Literacy Builders

For the Love of Learning

Struggling

A Struggler or A Reader?

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On Tuesday, I was working with classroom teachers using the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System for the first time. We were in awe at the amazing information we were learning about students. One of the teachers shared an observation she had made about one of her strugglers. She said, “It was so strange. Every time she came to a word she didn’t know, she kept looking at me. She wanted me to give her the word.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. I had just finished reading What Really Matters in Fluency by Richard Allington. In that book he warned that the tell-tale sign of a child who has been “remediated” is one that exhibits just that behavior! These readers are often interrupted by well-meaning adults who want to “correct” their miscues. Instead of learning to monitor their own reading and developing strategies for solving unknown words, strugglers learn to let other people do the work for them.

The bright side of this story is that the Benchmark Assessment invites “talk” about each book that the child reads. During the assessment conversation, this reader shared how she pictured the red eyed tree frogs. We shared our response to her response. She lit up. No longer did she seem meek and unsure of herself.

As I reflect on this experience, I am realizing that we often make the mistake of emphasizing the struggle with struggling readers. I am wondering how we can shift the emphasis to reader and in doing so, help children emerge more confident and proficient?

September Love Affairs

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Yesterday I watched a video of a struggling reader with a group of second grade teachers. As they listened to him read and analyzed his miscues and asked questions about him as a reader, they hypothesized and thought about what he needs to get better. They commented on how cute he was and sympathized about his struggle. They wished out loud that they could work with this child. In short, they fell in love.

Last September, this child’s teacher loved this reader, too. She tried her best to teach him, but as he failed to make the progress she hoped he would, he grew apathetic and uncooperative. He became easily distracted and ill-behaved. By June, September’s love affair had morphed into an eager parting of ways. Good riddance.

Anybody who has ever taught children understands what it is like to teach a child who struggles. When children struggle, it is easy to blame the learner. He’s lazy. He’s not listening. He’s not trying. He’s not supported at home. It’s somehow easier to explain away misgivings when it’s the child’s fault.

But…what if it’s not the child? What if it’s something we’re doing? Or not doing?

As we analyzed the behaviors and errors that this child made as a reader, I was reminded of how important it is that we be reflective about the children we teach. On this day in September, we understand what this reader needs. But as he grows and changes, his needs will change. Only if we remain perceptive and reflective will we change our instruction and approach to continue to meet his needs. We can only do this if we care enough to keep trying.

This September, I urge you to not only fall in love with your students, but to stay in love. When you feel frustrated by the teaching challenges before you, ask questions, think out loud with colleagues, but whatever you do, don’t stop exploring what you could do differently or better to teach the children who sit before you.

Have a great year.

The Key to Reading and Writing Success: Don’t Let Children Struggle

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When children struggle, parents struggle to help them. When children struggle with reading and writing, parents often don’t know how to help them. Literacy Builders’ Teaching and Learning Resource Center in Plainview, New York educates both parents and children.

Unlike other learning centers that provide educational support in all subject areas, Literacy Builders specializes in reading and writing. Staffed by reading specialists and expert teachers, Literacy Builders begins with understanding a child’s reading and writing abilities. A comprehensive evaluation assesses and identifies difficulties a child may have with reading fluency, decoding, and comprehension or with generating and developing ideas for writing, spelling, and other written conventions. This information is used to create the Reading or Writing Rx, a custom-tailored plan that targets a child’s individual learning goals.

Research has shown that in order to improve children’s reading and writing ability, they need explicit and systematic instruction. Literacy Builder’s Executive Director, Kim Yaris, is a veteran classroom teacher and literacy consultant. She has been creating programs that train teachers how to improve reading and writing instruction in the classroom and has now brought this expertise to the Literacy Builders Teaching and Learning Resource Center. According to Mrs. Yaris, “Literacy is the cornerstone to educational success. When reading and writing are constantly hard work, children learn to hate doing both. We specialize in figuring out what ‘hard’ is. We start with what children can do and build their repertoire of strategies from there. We want to cultivate a love for reading and writing. When children like what they are doing, they are inclined to do it more often. The more children read and write, the better they become at it.”

Increased time spent reading books that match a child’s independent reading level is the core of the Literacy Builders approach. By using books, magazines, poems, plays, and newspapers from the extensive in-house library, children are able to practice important reading goals including fluency, decoding, and comprehension without ever completing a skill and drill worksheet. Real reading materials help to generate greater interest in and passion for learning to read.

Literacy Builders offers a wide range of services for children in grades pre-K-12. Free consultations help parents decide what kind of intervention their child may need. Whether it be intense one-on-one tutoring or small group reading or writing clinics, Literacy Builders makes expert guidance in reading and writing affordable for everybody. They also provide parent training seminars that highlight effective learning strategies and give parents ongoing information about their child’s progress.

The Literacy Builders Teaching and Learning Resource Center located in Suite 309 at 88 Sunnyside Boulevard in Plainview, New York is an inviting, child centered environment that inspires children to want to read and write. With books displayed throughout the reception area and each of the individual classrooms, children can’t help but want to read.

Making a difference sometimes requires being different. Literacy Builders is a different approach to helping children become better readers and writers.

Visit our website, https://www.literacy-builders.com/, to find out how.