Case study struggling reader term paper

Circumstance Studies, Personal Narrative, Extraordinary Children, Social Stigma

Excerpt from Term Paper:

Working with the child within my case study was definitely informative in terms of learning the struggling visitor more generally. I think probably the most salient truth I learned all about Jake – the one which really occasioned the most generalized breakthrough discovery in terms of my own, personal understanding about this sort of educational difficulty – was to see specifically and intimately right after in Jake’s experience.

Vlach and Bursie (2010) stress the importance of “narrative” in for students in Jake’s placement – my own close remark really brought their conclusions home to me in an unforeseen way, since it revealed the importance of story for educators as well. To clarify, “narrative” in this feeling refers to the person student’s story, the way in which the story of the scholar’s own technique of learning to get over reading problems is referred to and indeed internalized by the college student himself or herself. The importance of narrative in this feeling is that frequently frustration and failure with this process will come from the student’s internalization with the wrong or perhaps discouraging story. This is, quite obviously, a huge factor that may make or break a student’s inspiration and can possess lifelong results on self-pride as well. What Vlach and Bursie’s article does not highlight, but that was possibly the chief lessons learned simply by me in studying someone child, is usually how these kinds of narratives can impact and be internalized by a teacher as well. When educators have never studied children in depth yet rely rather upon discovered disquisitions rife with statistics and brimming with methodology, it can be all too easy to let the shorthand of our classification systems substitute our actual sense of what the real struggling target audience (in my own case a likeable and enthusiastic twelve-year-old boy) is similar to. What do I mean at this time? I mean that, in this particular instance, Jake’s Critical Reading Inventory registers his degree of comprehension and fluency to be at a “second class level, inch although John is in the 7th grade. Studying Jake thorough, and getting to see him like a student so that as a audience and (perhaps most crucially) as a man also led me to observe an easy trap into which in turn educators can easily fall: confusing the human being with the numbers and statistics. The simple fact is that the ultimate record gradation that is applied to Jake’s Critical Examining Inventory is definitely extraordinarily several, and enormously less sophisticated, than the fact of observing Jake in the act of reading. On the most basic level, I got to view that John is actually a very good student – she has the kind of student most class teachers can be thrilled to have. He is not distractible or maybe a behavioral difficulty: in point of fact he’s extremely well-behaved and respectful. To read the statistical naming of “second grade level” on a pre-printed form is incredibly different from watching the real person, who endeavors with genuine effort and focus, and who is actually able to achieve sufficient comprehension offered enough time and effort.

In some sense, the close observation of John is a thing that I can scale from and apply more generally in my future methods as a teacher. It is risky to let convenient shorthand designations (“second grade level”) replacement for actual close observation, and sensitivity to human facts, when dealing with a struggling target audience. On the most basic level, before this knowledge I might possess looked at a crucial Reading Products on hand result, observed that a 7th grader have been registered for reading on a second grade level, and i also would have presumed that (in some level) this was an undesirable student, and the low efficiency reflected the student’s personal behavior, inspiration, or “agency, ” to work with the term well-liked by Vlach and Bursie (2010, 522). Given that I have finished this sort of close observation, I know that the actual issues will be vastly more advanced, and that it would actually do Jake a serious disservice to reduce him to his test outcomes. The best way to instruct Jake how to read better involves a greater sensitivity to Jake’s personal narrative, and less reliance for the tools with the trade (such the Critical Reading Inventory) that can very quickly degenerate into a type of pigeonhole in which the student can be placed.

2 . The person case study project definitely allowed me to as a teacher to explore new strategies and resources that could be tailored to this specific student. As noted over, part of what made this seem necessary to me personally was the recognition that this particular student can be motivated and a hard employee: he really wants to improve his reading skills. So the issue becomes whether his browsing skills have been completely impeded as a result of methodology of instruction. Of course within Jake’s own lifetime there has been a technological wave, and it will be foolish to never take advantage of this technology for his betterment – his era makes him a “digital native, inch as the latest buzzword defines it, plus the simple fact is the fact his diligence and perseverance, his acknowledged desire to be an improved reader, can make it seem more likely that the several forms of technological assistance that may be brought to instructing him to see might actually have got a positive effect. There are so many more resources currently available than there even were in the year that Jake was born – it would be unwise never to enlist any and all of these resources in the make an attempt to find a convenient program for Jake.

several. In terms of how the individual example was able to better enhance my very own teaching, I think it was mainly a matter of learning what to look for more generally by learning one particular student in detail. The most interesting facts about Jake weren’t available on his list of Important Reading Inventory results – instead these were gained by simply observation and practice. Remembering that Mike declined every offered chance to take a break, for instance , made me understand that in some outstanding sense having been trying to show his very own commitment to becoming a better reader, to show it to himself in the event not to me personally.

Knowing the real value of what I learned from observing this particular student at close quarters begs for a way in which such practice can be incorporated into actual daily teaching existence. This is where the case becomes more difficult, however , because it is not always likely to get this amount of one-on-one close observational time with a pupil when there is also a classmate packed with students competing for the instructor’s attention. This led me to wonder the way the basic skills I learned from this exercise could greatest be integrated into teaching life, and I recognize that to a certain degree the answer entails building up a considerable career-long experience. This is the initially chance I’ve had to analyze a specific child’s learning approaches up close. My own hope is that in future, higher additional experience will allow me to00 recognize and know the relation between particular prescriptions and the execution. But for students especially with examining problems, the close examination allowed me to realize how dedicated and hard-working some learners can be: for today’s digital natives, not being able to read can be tantamount not to being able to interact socially. The causes for getting competency and fluency are stronger to get a student today than they ever have been completely.

4. I think that the example brought home to my opinion the need for differentiated instruction, intended for reasons We touched upon earlier: it has become very clear very quickly that reducing this student for the bare details of his Inventory and the statistical summations gave a bad picture of what he actually seemed like when within the room with me. Having been actually a really hard worker and applied him self intensively to the tasks at hand. But naturally in a large class packed with students, problems become more importantly – even though it is astonishing how resilient many educators are to the idea of a differentiated curriculum, especially considering just how respectful of, and attentive to, diversity those same educators can be under various other circumstances. In some sense, a differentiated programs should just be considered as a issue of diversity and handled appropriately: it allows different college students with different ways of learning an equal access to the curriculum, and the capability of nearing the work in their own way with comparable means of getting and calculating success.

Regarding what I learned specifically via my examine of Mike and his examining level, I do think the gulf of mexico between his low overall performance and large levels of determination and effort beneath observation illustrates something on top of that important: teachers can be so focused on teaching “to the test” that they may sometimes neglect some of the learning procedure. The Important Reading Products on hand is obviously quite different from the state-instituted standards that have affected the educational process countrywide, but it is definitely non-etheless a measurable regular by which Jake