C&T 740

Final Project Foundations of Reading

Standards: 1.1 Candidates demonstrate an understanding and are able to apply

knowledge and skills specific to
their discipline.

I. Book Choice
My student is in grade five and reading at a third grade level.
I chose Beatrices Goat by Page McBrier published in 2001 by the Heifer Project.

The article, Factors that Influence the book selection process of students with special needs
states that, Self-selection and choice have a positive impact on learning, which leads to the
conclusion that schools should foster environments that promote learning through self-
selection, particularly when it comes to learning to read and becoming lifelong readers ( Mary
Katherine Swartz and Cindy Gillespie Hendricks, 2000). So, technically, I would not be
choosing a book for my hypothetical student. I would be giving them several books to choose
from at their level. Or the student could use the five-finger rule (if there are more than 5 words
on a page that they dont understand they have to choose an easier book) and try to choose a
book on their own with final approval.

In 1944 M. Rankin stated, "the theme or specific topic of a book was the most important single
factor influencing choice" (p. 136). Samuels (1989, p. 715), drew the same conclusion 45 years
later: "Subject matter accounted for the largest number of students' positive responses to
books." It makes sense that students would have lower engagement with reading if it were not
a topic of interest. I read in a book that females gravitate towards fiction and males lean toward
nonfiction. This has great implications in the classroom and how and what ones teaches. Even
though I know this information, my library is still heavily fiction for various reasons.

When I begin each year, we follow the lessons of the First 20 Days by Fountas and Pinnell. I
feel the lessons are very thorough and a great way to set the stage for Reading/Writing
Workshop. In the lessons, we create anchor charts together on how to choose books, reason
why we choose books, reasons why we abandon books, etc. The anchor charts are kept on
the wall for a few months and ones I deem important stay for the entire year. Students can
refer back to them when choosing books. I also give students a reading/writing inventory at the
beginning of each new school year. I have information on how and why students choose books
and their favorite topics of interest, which I use to help them when they choose reading
material.

II. Theoretical Framework

I incorporate a bit of many different strategies in my instruction. When teaching reading and
writing, I will incorporate Metacognition, Engagement Theory, Constructivism, some
development theories and some social learning perspectives. In this particular lesson with my
striving student I would definitely be using the Engagement Theory. Engaged readers are
those who are intrinsically motivated to read and, therefore, read frequently. They're mentally
active, often social, and use metacognitive strategies. This contains elements of Metacognitive
Theory but also emphasizes motivational, conceptual, and social aspects of learning. Engaged
readers spend 500% more time reading than do disengaged readers (Guthrie, 2004; Guthrie
& Wigfield, 1997, 2000).

The only way for students to get better at reading is to read more. I believe to get a student
engaged they need to be self-selecting high-interest material. They also need plenty of time to
read in class. For this particular lesson, having a week to engage in the same book for in-depth
rereadings and interactions with the text would be beneficial.

III. Readability
The Readability of the text posed an interesting conundrum. I first checked the Scholastic Book
Wizard when picking this book and it said the book level was grade 3.5. I thought this was a
little low since we are expected to choose a book from grades 4-8, but I didnt think a few
months mattered too much. Then I plugged the text into the Readability Score website (which
is amazing) and I was surprised to get a grade level of 5.8, which would not be appropriate for
my grade five student who is reading two grade levels below, unless I was reading the book
with him. The Lexile website gave me a score of 640 which is the end of grade three/beginning
of grade four. This was a great relief since I had leveled most of my classroom library using the
Scholastic Book Wizard.

There are several unique words in the book because it is set in Uganda. I will address the
unique words in the vocabulary section of the project.

Things you would need to think of when choosing a book would be the students interest level,
reading level match, content of the book. I believe the content is appropriate for a grade five
student. If the book was not appropriate for my student, I would not change my instruction, I
would change the book.

IV. Vocabulary
There are many words from the book that might confuse a student. This book is set in Uganda
on a farm, so there are many terms for the vegetation in that area. What I have done in the
past for some words, is not give a definition, but show them a picture. Before we read the
poem Silver by Walter de la Mare, I share a picture of the word thatch, casements and a
cote. I dont want the students spending time thinking about what a word means. I want them
to be able to think about other aspects of the poem and get lost in the beauty of the poem.

I would do the same thing for this book. There are many words that would help the reader
understand the book if they would see a picture of the word. The book I chose is a picture
book, but I find it still helps the reader to identify these new terms with a picture of just that
item. The words I would chose to show would be hoe, cassava, jackfruit, burr, banana fiber,
elephant grass, pigeon trees and lab vines.

The words I think the student may have trouble with are sturdy, coarse, lashed, sleek, tuck,
disbelief, cud and rustle.

The article I chose to read was Words Are Wonderful: Interactive, Time-Efficient Strategies to
Teach Meaning Vocabulary by Margaret Ann Richek. There were six great strategies for
teaching vocabulary, several of the methods needed group work and collaboration. I would use
the Connect Two strategy with my striving student. The strategy involves taking about 20
vocabulary words and placing them in two columns. The students are then challenged to find a
connection between the two words. At first the connection may be superficial, for example,
having the same number of letters, but eventually, with practice, they should move on to more
demanding connections which should help deepen their thinking. I like this strategy because it
is simple on the surface, doesnt take much planning, and can be completed in a short amount
of time.

