What Do You Think? (Jonathan)

Effective Strategies Will Help with Reading

Christine Chern

         From the description, it seems like Jonathan is struggling with reading and possibly unmotivated too. He may not know the strategies for reading, so it would help if Mrs. Potter taught the class some reading strategies. In this way, students can share the strategies that they use with the class, and discover other reading strategies. Mrs. Potter could design different workshops for different strategies to use. When working in groups, Jonathan would get help from peers when they do the strategies together, so that he would not have to struggle with reading the materials alone and not knowing what to do to applying to the strategies. The possible strategies, like highlighting, making a concept map, note cards, a KWL chart, and taking notes, are helpful for students to keep track of what they have read. Once they have strategies for reading, they will become less unmotivated to read. Furthermore, after the workshops, Mrs. Potter could make the reading strategies into visual aids to put around the classroom, so that when students are struggling in reading, they can look at the visual aids to remember what they should do.

         I am currently assuming that Jonathan is six-year-old. To such a young child, reading is very difficult and unmotivating, because there are so many words and letters. It would help to have pictures and images in the reading, so that they have an idea what they are reading, and it would make more sense to them. For younger children, Mrs. Potter would definitely want to try with picture books first. When reading picture books, the class could read it together and in groups. There are several types of choral reading that Mrs. Potter can use to engage students and assist them in reading. Echo reading is appropriate when the student, like Jonathan, is struggling in reading. Mrs. Potter or another student who’s reading ability is at the grade level can lead, while the others follow. Gradually, when Jonathan becomes more comfortable reading, Mrs. Potter can slowly take away group reading and have him read individually more.  Another appropriate strategy is partner-reading, which is pairing up students of low and high reading abilities. Since Jonathan has no problem with social skills, he can very quickly improve with his peers’ help.