Reading is complex

It bums me out when students are struggling readers. There is so much fun, joy, excitement, learning, adventures, and even relaxation to be had in reading. Reading is so simple yet so complex. How our brain turns these symbols into sounds and those sounds are put together to form words. Those words have meanings. If for some reason your brain has difficulty recognizing the symbol, or the sound, or processing the sound and creating the sound, or putting those sounds together onto paper, reading becomes a challenge.

Last year I had a student that was a phenomenal reader. However, once asked to write, couldn't put what he/she knew about words onto paper. He/She could do it orally, but there was block or miscommunication between the brain and the hand. It was extremely frustrating for the student. The student is now using technology to assist with this challenge. This year I have a student who has the information in their brain and you can see they are telling their mouth, tongue, and voice box what to do. None of them cooperate. It is a major challenge to put those symbols into sounds and form words. It makes reading very difficult. We have to go back to those basic kindergarten strategies of learning to read.

The brain is fascinating. All of those parts have to synchronize and work in harmony to be able to read.

We just finished reading Gooseberry Park, one of my favorite Read Aloud books. The students applauded when we finished the book. That was pretty darn cute. I try to do a non-fiction book between every fiction one. I started reading a book about Sharks today. Every page is heavy with facts and information. We are only reading a couple of pages a day. Then I will move non to another fiction story. I am trying to decide what is next. I think one of my favorite parts of the day is reading them a story. Getting kids into good books is fun! Hopefully, they will pick up more books on their own after that.

One of my LEAST favorite challenges in teaching every year is Renaming in Math. This is where you have ten or more in the ones place and have to move a ten to the tens place. Or when you have ten or more tens in the tens place and have to change those to a hundred and move them to the hundreds place. This year these kids seem to be struggling WAYYYYYY more to get this concept. I don't know why! Tomorrow, I have to get them practicing again hands on. We have our Fire Station visit tomorrow.  That will be entertaining!

G'nite