Chapter 1

Diagnostic Teaching of Reading by Barbara J. Walker
Chapter 1 – What Is Diagnostic Teaching?
Diagnostic teaching is to figure out how struggling readers approach the reading event. This is something that I want to learn more about. When reading with a student, teachers need to formulate diagnostic hypotheses and select instructional techniques based on the readers strengths that will advance the student’s reading. When that is done the teacher then assesses the changes that were made to evaluate the effectiveness of them. That will either establish the condition for learning if it is effective, or the teacher needs to try something else.
Students need to be active readers. To be an active reader means to use your prior knowledge during reading. They make connections and realize that they are making connections. They check to make sure that they understand what they are reading, that it makes sense to them. Active readers use strategies like making predictions, questioning, and clarifying as they read.
I have read with quite a few students who at first seemed to read ok, but when I asked them to retell me the story, they were unable to recall even the lower level stories. These are students who have learned to decode words and simply repeat a string of words. They do not comprehend, and then they become accustom to passively reading words without meaning. What Barbara Walker says is happening, is the student starts to rely on their one strength and do not try to use other strategies or skills that are needed in reading. After doing this for a while it is harder to get students to use the other skills and strategies, so the earlier a student is helped, the better.
The techniques that are discussed in this chapter are text-based view, reader-based view, interactive view, socio-cultural view, and balanced instructional view. The text-based view is where the student learns letters, links letters to form words, and then links the words to form sentences. The reader-based view is where the reader naturally seeks meaning. The interactive view is a combination of both of those. The socio-cultural view is where the reader, in a group, discusses and constructs the meaning with the members of the group. The balanced instructional view is the one that I have the most experience with. It is where the class is divided into small groups and each group does something different each day. Some will meet with the teacher for guided reading while others partner read and some go to the listening center to hear the book on audio while following along with the text. Depending on the grade level, some students may use things like leap pads, and some may be reading independently. In all of the classes I have been in, the teacher gives out a packet with questions about the assigned guided reading book.
Assessing students is something that I do not have any experience with. I am given a struggling reader and told by his classroom teacher what I need to work on with him or her. So this class is something that I am very interested in learning all about.