Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Reading Is Essential in The Secondary Ed
Reading Is Essential in The Secondary Ed
Angela Mendoza
Dawn Marmo
area in teaching because at one point or another, all students will have to read something,
whether that’s a psychology research article, a mathematical word problem, or a book. It’s
important to note the first thing that should be established in a classroom: student-teacher and
student-student relationships. It’s no wonder why every first day of class begins with icebreakers
and get-to-know-me activities. Knowing who the students are outside the classroom helps to
know or anticipate their learning needs inside the classroom. Not only knowing the students is
important, but having in-depth understanding of teaching styles and strategies is important to
create meaningful learning experiences for the students. These strategies include various literacy
routines that work well in every school subject and address students’ needs within the classroom
with reading. Helping students develop their reading, writing and oral communication skills is
also important to facilitate their acquisition of the class material. There are also various reading
routines useful with this, as well as the social and emotional aspect that accompanies learning,
which can be provided in the form of support from the teacher and other classmates. And finally,
assessment is essential in determining what students have learned, and not simply just
memorized for the sake of a test. Formative assessments are just as important as summative
assessments because they are important for evaluating student’s learning process as they learn
rather than waiting for the final exam. There are various components to address when learning to
teach students, and reading is the first component that should be addressed as it’s a necessary
skill for students to acquire for their education and personal lives.
student learning. This can be accomplished by beginning to know the students even before they
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enter the classroom. It’s important to learn how to pronounce their name correctly because this is
the first opportunity to make a good first impression. If a teacher mispronounces a student name,
they may feel unappreciated and put-up barriers to prevent any open dialogue to create that
relationship. When classes begin, having students create a culture tree can help teachers know
more about their students, students know more about each other. When students feel heard, they
begin to build their trust in the teacher and themselves and be more willing to risk failure, which
allows students to grow academically and personally (High impact, n.d.). When completing
culture trees, students will have to research information, which involves a lot of reading as they
navigate websites, articles, and even books. Students will be engaged in reading information that
may include new terms and they will be acquiring this knowledge as they will have to present
this to their classmates and teacher. This activity is a socially, culturally, emotional, academic,
and linguistic experience for students to engage in while practicing their reading abilities as they
research their culture. And when they get the opportunity to share their culture trees with each
other, not only will they get to know each other, which fosters connections, but they will be
practicing their listening and speaking skills, which are essential for developing their reading
skills. When students learn in a social environment in which they foster connections, their
diverse characteristics will flourish off each other and no one should feel marginalized or
belittled because all of their abilities will be valued. This activity also serves as a resource for the
teacher to incorporate the students’ cultures within the learning material, so they feel more
connected to it. When students read something they connect with the personal connection grabs
their attention and increases their engagement, which maximizes their learning.
all school subject areas. As Fisher (2015) explains, literacy is important for both school and the
student’s personal life. We all learn from listening, reading, writing, and speaking. The routines
allow teachers to engage students in all of these forms during literacy instruction. Fisher’s text
provides 50 instructional routines that address fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, writing, and
oral language either before, during, or after reading. All strategies address students’ diverse ways
of learning in meaningful ways. For example, not all students know how to make connections
and ask themselves questions during reading that are important when making sense of a text. So,
the strategy of think-alouds allows teachers to model and explain this behavior for students.
