Misconceptions:
1. Learning to read is a natural process.
"It has long been argued that learning to read, like learning to understand spoken language, is a natural phenomenon. It has often been suggested that children will learn to read if they are simply immersed in a literacy-rich environment and allowed to develop literacy skills in their own way. Simply put, learning to read is not only unnatural, it is just about the most unnatural thing humans do. Reading acquisition, by contrast, is not at all natural. Clearly, if reading was natural, everybody would be doing it, and we would not have to worry so much about dealing with a literacy crisis or a literacy gap. If we are ever to come close to teaching all children to read, it will require the most focused and artful instruction from the most knowledgeable and skilled teachers. Merely immersing a child in a literature-rich environment is not at all sufficient to guarantee the development of substantial literacy skills." (Wren, 2015). Learning to read takes practice, hard work, and dedication. If a student is slacking off, it is going to hurt them in the future. That is why we need teachers to push students and have high expectations. "Teachers can provide tasks at varied levels of difficulty, give students varying degrees of support, arrange groups to meet student needs, and vary time allotments for different students." (Jennings, Caldwell, Lerner, 2015). Students need support from teachers to be successful in school and in life.
1. Learning to read is a natural process.
"It has long been argued that learning to read, like learning to understand spoken language, is a natural phenomenon. It has often been suggested that children will learn to read if they are simply immersed in a literacy-rich environment and allowed to develop literacy skills in their own way. Simply put, learning to read is not only unnatural, it is just about the most unnatural thing humans do. Reading acquisition, by contrast, is not at all natural. Clearly, if reading was natural, everybody would be doing it, and we would not have to worry so much about dealing with a literacy crisis or a literacy gap. If we are ever to come close to teaching all children to read, it will require the most focused and artful instruction from the most knowledgeable and skilled teachers. Merely immersing a child in a literature-rich environment is not at all sufficient to guarantee the development of substantial literacy skills." (Wren, 2015). Learning to read takes practice, hard work, and dedication. If a student is slacking off, it is going to hurt them in the future. That is why we need teachers to push students and have high expectations. "Teachers can provide tasks at varied levels of difficulty, give students varying degrees of support, arrange groups to meet student needs, and vary time allotments for different students." (Jennings, Caldwell, Lerner, 2015). Students need support from teachers to be successful in school and in life.
2. Children will eventually learn to read if given enough time.
"Children should be taught to read in developmentally appropriate ways, and that we should always address instruction to each child's zone of proximal development, we should not simply wait for children to develop reading skills in their own time. A child who is not developing reading skills along with his or her peers is a reason for great concern. Over time, the gap between children who have well developed literacy skills and those who do not gets wider and wider." (Wren, 2015). We need to have high expectations for our students. We need to give them the adequate opportunities to practice their reading skills within their zone of proximal development. "Response-to-intervention, the National Reading Panel and the components of reading, differentiated instruction, common core standards, and the influence of social media are recent events and movements that have an influence on the teaching of reading." (Jennings, Caldwell, Lerner, 2015). RTI is not allowing students to "eventually learn to read if given enough time." RTI is intervening when a student isn't learning to read on time. There are many differentiated practices to help students learn to read and not allow them to fall behind.
3. Reading faster means less comprehension.
“Speed reading, effectively and efficiently, allows the words to lift off the page and create a movie in one's mind. Reading slower than your brain works is not enjoyable.” (The Literacy Company, 2015). Reading each letter and sound is great for beginning readers, but once they can breeze through the words faster there is no reason to make them read slower. By making students read slower we are slowing down their comprehension because their brains are moving faster than they are reading the words. “For good readers, word identification is fast, fluent, and automatic — it needs to be so that the their attention can be fully focused on using semantics and syntax to comprehend the text.” (Wren, 2015). When reading with a child, making them track with their finger can also slow them down. Once finding out where a student’s reading level and comprehension level is, adapt the reading instruction accordingly.
4. The pictures and visuals that are in a text are there just to take up space.
Illustrations, pictures, visuals, and graphics can help readers understand tricky words. They can support the text and give the reader another way to make a connection to what they are reading. Using pictures, readers can make inferences about the text. According to Dr. Diana Carry, “visual literacy is the ability to decode, interpret, create, question, challenge, and evaluate texts that communicate with visual images as well as, or rather than, words. Visually literate people can read the intended meaning in a visual text, interpret the purpose and intended meaning, and evaluate the form, structure and features of the text.” (Carry, 2015). The visuals in a text support the reader to make more connections while they read. If the reader is struggling, they can usually find cues and use their prior knowledge to make a connection with the pictures or graphics. By using graphics, the author can help reiterate important points.
5. When a child can read on their own, teachers should stop reading aloud to them.
"Research shows that children still greatly benefit from read-alouds through middle school. In order to improve his/her reading achievement, make reading aloud to your child a part of your daily routine." (Scholastic, 2015). Teachers can model effective reading strategies while reading aloud to students. Teachers can also model fluency and inflection during a read aloud. While reading aloud, teachers can have students practice fluency and inflection as well by having them repeat sentences or echo reading. Many students love being read to because it is a change of pace and can take off some of the pressure to read. They are still thinking critically and comprehending while listening. Teachers can model the questions that successful readers ask themselves while they read. "We all know how effective good models can be in helping us to perform a new skill or improve an old one. Modeling is just as important to fluency development." (Jennings, Caldwell, Lerner, 2015).