Column One Column Two

Sturdy disbelief
Coarse tuck
Lashed sleek
Cud rustle

V. Fluency
The strategy I would like to attempt to employ is Talking Books. I find this a useful tool. Too
often during independent reading, striving students are not actually reading, they act as if
they are reading. This can cause disruptive behaviors for the other students as well. They may
attempt to wander around the room or chat with friends. Students need to interact with books.
Many times there is only one teacher to support all of the various levels of students. Talking
Books would provide a scaffold for striving students and help build their confidence. Instead of
students wasting time pretending, they can practice reading and put valuable skills to use.
Talking Books aid learning support students who have issues with attention, memory, and
auditory perception deficiencies. Research shows that reading aloud to children supports
growth in vocabulary, visual decoding, and word knowledge. Children with auditory perception
deficiencies do not benefit from intensive phonics (Lerner 1971). It can harbor a strong dislike
of reading.

I believe this strategy would be appropriate for my student and the book. The student would
gain needed scaffolds and be able to read the book independently. Difficult vocabulary words
would be pronounced correctly for the student. They would hear fluency modeled properly. It is
a picture book, so it could be read in one to two class periods.

Because the article was written in 1978 and we dont have cassettes anymore, I would offer
two other methods. Students could record podcasts for one another, which would more
practice for fluency and we could also download audiobooks from our librarys Overdrive
account. We could listen to these on our Chromebooks with headphones. I would also want
the student to check out the corresponding book so they could follow along as they listen.

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2014/10/6-good-chromebook-apps-for-recording.html

http://help.overdrive.com/customer/portal/articles/1775655-how-to-listen-to-audiobooks-on-
your-chromebook

VI. Comprehension

To help the student more fully comprehend the book, we could do a shared reading. This
would typically be something I might want to do with the whole class to teach comprehension
skills to as many students as possible. Shared reading is when the teacher reads a book to the
class and thinks aloud along the way using several different comprehension strategies. This
strategy is not just for emergent readers.
Shared reading components are vocabulary, comprehension, text structures, text features.
This strategy helps readers in several different ways.

With comprehension you should actively show the students what you are thinking. You can
utilize many strategies including: prediction, clarifying, questions, visualizing, summarizing,
inferring, For vocabulary, the teacher should not just be giving definitions of words. The
teacher should be modeling how to figure out unknown words using various strategies. With
text structures, can model cause and effect, problem and solution, and story grammar.

Teachers should not just ask questions of students after the reading. We need to be modeling
what this thinking looks like.

VII. Writing

Since Beatrices Goat is a picture book, I would have the student summarize the entire book. I
would use the evaluation summary, because I would like to hear the students thoughts about
the book after the summary.

Beatrice is a young girl who lives in Uganda. Her mother is taking care of many children on her
own. Beatrices mother informs her that they have been given a goat as a gift and it is
Beatrices job to care for the animal. At first Beatrice is frustrated that she has yet another task
and she does not see the benefit in having this goat. Soon it is learned that the goat is
pregnant with twins. The family will be able to see the baby goats and the milk provided from
mother goat. Beatrices dream of attending school is soon realized with the help of the gift of a
goat.

VIII. Assessment
I would use formative assessment. The point of this work is to help my struggling reader make
improvements. I think this could best be assessed by checking his reading and giving feedback
along the way. All of these components in conjunction would definitely support and benefit a
striving reader. I would end with giving a running record of some sort. I think this is the best
way to see how a student is progressing in reading.

IX. Related Readings (20 pts)

Poems about Africa would be be a nice connection to Beatrices Goat. We learned much about
Uganda, but with poems the student could learn about the beauty of the continent itself
through richly written poems.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poems/africa/
There are so many great informational books about Africa that would help give some
background knowledge before reading Beatrices Goat. One of those books is Good Morning,
Africa! by April Pulley Sayre which provides a super overview of the continent of Africa. It
discusses Africa as a whole and goes into depth about its amazing ecosystem.

References

Frey, N., Fisher, D., Hernandez, D., Whats the Gist? Summary Writing for Struggling
Adolescent Writers, Voices From the Middle, (Dec 2003): 43-49
 Fisher, D., Frey, N., Lapp, D., Shared Readings: Modeling Comprehension, Vocabulary, Text

Structures, and Text Features for Older Readers. (2008). International Reading Association,

61(7), pp. 548-556

Carbo, M. (Dec. 1978). Reading With Talking Books. The Reading Teacher, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp.

267-273, Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading Association Stable

Swartz, M.K. and Gillespie Hendricks, C. (Apr., 2000). Factors That Influence the Book

Selection Process of Students with Special Needs. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Vol.

43, No. 7, pp. 608-618 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading Association

Stable

Richek, M. A. (2005, 02). Words Are Wonderful: Interactive, Time-Efficient Strategies to Teach

Meaning Vocabulary. The Reading Teacher, 58(5), 414-423. doi:10.1598/rt.58.5.1