Rolon 1 Ashley Rolon EdLit 735 Observational Analysis of Teaching Introduction Many teachers enter the classroom with

the feeling that they are not equipped with a frame for reading instruction that is practical and comprehensive. In Teaching Reading in Multilingual Classrooms (2000) David and Yvonne Freeman introduce the Checklist for Effective Reading Instruction to help students develop reading. The checklist encourages teachers to reflect on their instruction, because each item is framed as a question about their practice. What is helpful for teachers is that each checklist item is supported by extensive research about reading development. The checklist encourages teachers to find strategies that work for their students. In their text Freeman and Freeman describe teachers who use the checklist to plan their curriculum to illustrate how it can be used effectively. The Freeman and Freeman reading checklist is influenced by the Sociopsycholinguistic view of reading. This view focuses on the meaning students make when interacting with a text. Readers construct meaning of a text when they read, and these meanings are influenced by their social interactions and their culture. Readers respond as they do because of their background experiences, which is different for each reader. Within in the mind readers use the linguistic cueing systems simultaneously to make meaning. The three cue systems that proficient readers use when reading, which are acquired subconsciously, are graphophonic, syntactic, and semantic. These operate together to help readers make sense of a text. Freeman and Freeman believe that readers "acquire control of the cue systems through reading, rather than learning them as the result of direct instruction" (2000, p. 25). That is, when readers interact with a text they recognize the letters and sounds (graphophonic), predict logical word and sentence order

Rolon 2 (syntactic), and connect words with functional meanings in the real world (semantic). This checklist is relevant for teachers at any stage in their career because the research behind it is already translated into this practical tool. In Building a Knowledge Base in Reading Jane Braunger and Jan Patricia Lewis discuss critical research about literacy instruction. They argue against the Word Recognition view of reading that supports decoding of words and teaching of "phonemic awareness". In their text they provide theory from multiple views including this Word Recognition view, but ultimately support a balanced approach to reading that they explain further in their Core Understandings. They don't see reading as a "bottom-up or part-to-whole process" (Braunger and Lewis, 2005, p. 9), which is championed by the Word Recognition view and which does not account for the natural acquisition of language. This kind of instruction does not consider cultural or environmental influences on a child, nor does it attempt to focus on reading as a meaning making process. It instead looks at reading as a hierarchy of skills and implies that a person cannot read for meaning until they learn the skills of decoding and sounding out words. Braunger and Lewis believe that reading is "developmental, purposeful, interactive, and socially constructed" (2005, p. 17), which is consistent with the Sociopsycholinguistic view. The Core Understandings are based on a collection of theories and research studies about reading, and "reflect the nature of reading as language; as such, it is always about meaning and communication" (Braunger and Lewis, 2005, p. 58). They provide examples of strategies that help engage students in reading, as well as information about the development of reading for all learners, including limited English proficient students. They are valuable to teachers because they impart strategies to strengthen instruction and planning that are backed by research.

Rolon 3 School Environment I am currently teaching at a middle school in the Bronx I am at the school for ten weeks as a teaching apprentice with the NYC Department of Education Middle School Spring Classroom Apprenticeship. The school is located in the South Bronx and serves grades 6-12. According to the school portal website the school received a B on their 2011-2012 progress report. There are a total of 631 students in the school. 69% of the school population is Hispanic, 27% is Black, 2% Asian, and the remaining 2% is White, Multiracial, Pacific Islander, or American Indian. 68 students, or about 10% of the total population, are English Language Learners. 25% of the population is Special Education students in most and least restrictive environments. The teacher with whom I am working has been teaching 6th grade ELA for 2 years. This is her first year working with a larger class size in an Integrated Team-Teaching environment. She previously worked in a self contained special education class. The 6th grade class we are working with has 27 students, of which 9 have an IEP. I was informed that many of the students arrived in September on a 2nd grade reading level, but through dedication to daily reading, have increased their levels. Students are asked to read 30 minutes a day for homework. The class participates in weekly reading marathons for at least an hour to build stamina, interact with different genres, and practice ELA skills. The classes mostly occur in one room, which is the ELA homeroom. The students have 2 hours of ELA instruction. The classroom library has leveled book bins, author bins, and series bins. There are also nonfiction texts arranged by subject. Students have access to laptops, which they use for math and research in all subjects. The school also provides teachers with their own laptop with full internet access. Teachers use this technology daily to interact with school staff,

