July 9th reading: Learning from Text

This reading seemed to chronicle some discoveries I had upon beginning my master’s studies.

Firstly, I’m an English teacher and I struggle to teach students how to read. Reading came naturally to me and I love it. I am just beginning to understand why students don’t enjoy reading, how they struggle and how I can help them become life-long readers.

Secondly- the much debated “No child left behind” mantra is mentioned and the frustrating one size fits all curriculum is brought up- success depending upon standardized testing.

I do disagree with the article however when it states that when children get a failing grade on a unit, we just fail them on that section and move on. I feel that in my previous school, a slow shift is taking place wherein teachers are beginning to re-teach, compensate and individualize instruction. It’s no longer just about ploughing through curriculum.

Thirdly, the article moved on to discussing remediation vs. Compensation. The article stated that we focus much more on remediation than compensating. Reflecting on a woodcock assessment that I just did on a student, and the report that I wrote, I can verify that in my case, this is seemingly true. I had several suggestions for remediation, but only two regarding compensation. It makes sense that some teachers may still be stuck on the idea that compensating for students isn’t “fair” to the others, but in reality, most times, such compensation doesn’t even come close to leveling the academic playing field for students who need such assistive technology. 

The article also stated that sometimes teachers don’t push or challenge students enough. We don’t always encourage students to work indecently, to look their own words up, to allow them to achieve, just through different methods.