Module 1: Activity 4

I feel as though some of the main characteristics that I took away from table 1.1 were that students that are less proficient readers do not use their own background knowledge when reading a text. A less proficient reader is so focused on decoding words that they lose focus of gaining meaning from the text. Another characteristic that really stuck out is how students break down the meaning of a text.

Throughout my student teaching experience, I noticed that when students had background knowledge on the particular text we were about to read, they were able to gather a deeper meaning. I had one student that struggled in particular when it came to reading. During a reading circle, I provided students with a preview of a story that was going to be about plants. This particular student immediately became interested and started asking questions about the story. When we read other stories that were not of interest to him, he appeared confused and bored. Throughout the entire story, he was constantly raising his hand to answer questions and tell his classmates additional information about plants. I had never witnessed him to become so excited about reading a text before this day. He did an awesome job on the test at the end of the week because he was engaged in the material.

This particular student showed me the importance of providing students the opportunity to read a particular text that they have an interest in. I found that this particular student not only developed meaning from reading the text, but he also referred to pictures to gather a better idea of what the text was conveying. Often times when I am working with a group of students that are reading a particular text, I encourage them to refer to pictures, graphs, etc in order to develop a better understanding of the story. I did not have to remind this student because he was so interested in the text that he wanted to refer to the pictures and graph on his own. I have found a major increase in comprehension skills in a text when students are engaged and interested in the text that they are reading.