Teaching Reading Issues - Case Study Example

The world mostly looks upon the kindergarten teacher to ensure kids have acquired the rightful skills in each stage of development. Failure to achieve this development milestone in learning calls for intervention by the teacher to assist in ensuring the student catches up with the rest (Paulsen, 2010).

As a kindergarten teacher in charge of Jeff, aged 5.9 years in grade K, I realized he was a quite hardworking boy though he was lagging in reading skills compared to his peers. Jeff participated in all class activities and mastered most kindergarten skills involving math skills, art, and hands-on activities. I identified his strengths as being able to identify and match lower and upper case letters, understanding the meaning print conveys, plus being able to listen and participate in reading sessions. After meeting with the parents and discussing his problem with them, I had to come up with goals and strategies that might be beneficial to Jeff to improve his reading skills (Paulsen, 2010).

The following four goals were the ones I managed to come up with to ensure Jeff catches up on his reading skills:
- Given a book, Jeff will read fluently.
- In reading books and print, Jeff will understand the concepts in them.
- After reading books and print, Jeff will engage in talk about them.
- Jeff will pretend to read while using the book’s language.

To ensure Jeff when given a book reads fluently, the model-lead test strategy could be implemented. In here, the teacher can instruct the student to read systematically and repeatedly until the student develops the reading skills. This strategy is often advantageous for a student like Jeff who has reading difficulties (Paulsen, 2010). The teacher is always present to ensure the student achieves the given goal. The teacher here will point to certain words and sentences until Jeff can read fluently. This strategy allows for constant repetition until when Jeff improves his reading skills (Paulsen, 2010).

Repeated reading is another strategy that can be employed to ensure Jeff develops his reading skills. In repeated strategy, the student is made to repeat sentences, and certain words to achieve fluency. The student is made to repeat the same sentences and words to become more familiar with them and remove the reading difficulties he had (Paulsen, 2010). This could be achieved through partner reading. This is when classmates are paired to practice reading in pairs. Another way when repeated reading could be initiated is through group reading. Here, a group of students is made to read a given sentence or story collectively (Paulsen, 2010).

Another strategy that could be employed to help Jeff improve is peer tutoring. Here, Jeff could be encouraged to practice reading with other students who are good at reading (Paulsen, 2010). Jeff could be placed with his peers and left alone to practice reading. In peer tutoring, a student can receive encouragement from his peers and try to achieve the reading level the other students had attained. Jeff on seeing his peers will most likely feel more encouraged since he can interact with them too, and this helps him build his confidence in reading (Paulsen, 2010). This could be done through cross-age peer tutoring that entails older students tutoring young students. Young students often regard their older counterparts as their mentors in learning. Another way that could be used for Jeff could be class-wide peer tutoring. Here, the class is divided into high achievers in reading and low achievers in reading. Then, some of the high achievers in reading could be made to tutor Jeff (Paulsen, 2010).

Another strategy that could be beneficial for Jeff to improve his reading skills will be independent practice. Here, Jeff himself is encouraged by his teacher and his parents and provided with a conducive environment to carry out his reading. Jeff could be allowed sometime in the night or after school to read on his own in a secluded place with no distractions (Paulsen, 2010). Through independent practice, the child can identify some of his mistakes while reading and overcome them through constant practice. The teacher could also provide a quiet time for students to practice reading on their own.