Rolon 4 input student grades, and teach in conjunction with the classroom projector and document camera. The experiences you read about will come from this environment, with research and theories that support effective reading instruction. I will be analyzing my teaching as well as the learning environment, and teaching of my Cooperating Teacher. This paper is framed by the Checklist for Effective Reading Instruction (Freeman & Freeman, 2000), is supported by their reading research, the Core Understandings promoted by Braunger and Lewis, and reading research by Frank Smith. Checklist for Effective Reading Instruction Checklist Item 1: Do students value themselves as readers, and do they value reading? The literacy club is where all learners enjoy reading and writing. Students who value reading and writing are members of, what Frank Smith calls, the "literacy club". Freeman and Freeman explain that students sometimes find no value in reading and writing, often because they lack positive self efficacy. More specifically they state, "If students do not become members of the literacy club, it may be because they do not understand the benefits of literacy, or it may be that others, for one reason or another, expect that they will have trouble using written language" (Freeman and Freeman, 2000, p. 34). The goals of teachers are to have firm belief that students will join the literacy club, and to promote reading and writing as valuable. One way to promote positive relations in the literacy club is to acknowledge that all students in a classroom are part of the literacy club, the only difference they have is in experience. In our class many students value themselves as readers. When looking for a new book to read students visit the class library, or other teachers libraries to find interesting texts. On Fridays there are usually about 8 students who stay after school to find new independent

Rolon 5 books to read. Through my conversations with students, I have learned that they enjoy reading books that reflect their interests, such as sports books. The classroom libraries are categorized by reading level, but teachers have made sure to find books of various interest. This limits some of the books that students can choose to read, however students continue reading. What we want to avoid in our classroom are bored students. "When reading instruction focuses on decoding texts with little emphasis on meaning or relevance of the texts, students become apathetic" (Smith as quoted in Freeman and Freeman, 2000, p. 34). We instead want students to be actively engaging with reading and writing to make meaning. When students are engaged with their text they make connections to their lives and prior knowledge. Braunger and Lewis say that students "actively engage with the text and build their own understanding. Engagement presumes motivation, interest, and purpose, even emotional involvement (both positive and negative)" (2006, p. 59). Students are excited when they go up a reading level or find books that interest them. One student, who was previously on a level N, moved up to a level R in 2 months. It was interesting that he moved so high because he does not usually complete his independent reading assignments in class. He revealed that he reads aloud at home for sometimes 2 hours. Although Smith (2005) argues against the validity of reading levels outside of the school structure most students show in this classroom that they value their reading habits. It seems that some of the students understand that their reading level is just a result of their practice of greater reading. If I could adjust some practices in the classroom, it would be to allow students the chance to regularly share their readings with each other. The final unit of the school year will be a student driven, independent reading unit. Students were asked their favorite genres, books, and authors so that the unit can be planned according to their interests. They will work in book clubs

Rolon 6 to share their independent reading and reflect on their reading skills. I would suggest that students practice this throughout the year; discussions about literature should not be saved for the end. As students read their independent books, they are required to only log the time they spend reading. To make reading more valuable I would assign informal assignments that ask students to make connections to their books, or to explain their book using art, letters, or comic books. I think that providing engaging reading activities will make it explicit to the class as a whole that reading is valuable, and that discussion of reading improves understanding. (Braunger & Lewis, 2006). Checklist Item 3: Do students see teachers engaged in reading for pleasure as well as for information? It is immensely important that teachers show students that they read for a variety of reasons if they are to expect that students join the literacy club. In Teaching Reading in Multilingual Classrooms Freeman and Freeman describe a teacher, Mary, who demonstrates that she enjoys reading, and reads for pleasure. She is observed reading as students come into her class, and while they choose their books and settle into the room she continues reading. She established the reading routine to show that she valued reading and wanted her students to development their value for reading. This models a behavior, reading for enjoyment, that she wants to students to practice. The authors say that "demonstrations help students learn how to perform certain activities, but they can also help students develop certain attitudes" (Freeman & Freeman, 2000, p.54). This illustrated one of the three steps to helping students join the literacy club. This first step is demonstrations, which Smith defines as whenever we do something we think is important and others observe us (Freeman & Freeman, 2000, p. 53). Some examples

