Catching Readers Before They Fall: Ch. 4

     This chapter, Beyond "Sound It Out," was prominently about helping students put sentences and words together in a way that makes sense. A lot of students skip over words they don't know while reading, or they will pronounce a word completely wrong and not think anything of it, as discussed in the book. This is something I really noticed in my case study student the past couple weeks I have been working with her, so this chapter was interesting to me and there were a lot of helpful techniques and strategies I can't wait to use with her to help her become a better reader. While reading Braelyn, my case study student, will skip over words she doesn't know and she does not monitor for 1:1 matching. For example if the book says "come and play baseball with us" she will say, "come play with us." She has a tendency to shorten the sentence and not say every word, but still manages to get the point of the sentence across. However, as a beginning reader that is not a good technique for her to develop because as she gets older she will have to learn how to read every word of a sentence correctly and in order for it to make sense. The book gave a lot of great examples and strategies to use, so I can't wait to try those out and help Braelyn progress! 

      Before reading this chapter I didn't realize how much work goes into reading and helping students read correctly. As an adult, like me, it comes naturally so it is hard to put yourself in the shoes of an elementary school student and help them start from scratch. Every student reads differently and has a different way of thinking, so as a teacher it is so, so important to be patient and help them every step of the way. I also noticed a pattern throughout this book; in every single chapter it stresses how important modeling is, so I really want to be sure to use modeling while working with Braelyn and all of my future students and help them become a stronger reader every single day.