Out of Her Mind -- Musings on Education and Life

Morris & Gaffney's (in press) article, "Building Reading Fluency in a Disabled Middle-School Reader" details the work done with a rising 8th grader at  Appalachian State University's Reading Clinic over the course of a calendar year. Who is Luke? Luke is a middle- schooler , a rising 8th grader, who reads at the rate of a 2nd grader.  He lacks fluency and speed.  Exogenous Factors:  moved from another state in 5th grade Endogenous Factors:   ADD, seizure disorders; both controlled by medications Reading History: at 5th grade, read at late first grade level had difficulty in decoding/read at a slow rate after working int he Wilson Reading program, his decoding had greatly improved by the end of 6th. However, rate remained slow. He currently reads at a 3rd-4th grade level with a significant deficit in reading fluency. Luke's Intervention--Focusing on Fluency Using his interests (Civil War, WW II, Civil rights, & Greek mythology), the

○ According to Larson, what should be the unit of processing? Letter or word? LETTER ○ What is at stake with a word shape model of word recognition? UMM --it's crazy--the actual process of reading is not understood and would lead people to focus on unrelated features of the word.  Our instructional time is limited.  Struggling readers need the MOST time to spend reading and they need the highest quality of instruction--teaching word shape is ineffective and muddies the waters.  You will have students who can't read because they didn't learn to decode. ○ Should we teach typical eye-movements (of a reader) to struggling readers? I don't know where I stand on this issue.  My instincts say---maybe with the most disabled readers.  But this seems so instinctual, so tacit.  How do you teach it?  It's a slippery slope issue.  Teaching stuff like eye movement reminds me of having dyslexics focus on strengthening their eyes and their fine and gross motor skills.  We DO