Boy 1 is always happy. He never shows any frustration at school (although his mother says it is a different story at home), but he has made comments about "his friends being really smart" and "his friends knowing more than he does". This breaks my heart to hear that. His main struggle is in reading; specifically with phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and concept of print. He knows about half of his letters and even the letters he does know, he doesn't know all the sounds they make. If giving the sounds, he can blend some words together. He knows a few sight words really well and those are usually the only words I can get him to recognize when testing him. When reading a story to him, he can recall most of the facts about it. He has some trouble communicating his thoughts, but I can normally piece together what he is trying to tell me when discussing vocabulary terms or recalling facts from a story. I think it is safe to say that he also struggles with motivation a little. He doesn't really seem to care about reading, but this might be because he knows he struggles.
Girl struggles with phonemic awareness and letter knowledge as well; though it is not as bad as Boy 1. She can decode and blend CVC words, but more complex words are a struggle for her especially if it contains letters and sounds that she does not know. When testing her on fluency sentences, she reads well, but I've noticed that her finger does not always follow along with the words correctly. Also, when repeating the sentence she doesn't always repeat it correctly. This may show that she is understanding what she reads on a comprehension level, but I think it also shows that she is memorizing the concept of the sentence more than the actual words.
Boy 2 does not struggle with phonemic awareness or letter knowledge. He does very well sounding out the words, but he is struggling with blending the words together. We have been working on this skill recently and I believe it is improving. I've also noticed that because when he decodes an unfamiliar word and cannot always blend it, he cannot put meaning to the word. This shows that he struggles with phonics and decoding as well. If he can practice the words, he can read fluently by sight, but when asked what word he just said or to repeat the sentence, he often gives a blank stare. I have a strong suspicion that he will struggle with text comprehension as well.
Overall, my struggling readers are struggling with different concepts, but the concepts are causing other areas to be affected as well. If the first area can be fixed then hopefully with a little bit of help, the rest will fall into place!
Megan,
ReplyDeleteIt breaks my heart when I read about Boy 1. I have a student with similar confidence issues in my class this year and it's always hard as a teacher to witness those self-esteem issues first hand.
On a brighter note, my WOW moment occurred when you stated how your readers struggle with different concepts and how the different concepts affect other areas as well. This made me think of how reading affects writing and vice versa. According to the K12 Reader website "Phonemic awareness (the understanding that words are developed from sound “chunks”) develops as children read and write new words. Similarly, phonics skills or the ability to link sounds together to construct words are reinforced when children read and write the same words." I WONDER how often your kindergarten students write and is it connected to your reading instruction?
We write everyday. We normally write about something we've learned from the stories we've read that day. I definitely do believe that reading and writing have a strong correlation because these students are also ones who struggle with writing. With Girl and Boy 2, if I can sound out the word for them, they can get the letter sounds, but when letting them just write freely on their own, they struggle with hearing the sounds themselves.
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