Rolon 7 they provide include parents explaining newspaper articles to children to demonstrate how people talk about texts. My cooperating teacher and I demonstrate expressive reading when we read aloud to the class to show that our voices breath life and meaning into a text. The second step is engagement; students have to be engaged in their reading in order to learn. Freeman and Freeman suggest using high-interest materials, previewing the materials, and making sure the reading has a purpose for the students (2000, p. 54).Students have access to many texts in the classroom and school. There is also a unit that will revolve around student author and genre interests at the end of the year. The third step to joining the Literacy Club is sensitivity: Smith's definition of sensitivity is "the absence of any expectation that learning will not take place or that it will be difficult." (Freeman & Freeman, 2000, p. 54). I always make sure to show students that I have the belief that reading and writing will not be hard for them. In all classes I set high expectations for students to complete work because I believe in their ability to accomplish our class goals. In our classroom my cooperating teacher and I introduce the class to the lesson with a hook or preview. When introducing mood and tone in poetry we shared a song by Common and described it as a piece of poetry that affected our emotions. I described feeling frustrated long after we read it together as a class. Yatvin believes that, readers expand their vocabularies and background knowledge through listening to the teacher read stories aloud and conversing with their peers (2000, p. 4). We demonstrated that music has an effect on our emotions, and that we make connections between our experiences and poetry in many forms. I noticed that students were engaged in their reading of the poem because they spent time during quiet, independent work time discussing what they thought to be the mood, tone, and message of the poem.

Rolon 8 During Reading Marathons we hand out post-its for students to write about the reading skill they are practicing, and as they read we sit down at a desk and read also. I chose to read Holes by Louis Sachar as my reading choice because it was a favorite book of mine when I was in middle school. I wanted to make a connection between our definition of mood in poetry and how it is applicable to other genres, so I read aloud with great emotion to discuss how I found an example of mood in my reading. By showing students that I value reading, I invited them to enjoy reading and join the "literacy club". The process of reading a piece of a text aloud and discussing how I used my reading skills to make meaning I approached students as readers who make connections every time they interact with a text. Checklist Items 2 & 4: Do students read from a variety of genres? and Do students have a wide variety of reading materials to choose from and time to read? If teachers of reading are expected to engage students in meaningful reading they should provide access to books. School, community, and classroom libraries are resources that contain various reading materials and tests for students. A classroom with a variety of genres will support student engagement in reading, especially if the texts are relevant to the students interests and cultures. Of course, time in class should be devoted to helping students find interesting, engaging books. A challenge facing teachers and students in underserved communities is lack of access to books. Neuman & Celano (2001) found that low-income students had consistently less access to quality reading materials than did middle-income students (Braunger & Lewis, 2006, p. 125). Freeman and Freeman describe the many different types of literary and expository texts that students should read from including fiction, poetry, drama, newspapers, and advertisements. "If, as we have argued, students acquire literacy when they engage with meaningful texts, then

Rolon 9 students must be exposed to different genres to acquire the ability to read those different kinds of texts" (Freeman & Freeman, 2000, p.38). Repeated exposure to different texts helps students acquire the knowledge and skills to comprehend these texts. Elley found that students who lack resources, exposure to English, and qualified teachers have great struggles with their literacy and reading development. School environments that support successful reading achievement have classrooms that "are flooded with a large supply of high-interest, illustrated reading books and their teachers are shown simple methods of ensuring that the children interact regularly and productively with these books" (Freeman & Freeman, 2000, p. 62). He found that when students have access to reading their literacy development increases. It was also "found that there were fewer books per child in school libraries of schools that served more poor children. In addition, schools serving many poor children allowed fewer visits to the school libraries" (Allington, 1995, as cited in Freeman and Freeman, 2000, p. 64). In the classroom the entire area by the window, from wall to wall, is filled with books. They are placed in bins and crates. There are four rows of books in the library. Some bins are arranged by reading level (m-z), some are arranged by author's last name, such as Gary Soto, Roald Dahl. Some texts are arranged by topic, with books and magazines about sports in one bin. There are bins with magazines, and nonfiction texts separated by topic also, such as animals, biographies, weather. There is a stack of large print dictionaries that are not regularly used. I have been told that students can also borrow books from the other English teachers, who have similar libraries in their classrooms. Students are able to find texts that are engaging and of high quality.

