NAME:
Mary Jane Olson
SCHOOL:
Rockport Elementary School
CLASS:
Title I Reading Specialist
SCHOOL PHONE:
978-546-1210
Mrs. Olson has a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Ed. from Westfield State
College and a Master's degree in Education from Cambridge College. She is
also certified as a Reading Specialist. Mrs. Olson taught at Landmark School
from 74-78 and again from 90-91. She was a second grade teacher in our
system for eleven years before becoming a Reading Specialist.
Put Reading First
Learning to read is a very complicated activity. There are many components and
children must be able to be flexible in the choices of strategies used.
One type of reading is that of sight words only. These are the books that many
of us learned to read with. See Dick and Jane Run These worked because of the
repetition provided. There are many words called sight words which must be
memorized and repetition is an excellent way to add these words to our reading
vocabulary. ( what, why, want, do are, says ) Some of us with weaker visual
memories my have not learned well this way.
Another approach is the Whole Language Approach. This was having the children
exposed to vocabulary words about a topic and hoping that the children could
read these words in context. This depended on the students being able to
figure out what made sense in the sentence.
A purely phonetic approach would work for many of our words but generalizations
of unfamiliar words would also be necessary because so many of our words
originated in different countries (ballet, Jose, sushi ) or they just are
exceptions to the common sounds. (said, comb, bread) Children also need to
recognize and use rules for syllabication. Several other word attack skills
are introduced and practiced.
Some of the programs present the children with all of the exceptions to the
rule at once. (ough has six different sounds ) though, through, rough, cough,
thought, drought This is obviously too confusing for most students. The
sounds can be simplified and introduced slowly and in an organized fashion.
It makes sense then to use a variety of approaches for reading. Many students
have weaknesses in one area or another that makes it more difficult for them to
learn. If a certain area is known to be weak then we would review concepts
through that area and concentrate on using the students strengths to introduce
new concepts.
I am not surprised when children have difficulty. When we consider how hard
students are working and thinking, it is amazing that they do learn to read
effectively. Students have to shift their strategies constantly between those
mentioned above. This is the most valuable skill we teach in elementary school
and also the most complicated.
