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Introduction Youwerethebestyouknownocompetitioncedricdidthisweirdthingwherehe transfiguredarockonthegroundturneditintoadog Confusing right?

Well, that is reading, it is not merely being able to recognize the letters printed into the paper. One must also decode it into meaningful units like words as in, You were the best, you know, no competition. Cedric did this weird thing where he transfigured a rock on the groundturned it into a dog. Better? Yes much better. As said earlier, organize it into meaningful units meaning understanding the meaning of every word in the example sentences. According to Vladimir Nabokov, a good reader has imagination, memory, a dictionary and some artistic sense. To be able to understand the given sentences, a reader should know the connotation and denotation of the content words in the sentences such as weird, transfigured, rock, ground, turned and dog. Then, the reader should have a memory that will remind him that these sentences are taken from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire during the first task of the Triwizard tournament. Moreover, the reader should also have the imagination to picture vividly that Cedric using his wand change a rock into a dog. And finally, he has to have artistic sense to appreciate the scene. What is just shown is a complexity called reading. Reading like language is contained in a chaotic universe but amidst the chaos are small simplicities that are joined to form the complexity. Why is this so? Simply because reading is a process wherein the reader do not just make noises by producing the

sounds of the printed letters but also undergoing several steps such as decoding, assimilating, comprehending, and encoding of meaning and inference. It is not just being able to read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that it all ends there. Think what is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, who is Harry Potter, what is a goblet, what is fire and a lot more. Imagine being able to recognize the word goblet and thinking what is it, have you seen one are just one of the many questions that already complicates it and yet being able to understand it will assure one of the meaning of the statement. Now take a look at the following example: Woman without her man is nothing. What is you reaction? Are your eyebrows raising a notch higher? Is your ego a little bit inflated? Relax, this is not to slight any feminist or flatter any male chauvinist but it is just to show the complexity of reading. The meaning, meanings rather, to be derived from this sentence are ambivalent. One saying woman, without her man, is nothing and the other one saying woman, without her, man is nothing. See? The two occupies opposite poles and yet they are encoded in the same structure. This is where other factors that affect reading come in. In this sentence, the reader with his own prerogative cut the sentences into his preference and reacts when another reader reacts against his view about it he will be aware that the sentence contains two meanings. Bear in mind that to consider reading as effective, it should be accompanied by speed and comprehension. Eye movement and visual discrimination are just some of the skills needed to be developed in order to

achieve reading speed. Studies have shown that a readers rate of reading depends to a great extent on the number of fixations that his eyes make as they move across a page. To increase ones rate of reading, therefore, he must reduce the number of fixations of the eyes. This can be done by not reading word by word but by thought phrases. Speed in reading is relatively easy to achieve. Developing

comprehension, which is a constellation of skills or abilities, is difficult. Skills in visual discrimination, association and interpretation are essential. Rate of reading is also a factor in comprehension. Harry Shaw (1975) points out that as we lengthen the span of our eye movements, our reading rate will increase and so will our comprehension, then we will be reading, not in isolated units but in context. Philippine Education System The Philippine education system is inverted and it develops skills at the wrong time and wrong sequence. What is predominant in the Philippine schools is that reading and writing are taught starting from preparatory years to intermediate and only during the later years that listening and speaking are given importance. This can be likened to eating ice cream and eating the cone first before the ice cream or eating the filling of the cookies first before the cookies. Or it can be likened to being drop at the top of Mount Apo and seeing the panoramic view above and then start to head down slope. You do not have the motivation of being able to see what is on top because you have already seen it.

There are for modes of communication that compose the areas of communication activities such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. A learner acquires language socially that is through listening to the people around him and eventually speaking the language. Thus, he becomes fluent and verbose in the language as the time goes on. The purpose of reading is to widen his knowledge more about the language and then putting his widened knowledge and enhance skills and acquisition of the language by writing. He puts to test his verbosity and knowledge in writing there fore reading and writing just come in at the latter part of the development of an individual. Reading is one of the productive modes of the language. Reading is the cornerstone of an effective education. Without this skill we are limited in so many important life activities: we cannot understand a newspaper, read directions of a new recipe, enjoy a favorite novel, or read a prescription bottle of medication. Reading is also closely aligned with activities in Mathematics, Writing, Spelling, and the content areas (e.g., Science, Social Studies). For poor readers, college is out of the question and many jobs are simply out of reach because they require some basic level of reading or other skill that hinges on reading. Lack of reading places these individuals at a serious disadvantage in our society (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004).

Meet my Client

My client is Jan Darwin R. Refuerzo, 15 years of age and a fourth year student of Don Eufranio F. Eriguel Memorial National High School. He hails from San Marcos, Agoo, La Union and lives with his father and sister at home. His mother is working in Manila. He is a shy and timid teenager. The TLE student teacher that teaches him also shares this description. According to this student teacher, Darwin tends to stay I one side of the room and watch his classmates making all kinds of noises and racketing. I describe him as silent water runs deep type of person. When asked of what he can change in his class, he answered, being noisy. In terms of his physical stature, he is not tall and seems to be short for his age. He has a homely face and a very mahinhin attitude but take note he is not gay. If you observe him in class, he is like a fish taken out of water and living in the forest where noisy and riotous animals like birds and monkeys abound. I also noticed how irritated he is in class whenever his classmates are noisy that he seems to want to be a part of the wall or be cast in a vacuum to shut out all the noise. He is very eager to learn not like other poor readers in DEFEMNHS who seemed not to care whether they can read well or not. For him, it is better to try to improve one self than never trying at all. Despite of the negative reactions of his classmates, he doesnt care. He is oblivious to the taunts and estimating looks that his classmates throw at him whenever we are in session, and for this I salute him.

