycle.
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