Week 14 Reading

The article I chose was:
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/word-study-new-approach-teaching-spelling

I chose this article because I thought this might help Liv with reading.  Three important things I learned from this article were:  teachers select a group of words that demonstrate a particular spelling pattern and sequence these patterns to match children's development, spelling patterns and generalizations are discovered by students, and that  teachers encourage students to compare and contrast features in words (one common method for doing so is by having students sort words).  The most important thing that I learned is that word study provides students with opportunities to investigate and understand the patterns in words. Knowledge of these patterns means that students needn't learn to spell one word at a time.  I found this approach intriguing and started to research it after it was recommended.  I think I might try this approach with Liv!

Week 13 activity

I am going to be doing the following activities from Chapter 9 with Liv:

I chose the first activity so that Liv would focus more on words that were new to her or that she found interesting.  I am hoping that by focusing on words more that she will begin to become more fluent in her reading, something that she greatly struggles with.  I chose the second activity because Liv is great at tapping into other people's feelings, and this will allow her to do that and then take it one step farther by making her think about what she would do if she were in the given situation.  I think the first activity will be more challenging, so I wanted to choose something that she would excel at to follow it up in order to rebuild her confidence!

Week 13 Reading

The article I chose was:
http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/06/dyslexia-brain

Three things that I learned from this article were:  one or two kids in every U.S. classroom has dyslexia (I knew there were a lot, but not that many!),  children’s brain structures can show signs of developing the disorder even before the child begins to read via cutting-edge MRI technology, and that several studies have suggested that intervention is most effective in kindergarten or first grade.  The most astonishing thing that I learned from this article is that even though there is now a way to diagnose students before kindergarten, not all schools are willing to test students because "if MIT and Harvard diagnoses or identifies children at risk in kindergarten and we don’t have the resources to do anything about this, then parents will get really upset with us, and we would feel very guilty as well."  The article talks about only testing students who have family histories of dyslexia or students who show early signs.  I couldn't believe that schools would be unwilling to test students to get them the help that they need because they lack the resources.  I feel like schools should be more willing to educate themselves about dyslexia and the proper accommodations, it isn't anything that would take a lot of money, just a willingness to learn.  If there are one or two students in every class with dyslexia, it would benefit every single school to take the initiative to make the proper changes necessary.

Why would we put students through this if we could intervene earlier?

Week 12 Reading

I chose the following article:
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/online-chat-dr-sally-shaywitz

Three important things that I learned were: teachers are reporting that they are seeing an improvement in dyslexic students' reading accuracy but not fluency, effective reading instructions brings about some improvement in fluency and in increasing brain activation in the word form area, and that highly successful adults who are dyslexic were greatly benefited from finding and pursuing an activity in which they could find success and a sense of mastery.  The most important thing that I took away from the article is that there are a lot of students who are slipping through the cracks and a lot of teachers who are unsure of how to help dyslexic students because they don't understand how to accommodate them properly.  I think it is important to educate teachers on the correct accommodations for dyslexic students because it is such a widespread issue.  I have already encountered this with Liv and talking to her mother; the teachers just aren't sure what to do to help her and it is very frustrating for all parties.  Liv's mother has told me that she has seen more improvement in the past three months (since I have been working with her) than she has seen in her entire school career.  I am saddened by this because that just means that there are probably a lot more students in the same situation who are probably not getting the additional help.

Week 11 Reading

I chose the following article:
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/spelling-and-dyslexia

Three important things that I learned were:  many people with dyslexia will learn to read fairly well but will have difficulties with spelling and handwriting throughout their life, poor spellers have trouble remembering the letters in words because they have trouble noticing, remembering, and recalling the features of language that those letters represent, and if a student is struggling to remember spelling words, a standardized test of spelling achievement with current national norms should be given to quantify just how serious the problem is.  The most important thing I learned from this article was that spelling instruction that explores word structure, word origin, and word meaning is the most effective rather than just having students memorize the words.  With this spelling instructions, there are several different accommodations that can be made for students with dyslexia that are listed at the end of the article.

Week 11 Activity

I am going to be doing the following activities from Chapter 8 with Liv:

I am choosing the first two activities because Liv relates well to people's feelings and their attitudes.  I am choosing the last one because I feel that it is important for students to be able to determine what the most important part of a story is, or what the turning point is.  I believe I am going to do these activities with the book Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon because Liv was pretty upset that she missed last week's activities and seemed interested in the book.  It is also a great book to do these particular activities with.

Week 10 Reading

The article I chose was: Dyslexia and the Brain: What Does Current Research Tell Us?
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/dyslexia-and-brain-what-does-current-research-tell-us

Three things that I learned from this article were: people with dyslexia have structural brain differences, people with dyslexia have functional brain differences, and over 2.8 million school-aged children are plagued with the problems of dyslexia.  The most important thing that I took from this article is that while dyslexia has no cure, explicit, intense, systematic instruction in the sound structure of language (phonemic awareness) and in how sounds relate to letters (phonics) can help readers who suffer from dyslexia.  I think it is important, as teachers, that we understand that there is such a large number of students who suffer from dyslexia and that dyslexia is actually neurobiological in origin.  These students' brains work differently from our own, so we must make special accommodations in order to help them succeed and achieve their goals.