Module 4 Instructional Challenge

Marcus is a student who very frequently miscues by substituting words that start with the same letter or first few letters of the word in the text, but his substitutions often are not syntactically or semantically acceptable (they neither sound right grammatically nor make sense). What possible teaching strategies would you suggest to help Marcus?

I believe it is important to allow Marcus to select this own text (independent level) to read first without any interruption. During this time I would use the Retrospective Miscue Analyis (RMA)  to record Marcus reading the text on the iPad. This will allow Marcus and I to watch/listen and reflect on his reading. I will play back part of it and pause where Marcus has made a miscue that doesn't make sense. I would ask "does that make sense?" I would invite Marcus to reread and teach him strategies to figure out unfamiliar words such as using analogy, syntactic, semantic knowledge and cues to predict what is coming next. 

The next step is to meet with Marcus daily  for guided reading, I would place Marcus  in small group with other students with similar difficulties. I would have the students read a text on their independent level because we want to focus on reading to construct meaning. First, I would do a book walk with the students to activate their schema and background knowledge. They would make prediction during the picture walk. I would introduce new vocabulary words/content words in the book. I would show them different strategies they can use when they come to a difficult word (ex: stop and think out loud if that word made sense in the sentence, use onset and rimes/chunks). I would let the student whisper read independently. Afterward, I would allow the students to take turns reading with a partner. This will allow the students to listen to each other miscues. They can also practice retelling the story. 

I would also do lots of shared reading and read-aloud with Marcus and with students who are struggling with the same miscues in small group or whole group. I would read teach concepts about print, reading strategies, words, phonics, and decoding during this time. After reading the story, I would ask students to retell or put the story in sequential order using a story map or timeline  on big chart paper. I would allow all the students the opportunity to say something they remember from the story. The students can help me draw pictures and write sentences to go with the story. By doing these activities, Marcus and sit to observe to learn from his friends. Also, I would ask Marcus to share something he remembers from the story. Allowing Marcus to have the confidence to participate. 

Finally, I would allow various opportunities throughout the day for Marcus and all the students in the class to have independent reading time and partner reading time. It is very important to allow time for the students to practice reading and allowing them the freedom to select books according to their interest. Also, I would provide students to access narrated/animated books to listen to on the iPad and a computer.