Chapter 5 & 6

Diagnostic Teaching of Reading
Barbara J. Walker
Chapters 5 & 6

The ultimate goal of reading is to construct meaning with text. Meaning processing involves predicting, monitoring, and elaborating on the author’s intended meaning. When the text meaning becomes unclear, the reader cross-checks his own knowledge with information in the text. As a teacher, I must figure out if the student is having trouble with recognizing the words, understanding the content, or both.
An informal reading inventory is done to determine the independent reading level, the instructional reading level and the frustration reading level. I have only worked to move students to the next independent reading level, and worked with them at their instructional reading level. I have never done any work with figuring out the frustration reading level or using it for anything. In the informal reading assessment, questions are asked about the main idea, supporting details, inferences and vocabulary. The comprehension questions need to be answered at 90% or above to move the student to this level as an independent level for them. Oral reading accuracy must also be above 95% for this to occur. In addition to analyzing the reading accuracy and comprehension a good teacher also has to listen to be sure the students is reading smoothly in meaningful phrases. There should be pitch variations, with stress placed on the right words and intonation to help convey the meaning of the text. These are all things that I listen for when working with students on their reading. Modeling these things helps the students to learn them as well as pointing out the differences when you are done modeling the reading for them.
When the students do have miscues, it is the teachers’ responsibility to try and figure out why. Were they just reading too fast, did they notice if the sentence does not make sense because of the miscue? Does the miscue change the meaning of the sentence? Does the reader go back and correct the miscues or are they left uncorrected. Is the student reading to make sense of the text, or just pecking out the words one by one. Is the student using the strategies that have been taught by the teacher to figure out unknown words and aid in their fluency? I watch the student to see which strategies are being used, and re-teach those that are not being used by the student. arbara J. Walker
Chapters 5 & 6