Engaging Young Readers

So many books, so much to learn. Finishing up Engaging Young Readers and trying to synthesize the plethora of information found in this compilation of text centered upon promoting achievement and motivation.

Here are first of some important notes that I took away:

--In some classrooms reading instruction for poorer readers primarily involves the explicit teaching of word attack and word recognition skills, with little time allocated to extended reading and discussion of the text. (Palincsar & Klenk, 1992)

--They (the teachers) immersed their students in meaningful reading and writing activities but also actively taught decoding, word recognition and comprehension, increasing the among of systematic and explicit coverage of these skills with weaker readers in their classrooms. (Pressley, Rankin, et al., 1996)

--A common instructional arrangement that should be avoided is ability grouping, or the practice of sorting a class into three or four reading groups on the basis of ability. Children are often placed in such groups at the start of first grade, and it is not uncommon for struggling readers in the bottom group for the rest of their elementary school years. Ability grouping can undermine the confidence of waker readers, as they are cast in an often permanent hierarchy where the yare labeled as the least successful. (Flood et al., 1992)