EDRD 7717 Module 4: PowerPoint Analysis

      Identifying Reading Disabilities 

      It is vital that we identify reading disabilities early and get our students help as soon as we can in order to better their chances of success. At first within the school system, there was a discrepancy definition is something that was used to determine what it meant to have a reading disability. It “said that students had a learning disability if there was a significant difference between their measured ability and their achievement”. However, there were issues with this definition, so we moved to a Response to Intervention (RTI) program which is a three tiered program. Tier one is the instruction for all the students and then as you move up through the tiers  the instruction gets more and more specialized. Lower achieving students can easily be put into the tier process in order to further their progress. For example, I have a student who was new to my school this year, so we tested her in Math and Reading to get of understanding of what knowledge and understanding she is coming to us with. She tested extremely low in reading comprehension and was put directly on tier two so that she could receive the extra assistance she needed.

      Yes, there are “stages” to learning, but these stages need to be seen as something that are not concrete but that students can fluidly move from one to another and back again if necessary. There are five stages mentioned within the reading: Emergent Literacy, Early Reading, Growing Independence, Reading to Learn, and Abstract Reading. The reading also discussed various ways of helping struggling readers, but one that I found interesting and probably need the most help with is “prevention is better than correction”. I feel like I have always been told that the students need to experience and learn from their mistakes, but if we could prevent the mistakes before they occur then the students may be less confused about the material they struggle with. 
     

Assessment: Formative & Summative

      The word “assess” derives from another word meaning “to sit with”, which implies that assessments should be done with students.

      Formative assessments are used to guide for the remaining instruction or to go back and reteach specific instruction for difficult subjects. This allows the teacher to see and understand the students’ strengths and weaknesses. Then the teacher can build upon their strengths and use those in order to teach to their weaknesses. It is something that is done multiple times throughout the length of the lessons. This allows the students to become further involved in their learning because they are able to also understand why they are having difficulties with specific content. However, this is only effective if the teacher gives feedback in a timely manner and in a way that is beneficial to the student.  Summative assessments are used to simply assess the students knowledge and understanding at the end of a unit. 

      There is too much pressure put on the students and their corresponding scores on their assessments. There needs to be more emphasis put on the students progress and "providing advice for students". The more pressure that the students put on themselves, the less likely they will be able to perform at their best because they will become overly worried and stressed.