Taylor Gonzalez

EDRD 7715

Dr. Ritchie

June 6, 2012

Personal Model of the Theory of Reading

Creating an environment where students develop a passion for reading is essential in a classroom in order for students to view reading as a privilege rather than a chore. I have found that it is the attitude of the teacher that either excites students about a particular subject or can create a negative connotation. Creating a comfortable environment where students are allowed to sit on the floor, in bean bags, etc, excites the students about being given the opportunity to read a book. The environment in the classroom of how reading is portrayed is the view the students are going to form about reading a book at such a young age.

Throughout my experience in teaching reading in a classroom, I have found that at the primary levels, students gain knowledge through a teacher-centered classroom as well as a student-centered classroom. The teacher is able to model how to hold a book, position the pointer to display to students that it is necessary to read from left to right, and create sight words that are important for students to learn throughout different books. I found that it was important to complete repeated readings in order for the students to gain a better sense of understanding. Not only is it important to have teacher-centered instruction taking place amongst the classroom, creating a student-centered environment with literacy centers is key in the development for age appropriate reading skills.  

I have found that it is very important to create literacy centers throughout a classroom and allow students to work together in order to gain additional information from one another. I was able to create a literacy kit with several helpful tools for students to use in order to advance their reading skills. The kit consisted of word sorts, beach balls filled with story plot questions in order to increase the student’s comprehension, cookie sheets with letters, literacy balls with sight words, literacy munchers, word family wheel charts, etc. Allowing students to rotate through these literacy centers engaged the students and allowed them to collaborate with one another.

 I learned rather quickly that reading not only consists of being able to read a story, but students must comprehend what the story was about and provide oral details from the story. It also entails writing, spelling, and vocabulary as well.  Throughout my undergrad, I completed an informal reading inventory, spelling inventory, and an interview of how the student felt overall about reading. This provided me the opportunity to focus on specific areas that the student needed to improve in order to increase her reading skills. Learning these specific weaknesses, I was then able to develop specific literacy activities for the student to complete throughout the entire school year. I found that when working with reading groups, although several students may have been great readers, they were not able to retain details from the story and answer comprehension questions.

Although completing this inventory with an entire class may be time consuming, it is very beneficial in the aspect of creating reading groups based on strengths and weaknesses of the students. Throughout this course, I look forward to gaining additional knowledge of how to create the most effective reading instruction in a classroom in order to meet the needs of my students.