Critique - Class 1 - Apr 4th, 2020

"Making Secondary Literacy Accessible for All"

This article was written by Christy Palmquist and Heather Prenevost who both work in the school system as different roles with students. 

Right away they bring up the five pillars of reading, (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) which we hear frequently in the education system. These are so important for our students to learn from. We need to take each of these aspects into account when teaching our students. These will help students become strong and avid readers. Special education students often struggle with phonemic awareness and phonics, so these are often what it focused on. It is important to remember to include all aspects of literacy in order for them to become successful readers and communicators. 

5 Pillars of Reading Instruction

Planning for student's literacy skills and ensuring that the proper technology is set up and available for students is so important. If it does not benefit the student, there is no point to use it. 

I liked the visualizing and verbalizing technique. I often see this with students who have autism and are using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). It starts at a very beginner level and can work its way up to more complex. Students can start by just naming a picture and then move onto writing sentences. This is a great tool to help build language skills with any student. 

Example of a visual cue sheet

Under thinking reading, I thought the CAR tool was really interesting. I have never heard of this acronym before but it seems really helpful. This is a great way to get students thinking about what they are reading and seeing how much they comprehend. This will help build their literacy skills in a fun way. It reminded me of when we do running records, but in a more relaxed environment where they do not think it is a "test." 

CAR Acronym

Word mapping is a great strategy to use to help students learn vocabulary. Using word webs is a great way to come up with words that match or relate to a word that you put in the middle. It allows students to think outside the box and come up with a variety of words to go with it. Compound words are also easy to work with and there are many activities that you can do to make this fun for them to learn. 

Example of a word map 

This article had a lot of great strategies that you can use in the classroom and was easy to read and understand.