Rolon 10 During Reading Marathons students read their independent reading fiction book. Then students are asked to choose at least 3 books from the nonfiction bins to read. I have seen students choose books about killer bugs, informational books spiders, biographies of sports players, and even a book of world records. During the marathons students are asked to log into their reading log sheet, because the teacher stresses that 30 minutes a day of reading increases their reading skills. This shows that the teacher values their reading time because she gives them time to read from different genres. Checklist Items 7 and 8: Are students effective readers? That is, do they make a balanced use of all three cueing systems? and Are students efficient readers? That is, do they make minimal use of cues to construct meaning? Reading proficiency involves a reader being effective and efficient. To do so they must make use of all three cueing systems in order make meaning as they read. Freeman and Freeman describe ineffective readers as those who do not balance the systems as they read. They may focus too much on visual cues and lose the meaning of the text. Freeman and Freeman say that efficient readers use only as much information as necessary to construct meaning (2000, p. 74). These efficient readers will use as much graphophonics as necessary to make connections to the semantic meanings, and to make predictions using syntactic cues. Readers who are proficient will not focus too much on one cue system, and will still construct meaning despite any errors they make when reading. The main idea of chapter 4 of Frank Smiths Reading Without Nonsense (2005) is that readers should depend on the eyes as little as possible (2005, p. 43). Smith argues that what the eyes pick up from the page has no meaning if the brain cannot summon any background knowledge to make connections to that page. He calls these two kinds of information visual and nonvisual. Visual information is what is picked up from the page and sent to the brain. Nonvisual

Rolon 11 information is in the mind, it is the understanding of language and the subject matter. Smith says the two have a reciprocal relationship, the more nonvisual information you have, the less visual information you need (2005, p. 45). Thus, a proficient reader will use nonvisual information more than visual because they have the subject knowledge to make predictions and connections to the text. As part of the test prep unit we taught before the ELA exams students were introduced to new texts during each class period. These texts were from workbooks designed to prepare students for the new Common Core exams. Students practiced a different test taking or reading skill each day in their groups. Some students were ineffective because they were frequently held back by the words they could not understand. This led them to focus on the graphophonics and lose the meaning of the text. I noticed that many of the students, who struggled with semantics, or the nonvisual information, often expressed frustration and were unable to complete their task. Some students did not have the necessary background knowledge to help them make sense of the text they were reading. Despite being able to read the text with a few errors, a third of students in a small group I worked with expressed that they could not logically follow the story. One student did not read beyond the second paragraph. .I asked him to comprehension questions about the beginning of the story, to which he replied that he stopped because he didnt understand the point of the story. I concluded that he did not make balanced use of the cueing system. He may not have had the background knowledge to move beyond the graphophonics, which created barriers to his comprehension. He has the ability to read the words, however he may have been overloaded with visual information that his brain was unable to make meaning. My cooperating teacher and I began teaching a Historical Fiction unit after the exams, which requires extensive background knowledge. The first days of instruction were focused on

Rolon 12 providing students with greater background knowledge using fiction and nonfiction read alouds, photos, and videos. Students were given a context to build a schema for their reading so that they could make greater connections to their texts. Braunger and Lewis state that "readers consciously orchestrate a variety of thinking skills to make meaning of the texts they read. They rely on a wide range of background knowledge, both about the world they live in and the ways in which they can get meaning from a text" (2006, p. 66). This relates to the Sociopsycholinguistic view because readers rely on the cueing systems to create meaning. This further illustrates the fact that readers, who lack the background knowledge, or nonvisual information, will rely more on graphophonic cues. This makes them more likely to make errors that inhibit comprehension. Smith offers practical treatments for teachers to use in the classroom, such as reading books that they can already read, providing background information through media or discussion, or reading the book aloud to them. Checklist Item 6: Do students regard reading as meaning making at all times? That is, do they construct meaning as they read? Braunger and Lewis say that, to support reading, teachers must help students make sense of written language by introducing them to essential schema, teaching explicit comprehension strategies, and providing opportunities to read a variety of texts (2005, p. 59). This means that students should have the background knowledge and strategies to make meaning as they read. Freeman and Freeman explain that teaching with themes and providing students with time for authentic reading encourages students to make connections and meaning. Braunger and Lewis explain that "reading is a sociocultural process: That is, it occurs within a situation whose participants, time, place, and expectation will affect the reader and the meaning he or she constructs from it" (2005, p. 59). The sense that students make from a text is affected by time,