6. When buying books for children, always look for the correct "levels."
"Reading levels are based on formulas about text features and can definitely help you figure out what your child will be able to decode without help, but they don't say anything about the background knowledge and vocabulary essential for kids to truly understand a particular text. Keep reading higher-level books with lots of interesting information and ideas to build your child's knowledge even as he/she practices reading on his/her own." (Scholastic, 2015). When reading a higher-level text to a child, make sure to ask questions about their prior knowledge on the subject. This will help the students connect to their new information and understand it better. There are three reading levels for students: "Independent, instructional, and frustration level." (Jennings, Caldwell, Lerner, 2015).
7. Picture books are easier than chapter books.
"There are many picture books that are full of fascinating information expressed with complex language and rich vocabulary." (Scholastic 2015). There are many picture books that have higher-level vocabulary and content compared to some chapter books. Picture books can also offer clues through illustrations. The connections made throughout reading a book reflect on prior knowledge, new knowledge, and lived experiences. The words written in stories can draw pictures and help us visualize what is going on in the story. Comprehension is key for picture books and chapter books. There are many factual picture books that have hard concepts for students to understand. Science, history, math, and life skills are some of the harder concepts taught by using picture books. "Low-level readers are particularly at risk in content-area subjects, such as science, social studies, and health. In these areas, the reading is expository, or focuses on giving information rather than telling a story." (Jennings, Caldwell, Lerner, 2015). The information given can be difficult for students to understand, but the illustrations help. "Some picture books contain a wealth of information and vocabulary presented in a gorgeous picture-book format." (Scholastic, 2015).
8. If a child struggles with reading, let them read whatever he/she is interested in.
"It is vital that you help guide your child toward books on subjects outside their interests. If a child is having a hard time comprehending new texts, he needs to work on building background information and vocabulary about new topics." (Scholastic, 2015). Building background knowledge for our students is important. The more lived experiences they have, the more connections they can make to their reading. While incorporating Daily 5 into the classroom, choice of books becomes important. There are opportunities to let students have their choice, but also there are opportunities to choose books for the students. One station can have a required text for students or a few texts that are chosen by the teacher and then the student has to choose one to read. This gives the student choice, but it is a controlled choice. Individualized instruction is very important for student success. Students need differentiation to become more successful.
9. The main determinant of a child's success with reading is the home environment.
" The child's home environment can be the foundation for tremendous cognitive growth and development... Today, many children come from increasingly risk-filled home environments." (Jennings, Caldwell, Lerner, 2015) Home environment is important for a student's reading, but it is not the only factor in a student's reading success. Teachers can make a difference by using research-based instruction and a balanced literacy framework in their classroom. Reading interventions discussed throughout this website are there to assist teachers with struggling students. "Most children, even those from low social economic backgrounds attend preschool where they can develop their language and phonemic awareness skills. All children can learn phonemic awareness in the first year of school and develop the required phonics skills for reading and writing with systematic direct instruction and plenty of practice." (Tran, 2015). Teachers need to persevere through any obstacles thrown at their way. The more flexible and opportunities they give the students to be successful, the better.
10. There is no need to worry if a child does not seem to catch on to reading in the first three years of school because eventually it will "click" and he/she will catch up to the other children.
This website is designed to help educators instill an intervention to help students who are falling behind try to catch up to wherever they need to be. We know that interventions need to be used as soon as a student is showing signs of falling behind because the farther behind they get, the harder it will be to catch them up. Each year these students will be learning new skills, strategies, vocabulary, and academic language. Without the necessary skill build up from year to year, these students will struggle. " They will gradually fall further and further behind the other students an unless rescued by intensive intervention, will end up leaving primary school with very poor reading skills. These children are likely to be disadvantaged for the rest of their school careers and beyond." (Tran, 2015). The achievement gap is unbelievable for students who struggle compared to their peers. We do not want any students to fall through the cracks, so we need to intervene. These students need the necessary skills to become successful and keep up with the content for each grade level.
Resources
Book Box Daily » Blog Archive » Popular Misconceptions About Reading. (2014, April 25). Retrieved October 12, 2015. http://bookboxdaily.scholastic.com/2014/04/25/popular-misconceptions-about-reading/
Carry, D. (2015). Visual Literacy: Using Images to Increase Comprehension. Retrieved October 3, 2015, from https://readingrecovery.org/images/pdfs/Conferences/NC09/Handouts/Carry_Visual_Literacy.pdf
Jennings, J., Caldwell, J., & Lerner, J. (2014). Reading Problems Assessment and Teaching Strategies (7th ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson Education.
The Literacy Company. (n.d.). Retrieved October 3, 2015. http://www.readfaster.com/articles/speed-reading-myths.asp
Tran, F. (2015). Myths and Misconceptions about Literacy. Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://www.wilkinsfarago.com.au/PDFs/Reading - Myths and Mythconceptions.pdf
Wren, S. (2015). Ten Myths About Learning to Read. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
Carry, D. (2015). Visual Literacy: Using Images to Increase Comprehension. Retrieved October 3, 2015, from https://readingrecovery.org/images/pdfs/Conferences/NC09/Handouts/Carry_Visual_Literacy.pdf
Jennings, J., Caldwell, J., & Lerner, J. (2014). Reading Problems Assessment and Teaching Strategies (7th ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson Education.
The Literacy Company. (n.d.). Retrieved October 3, 2015. http://www.readfaster.com/articles/speed-reading-myths.asp
Tran, F. (2015). Myths and Misconceptions about Literacy. Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://www.wilkinsfarago.com.au/PDFs/Reading - Myths and Mythconceptions.pdf
Wren, S. (2015). Ten Myths About Learning to Read. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
