Helping a Student Struggling with Reading

Studying an individual child helped me to better understand some problems of the struggling reader because it allowed me to see a real world example of how difficult it can be for the learner and to see some of the unique obstacles to learning that the student encountered. It is one thing to read about it on paper, but it is quite another to actually experience it in real life. In real life, there is more than just the intellectual impact of having to deal with this issue, which is typically all that you experience in a case study in a book. In real life, there are other effects as well: there is an emotional effect, because you really feel for the child struggling; there is a self-doubt effect, because you begin to question yourself as a teacher, wondering if you are taking the right steps or if you are really good enough to help this individual to succeed. You wonder whether you will be able to identify what is wrong, or if there is someone more qualified to help this child. But you also build some self-confidence because in working directly with the child, you o notice some improvements and you do begin to trust in the process that you have learned, how to make assessments, how to individualize the approach and find ways to help the student overcome the issues.
My project helped me to find new strategies to implement as a teacher by getting me to see the student as a unique individual who had special needs. As Reschly (1996) shows, every student has to be approached as an individual because every student is special and has qualities and characteristics that distinguish the student from every other student. Each student has his or her own background, his or her own culture, own family, own friends, own influences and factors that affect the student’s life in a variety of ways. What I determined was that by finding the context of the student’s struggles, I was able to pinpoint areas that might yield some positive result. For instance, by seeing that the student was having difficulty with certain words that shared common characteristics, I could focus on these words and use images to help provide the student with visuals of what the words signified. I could also provide some better context in which the words might be used so that the student could begin to have some greater familiarity with them. I tried to use context from the student’s own background to build on these examples so that they would be more meaningful and that seemed to work well. However, there was also the problem of just getting the student to respond with words and I encouraged the student to respond in her native language just to get her talking; I wanted her to feel comfortable with the communicative process even if it was not in the L2. We could build on this development of comfort and I could ease her into using the L2 even if she stumbled over the language quite a bit. I made her feel comfortable with making mistakes and she grew more willing to participate in this way. She was more willing to communicate what she read, to ask questions and to puzzle over meanings with me and even the rest of the class. It was really about letting her know that she belonged and that no one was judging her.
Studying an individual in depth better enhanced my teaching because it showed me that sometimes you have to assess whether a student has a learning disability and if the mental faculties are all there then the problem might be with the educative process. As Maria Montessori showed, students should be able to learn at their own pace—but what I have found with studying this individual student in depth is that students who are struggling can really benefit from one-on-one attention time, because this extra attention allows them to reflect more critically without feeling overwhelmed by the social pressures that exist in a large classroom. One-on-one reading time is really helpful as has been by the Sioux Falls Public Schools Education Foundation (2011) where paired oral reading helps students by pairing struggling readers with an adult for an extra hour of reading time every day.
This case study has helped me to avoid grouping all struggling readers in a “one size fits all” box by showing me that one size does not in fact fit all. Every student is unique and deserves special attention. The problem is finding the time to give this differentiated instruction to them. Sometimes there is just not enough time to go around and I feel that this is really unfortunate. I think that differentiated instruction is a great tool to help struggling readers, as it allows the teacher to focus on the obstacles that the learner is facing and assist the student in overcoming them. I would definitely promote differentiated instruction in the future, as I see it as a valuable technique. It certainly worked in this case with my learner.
My course work at Touro College prepared me to effectively conduct and write up this case study by providing me with the skills needed to perform an adequate analysis and develop strategies that I could implement to help the learner overcome obstacles. Without the tools that I was given in my course work, I would have felt completely out of my depth. Initially, I did feel that way, but I remembered what I was taught and begin to implement this teaching along the way, relying on the knowledge that I had acquired throughout the course. It was really refreshing, actually, to be able to move forward and make progress, using the information I had obtained through my course work here: I was seeing how everything applied in the real world, and it made me feel like I really was qualified to do this after all. Conducting the case study and doing the write up seemed easy to me after a while, because the course work had essentially laid the ground work for me and all I had to do was rely upon the knowledge I had acquired from the classes and texts.
I am not sure that I would do anything differently in writing up my case study now that I have completed it and have been reflecting on the work that I did. Part of what I really enjoyed about it was the exploratory nature of the case: I felt like I was making discoveries along the way—not just about the student but also about myself. I would not want to change that experience in the slightest because it was so illuminative for me. Now, were I to conduct another case study in the future, I would probably go about it a little differently now that I have done this one. I would definitely go into it with more confidence, knowing that the tools I have been given from class really do apply in the real world and can be used effectively. I would trust to this process a lot more and not give way to so many feelings of self-doubt. At the same time, I think that I would try to take better notes throughout so that during the write-up I could go back to these to see exactly what transpired instead of having to rely so much on my memory and recall details that happened earlier on. I did not enjoy this portion of the write-up and wished that I had done the write-up in stages, developing it at the same time as I was conducting the case study so that everything was fresher in my mind. I would probably go about it this way for the next case study that I do. As for my interaction with the student, I felt that everything worked out for the best and I did not have any regrets about interacting with the student or obtaining background information to provide some context for helping the student overcome the obstacles that she was facing. I would definitely repeat this method in the future.
References
Reschly, D. “Identification and assessment of students with disabilities.” Special
Education for Students with Disabilities, 6, 1, 1996: 40-53.
Sioux Falls Public Schools Education Foundation. (2011). Paired Oral Reading
Washington High School [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80dH1qhHXO8