Rolon 13 the setting, and instructional expectations. This highlights the importance of giving students time to interact with authentic, engaging texts, and also creating an environment where reading is valued.. For more than half of my stay at the school, I did not observe my cooperating teacher using themes to teach reading. The time before the New York English Languages Arts exams was used to focus on skill isolation and practice with test preparation materials. This approach seemed to affect the meaning process for some of the students. I observed that one of the groups, the higher-level group, was able to consistently answer the multiple choice and short answer questions. However, informal talks with students who were once able to explain how they loved reading could not, or refused to, articulate what they comprehended from the texts we read. Although students were asked to practice reading strategies they knew well, the context of the instruction and the expectations did not allow students to authentically engage with texts. They were expected to practice skills on disconnected texts everyday, and write essays on the same disconnected, boring test texts. Many students felt anxious and stressed as we approached the first day of the exam. There were students who comprehended the texts, and effectively answered multiple choice questions and extended responses showing that they understood the texts. I spoke with a student who was able to comprehend a text he read during a test-prep session. He explained that crows are intelligent because they can fish and use tools to find food. He was able to make some sense of the text, but I would have liked for him, and the class, to explore their connections to the text. The test questions simply asked students to find details to support a claim that was not their own original idea. The meaning that they made from the text was affected by the expectations of the response questions, not from their connection to background knowledge.

Rolon 14 I have observed students who did not make meaning as they read because they lacked background knowledge, or because their reading habits were poor. There were many times that students gave up reading after the first sentence. They were faced with large words they had not seen before about unfamiliar topics. I could not gauge if they learned strategies to find the meaning of words. I could however see that they experienced anxiety because they were being stressed about the importance of using reading skills for the ELA exams. Meaningful reading of texts that were engaging would have been beneficial for students to practice the skills they needed for the exams. I believe that giving students a text and asking them to anticipate test conditions inhibits reading for meaning. In order to help students develop their reading comprehension teachers have to provide meaningful texts. Checklist Item 9: Are students provided with appropriate strategy lessons if they experience difficulties in their reading? For the test prep unit my cooperating teacher divided the class into four groups of students who demonstrated similar needs. They were named after card suits, so there were Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, and Clubs. Each group received a guided reading lesson and used the same, or similar materials, but the instruction was tailored to students' need. I noticed that the groups were divided by reading level, which can be helpful for guided group instruction, but only temporarily. What was troubling about this approach was that students were kept in the same group for the entire test prep unit. Opitz and Ford in Reaching Readers state that, The group should stay together until is has accomplished the purpose for forming it in the first place (2001, p. 25). Even within the small groups of students with similar reading levels, the learning styles and strengths of students were totally different. I worked with the lower level group of readers to

Rolon 15 teach them test taking and reading strategies. It was difficult to create small group teaching missions to target a need that some students did not have within the group. There were 2 students in the group who expressed that they did not need some of the lessons, and usually finished their assigned work quickly; leading them to become bored with the test taking work. Another student constantly avoided the work I provided him because he was bored by the content. One thing I tried that seemed to work very well with the class stamina goal was a strategy called SPINE. It stands for Study the text, by looking at headings, pictures, and skimming for names; Purpose, found by looking at the questions; Interact, which meant reading and asking questions; Notes, which meant that they would write down their thoughts and summaries of the text; and Evaluate to check if they made meaning. This was something I created to help my group read two stories, annotate, and answer test questions in less than a half hour. I created this in response to their performance on a practice test. I noticed that they did not annotate their text, and they either did not finish or did not answer the questions correctly. After practicing the strategy for three days I noticed that students used some aspects of the strategy on a practice test. Checklist Item 10: Do students have opportunities to talk about what they have read, making connections between the reading and their own experiences? Based on the Sociopsycholinguistic view reading is a social activity. Readers develop their skills as they read and make connections to the text. Readers also discuss with others to learn more information and make a greater amount of connections to text. "Readers need the opportunity to interact with both peers and adults in a wide variety of settings as they learn and practice literacy knowledge, skills, and strategies. It is through social interaction that readers at all stages develop their individual understandings and knowledge" (Cambourne as cited in Braunger & Lewis, 2002, p.62).