Students learn how to read productively rather than passively so they are able to comprehend the
text. Another example is for students who are more creative and like to engage in hands-on
activities, the strategy of found poems provides this for them. In found poems, students select
specific words and images from the text and create a new text of their own that summarizes the
text, focuses on vocabulary, or addresses key ideas. And another strategy is conversation
roundtables, which allows students to productively collaborate with each other. This is a useful
strategy to get all students engaged in an activity and hold each other accountable to prevent one
student doing all the work in groups, which is common in classrooms. And there are many other
strategies available to create meaningful learning experiences. When a routine works well in a
class, the students sense a purpose in their learning because each task hits a different target in
Reading, writing, and speaking are all forms of communication and forms in which
students can learn. Therefore, incorporating all three forms in the classroom is essential for the
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acquisition of content knowledge, and can be done with various reading methods. As explained
before, all subjects will involve students reading something at one point, so all classrooms should
incorporate reading methods into their instruction. The classroom I observed at Herbet Middle
School included various reading methods in both subjects that had students engaged in reading,
writing, and speaking. For example, in language arts, the teacher had students do close reading
individually and with partners the next day. The students were asked to read the passage and
make annotations on questions, connections, and important details. Already they were engaged in
reading and writing. Then, with their partners, they were asked to read to each other, which now
engaged them in speaking. With speaking they were monitored on their pronunciation, with
writing they were evaluated on spelling, and with reading they were monitored on
comprehension. In this activity, I worked closely with a student that doesn’t know English very
well. He is a multilingual learner, so writing and reading is still complicated for him. We worked
cooperatively, and he was able to practice all three forms as we close-read the passage. He was
able to pronounce most words as he read and understand what his partner said to him, but he was
unable to comprehend when he was reading, which is why he didn’t have any annotations on his
passage from the day before when they worked individually. He also didn’t know how to write
well in English, so when his teacher wrote notes on the smartboard, he was copying down letter
by letter instead of word by word. He wouldn’t have been able to engage with the class and learn
the material because he was missing that aspect of comprehension when reading and writing.
Speaking and listening weren’t an issue for him, but he was missing an important component
Assessment
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Formative assessments allow the students to practice their learning and apply concepts to
deepen comprehension rather than memorizing vocabulary terms and concepts. This can be
achieved with the use of reading strategies. Reading is one of the main ways of obtaining
students are practicing a necessary skill they will need in almost everything they do in life inside
and outside the classroom. And teaching students how to read is important as well during
formative assessments. Students are great at finding ways to obtain that high letter grade without
needing to read the material, so teaching students how to read is important for them to stay
engaged. Formative assessments are like Lego pieces. By themselves, they may appear
insignificant as they are not part of a bigger puzzle piece. But together, they are at the disposition
of the student to use to obtain their end goal: the bigger puzzle piece, otherwise known as the
learning objectives. Reaching the learning objectives is the goal students work towards with the
use of the formative assessments. The final Lego piece isn’t possible without the individual Lego
pieces, just like learning isn’t possible without formative assessments. Formative assessments are
also beneficial for the teacher. These assessments allow teacher to evaluate the students’ learning
Summative assessments are also important in evaluating student outcomes and growth. A
teacher can’t know what the students know if they aren’t given an opportunity to show what they
know. However, how well students do in summative assessments doesn’t necessarily reflect
100% of what students actually know. Students may simply memorize information to spill on to
the test without retaining much in their long-term memory. This is a challenge for teachers
because effective summative assessments must capture most of what students have learned in an
enjoyable and productive way for the students to have that motivation to demonstrate their
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learning. Summative assessments also show instructional effectiveness. If most students get an
answer wrong on a test, the teacher will become aware that perhaps the method used to teach that
concept was ineffective or the question’s wording needs adjusting. This means the teacher would
have to revise or adjust the teaching method for that concept to adapt to the students’ needs since
they weren’t met the previous time. And summative assessments don’t necessarily have to be
tests or exams every time. Summative assessments can include projects, whether individually or
with others, which allow students to apply concepts and may even be more effective in
evaluating students’ understanding of the material as they won’t simply be defining a term but
Conclusion
classroom. No subject can be taught without students reading. It is critical for students to learn
how to read and comprehend what they read because they will utilize this skill for the rest of
their lives. And being able to adjust to students’ needs while doing so is necessary. Knowing who
the students are as learners and as people is important for creating a meaningful learning
Fisher, D. (2015). Fifty instructional routines to develop content literacy (Third Edition).
Pearson Education.
High impact instructional strategies for health education. (n.d.). Colorado Department of
https://sitesed.cde.state.co.us/mod/book/view.php?id=8030&chapterid=8125