Chapter 2

EDU572
Diagnostic Teaching of Reading by Barbara J Walker
Chapter 2-The Reading Event
This chapter is divided into five different sections, the task, the text, the reader, the technique and the context.
The task is what the student needs to complete during reading. Sometimes the student will need to read aloud and other times they will read silently. Usually they will then have to answer questions, sometimes in writing and other times orally. The questions can be direct questions that require an answer directly from the text or questions that are open-ended or higher level questions that require the student to have a deeper processing of the text. Other reading times can be for retelling the story according to what they think is important in the events. Most importantly we need to have the students make connections with what they are reading to get a more through meaning out of it with their own interpretations. I have had experience with questions that follow the logical sequence of the story, but questions can also be random with no relationship between responses. I feel that this kind of questioning would not be helpful to students especially ones that are struggling. They need to have connections to help understand the reading.
The text is an important variable in reading. If the content is more difficult, the example given is physics, more readers will struggle because they don’t have the background knowledge that is needed to understand. In readings at the student’s instructional level, this is where discussing vocabulary words in the text help them. Letting the student scan the reading ahead of time to look for unfamiliar words before starting can help them also. The different types of text like narrative readings or factual works can affect the success of the reader. Narratives have problems and solutions, or real life situations making them easier to read, where the expository readings need a different kind of reading strategy. Teaching the students to stop and ask questions during the reading help them to understand the text. At the lower level a repetitive reading book is helpful because the words can be predicted throughout the entire book with pictures clues for the changing word.
The reader themselves is another variable. Every chance should be taken to expand every student’s vocabulary. The bigger their vocabulary is, the more the student is going to understand. Even the younger students can advance just by hearing and learning about more words. The reader needs to be engaged in the reading. They have to be interested in what they are reading, but more importantly they have to see themselves as a reader and value the experience. Having the student seeing people read and enjoying it as well as encouraging reading in their home is very helpful. Helping the students keep a positive attitude about reading is the key to helping struggling readers. We need to keep them from becoming negative about reading.
In addition to the techniques discussed about the reader, we can also use K-W-L and O-W-L (observe, want to know, and learned) with expository texts and story mapping with narratives. Predicting, and monitoring the text for making more predictions is a good strategy to teach. All of these techniques will help the struggling reader to be successful. I did not understand the value of simultaneous focus in reading.
The place where instruction takes place is the situational context. In this section the most valuable piece of knowledge that I got from this was the waiting time. The author says that it is better to let the reader finish the sentence with mistakes and try to figure out that mistake at the end then to give them a prompt to sound out the word, or simply give them the word they are struggling over. I am going to try to not interrupt at the point of error now. I realize that I usually do in some manner. I will also make sure that encourage lot of students discussion with open ended questions and less literal.

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.

My introduction

Hi! My name is Valerie Klender. I am at NU to earn my degree in Special Education for grades 1 through 6. Right now I am only certified for elementary grades Pre-k through 6.I have been married for 23 years and I have four children.
I am really looking forward to this class.