Rolon 16 In the classroom students have daily interactions with each other and their teachers. Teachers at the school make frequent use of the turn and talk procedure to allow students the opportunity to share their ideas and responses to their reading. Students turn and talk with partners to discuss reading skills and strategies such as making inferences, searching for character traits, main idea, and author's purpose. Turn and talks are also used to interact with students as they share their personal responses to their reading. The historical fiction unit is geared toward small group instruction through book clubs. Each group is studying a different time era. As they read their novels and nonfiction texts, they were asked to engage in discussions about the information they are learning. They had a list of prompts to guide their discussions, they also created lists of questions to bring to their group. This helped them to learn discussion and conversational techniques. It is in their groups that they develop their thinking and reading skills, hence "response and discussion help students develop metacognitive skills important to constructing meaning (Palincsar and Brown, 1984, as cited in Braunger and Lewis, 2006, p. 66). In my writing period I tried to plan time during each lesson where students discussed with a partner or group members. I wanted to provide time for students to discuss the historical texts they were reading and how they influenced their narrative short story writing assignments. Checklist Item 11: Do students revise their individual understandings of text in response to the comments of classmates? Freeman and Freeman promote literature circles as a way to provide students the opportunity to discuss their reading. They believe that literature discussions help students make connections to their lives, and usually influence greater comprehension because students are able to provide new details or perspectives of a shared reading or theme. Group discussions help

Rolon 17 students' cognitive development because, "they learn how to realize uncertainties in their understandings, explain and justify their positions, seek information to help them resolve the uncertainty, and learn to see alternative points of view" (Almasi, 1995;Brown & Palinscar, 1989; Doise & Mugny, 1984; Johnson & Johnson, 1979; Mugny & Doise, 1978, as quoted in Braunger & Lewis, 2006, p. 108). Opitz and Ford in Reaching Readers discuss the need for authentic reading and talking in the classroom. Adult readers typically discuss the books the reading and their responses to it; they do not label themselves according to letters or levels. Quite simply Students who talk about what they read are more likely to be motivated to read (Guthrie, Schafer, Wang, & Afflerbach, 1995; Morrow & Weinstein, 1986 as cited in Braunger & Lewis, 2006, p. 108). I have witnessed students revising their individual understandings of text in response to comments of classmates in the classroom as students engage in book club discussions. For the first book club discussion I acted as a facilitator to ensure that students followed discussion norms. Students in their book clubs take notes and ask questions about what they read. When discussing they are expected to listen to the student who is speaking, and then respond to the speaker by providing information to answer their question. During our discussion students discussed the notes they took about characters. One student had a question about how people dressed during the civil rights era because he could not find enough information. One of his group members explained that in the beginning the Watson family dressed in layers of clothing. Another student explained that they were wearing the clothing inside their home because they were cold. The group agreed that they were inside wearing their clothing, and made an inference that they were probably poor and unable to pay for heat. I asked the original speaker if the

Rolon 18 information helped them, and he said that it did, and also gave him information about how people lived during the time period. Another example within this discussion was of the need for historical event information. One student could not find any inclusion of historical figures or events. One student remembered the historical research they did the week before and described the school setting in the novel. In the black neighborhood students from Kindergarten to fourth grade are in one classroom. The students realized that this was tied to the segregation of schools and inequities between African Americans and Caucasians. I noticed in students reflections that they believed the discussion helped them. They were able to receive information from their peers, talk about the same thing, and work together as a group. Some aspects of the discussion that were negative to them were the off-topic conversations, lack of time to read, and lack of information received from peers. These are all things that can be addressed and worked on within the classroom to provide more engaging book club discussions. Summary Analysis/Conclusion In 2001, Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. This became the law known as No Child Left Behind, which aggressively raised standards for teaching and testing to help all American children who President Bush argued, are segregated by low expectations, illiteracy, and self-doubt (2001). This law was influenced by the National Reading Panel report Teaching Children to Read, which reviewed studies about how children learn to read. Joanne Yatvin, a member of the Panel, wrote a minority view after the publication because of the large influence it had on the No Child Left Behind law. She argued that what

Rolon 19 they [the panel] did not consider in most cases were the school and classroom realities that make some types of instruction difficulteven impossibleto implement (2000, pg. 2). She believed the report was unfinished, especially because of the narrow approach they took to researching studies. She tried, in vain, to urge Congress members from acting, on the basis of the Panels limited and narrow set of findings (2000, pg. 3). This resulted in a nationalized school system, of which Joel Spring in The American School writes, all public school students were required to conform to federal requirements (2008, p.487). The recently adopted Common Core standards reflect the laws requirement that all students learn similarly to reach higher standards. These developments in educational policy greatly affect teachers because they favor, a monolingual and monocultural society as opposed to a multilingual and pluralistic society (2008, p. 489). The Panels focus on phonics, decoding, fluency, and comprehension as precursors to reading shows the misguided approach they took as they created their report. As I have learned from many of the researchers included in this paper, readers acquire reading by making meaning with what they interact with. They also interact with others to make a sense of text, because reading is a social process. Regulating reading instruction to disconnected drills of decoding, or phonics, without meaningful texts, does not help readers in the long run. The Freeman and Freeman Checklist for Effective Reading Instruction shows that all readers can become proficient in language and reading. I have learned greatly from reflecting on me and my cooperating teachers instruction with the checklist. I have learned that reading instruction is important for all learners, especially those students who struggle with language and reading. The school has a mostly effective reading curriculum in place. The students seem to value themselves as readers, have access to a variety of texts, and the time to read within the

Rolon 20 classroom. The teacher and I provided time for students to discuss their reading with each other in book club discussions. I observed that students sometimes had obstacles that prevented them from making meaning from a text, such as a lack of background information, and an unbalanced use of the three cueing systems. Many students relied too much on the visual cues and found themselves not making sense of the texts they read. Students were provided with some strategy lessons to help them practice reading skills, especially during the test prep unit. Who I did not see much attention on were English Language Learners. Students home languages were not incorporated into instruction, and neither were their experiences used to guide instruction. I see myself in a classroom in the future using the Freeman and Freeman checklist to help all learners. I can foresee challenges of finding access to books in schools with an underserved population, but I know that in order to effectively teach reading I need to provide access to a variety of engaging texts. The changing demographics in student population should not be cause for alarm, but teachers should be equipped with a frame that promotes achievement for all students, regardless of skill level. The strategies in Goodbye Round Robin (2008), Teaching Reading in Multilingual Classrooms (2000), and Reaching Readers (2001) will prove to be an inexhaustible resource to help me plan instruction. "Between 1989 and 2000...the number of students classified as LEP rose from about two million to over four million, an increase of over 100 percent" (Freeman & Freeman, 2000, p. 7). In the year 2013, it can be inferred that this number is much higher, meaning that there are many more children who struggle when learning English. Clearly, teachers in the United States have to adjust their teaching to provide reading instruction relevant to all learners. My hope is that the strict guidelines of the No Child Left Behind act do not hinder

Rolon 21 the efforts of researchers versed in the Sociopsycholinguistic view of reading to help teachers instruct reading. Appendix References Braunger, J. & Lewis J. (2006). Building a Knowledge Base in Reading. Newark, DE: International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English. Curtis, C. (1963). The Watsons go to Birmingham. New York, NY: Delacorte Press. Frank S. (2005). Reading-from behind the eyes. Reading without nonsense. (pp. 43-64). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Smith, F. (2005). Labels and Fables. Reading without nonsense. (pp. 143-156). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Freeman, D. & Freeman, Y. (2000). Teaching Reading in Multilingual Classrooms. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. New York City Department of Education. (2013). Statistics and budget: register [Data File]. Retrieved from http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/12/X271/AboutUs/Statistics/register.htm. Opitz, M. & Ford, M. (2001). Reaching Readers: Flexible and innovative Strategies for Guided Reading. Portsmouth. NH: Heinemann. Opitz, M. & Rasinski, T. (2008). Good-bye Round Robin: 25 Effective Oral Reading Strategies. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Sachar, L. (1998). Holes. New York: Random House.

Rolon 22 Spring, J. (2008). The American School. New York: McGraw-Hill National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: Reports of the subgroups. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-110, 115, Stat. 1425 (2002). http://www.nationalreadingpanel.org/publications/No%20Child%20Left%20Behind.pdf