To deviate from the monotonous way of high school life with an aim of improving oneself was never easy. A person who will say that it is easy is a big liar and a certified hypocrite. To improve oneself takes a certain span of time, many sacrifices and a lot of guts and I know unconsciously my client has these qualities. Remediation Proper I formally started remediation just after my client received the questionnaire. The first selection was entitled The Lion and the Ass. For Darwin to be able to understand the selection I had to employ word strategies such as word puzzle, word configuration and context clues. On the other hand, I had to rephrase comprehension questions to several guide questions before he gets the answer to the question. I also translated the difficult words to Filipino. This is very good, because back in my practice teaching I had to translate from English to Tagalog to Ilocano to Pangasinan for my students to comprehend the selections. I already notice his trouble in comprehension but despite of this the point is he can read. For the next session the selection was, The Foolish Friend. During this session I concentrated in his pronunciation first, while he was reading I take down the words he mispronounced, cannot pronounce and hesitated to pronounce. After reading, I asked him to read the words over and over again. The following were the words: FOOLISH EXCEEDING AMUSEMENT NATURAL DISHES

VICINITY PARROTS CREATURES THEREAFTER

FRAGRANCE

CLEVER

STABLE

VARIOUS WIVES

SWORD PARTRIDGES

GROVE

SWARMS

COMPANIONS

SURROUNDED CARRY SHUNNED SCORNED TALK EXUDED PROCEEDED

I noticed that when I corrects his pronunciation of the word he remembers and do not commit the same mistakes. Comprehension, this time, took a certain time and sometimes he seemed not to understand the question that I have to re-state it, paraphrase it over and repeatedly for him to get it finally. For the next session, the selection was, The cat, the partridge and the hare. However, before he read the selection I asked him to summarize the last selection, The foolish friend. Like before I wrote the words he cannot pronounce properly and asked him to read these words: PARTRIDGE PRIEST OCCUPIED FIELDS OCCASION CHANGES SOURCE FOOLED ACTUALLY HOWEVER CROOK GROWN HARE WHOEVER DWELLING GANGES PLUMP MORAL HYPOCRITE ENSUED

ADVANTAGE CLAIM INDULGE SUPPOSEDLY HAVING

LIVELIHOODDISTANCE

OUTWARD APPEARANCE

He keeps on pronouncing, having as [h vIn] and sometimes pronouncing claim as [klaIm] which is not suppose to be the case but [klem]. The selection in the following session was entitled, The Birds, the Bats and the Beasts. The only problem here is he keeps on pronouncing beasts as beats. In our next session, he was not in the mood that I gave up instead, I just asked him to read some tongue twisters: BETTY BOUGHT A BIT OF BUTTER BUT SHE FOUND THE BUTTER BITTER. SO SHE BOUGHT A BIT OF BETTER BUTTER TO MAKE THE BUTTER BITTER. He interchanges the pronunciation of better and bitter and had difficulty pronouncing bought. Here are tongue twisters that we did not encounter any problems: BETTER NEVER TROUBLE TROUBLE, UNTIL TROUBLE TROUBLES YOU. FOR YOU ONLY MAKE YOUR TROUBLE DOUBLE WHEN YOU DO. THREE GRAY GEESE IN THE GREEN GRASS GRAZING. GRAY WERE THE GEESE AND GREEN WAS THE GRASS. THE CROW FLEW OVER THE RIVER WITH LUMP OF RAW LIVER. The next session was devoted to word exercises. The list is composed of the following words. A. BEASTS BEAST MASTS PASTS LEASTS LEAST LASTS FEASTS FEAST BOASTS BOAST TOASTS TOAST CASTS COASTS COAST

FASTS

MAST B. CLAIM HAIL DAME

LAST MAIL JAIL NAME

FAST SAIL SAME SHAME

CAST PAIL FLAME BLAME

PAST NAIL LAME CAME FAME FRAME BAIT

And I gave him an assignment. This assignment is a reading comprehension test but the selections were as long as one or two sentences. But as he goes on answering the test, the items get more difficult that is why during the next session I was uplifted when he answered them correctly. The second to the last session was composed or word activities. [i] She Believe Receive Deceive Serene Ski Cream [I] bid lid slid rid big pick fill [ ] bed led sled red beg peck fell [e] date sail raid made take snake tail

ENTIRELY

AUTOMOBLILE

UNDERESTIMATE OVERESTIMATE ULTIMATELY CARBOHYDRATES RECOMMENDED

FALSENESS DEFICIENCY CONCLUSION COMPREHENSION UNHAPPILY

DISAPPEARING ARISEN REVENGE CONQUER BEAUTIFULLY SOLELY CONSCIOUSLY

CONDITIONS UNFORTUNATELY NECESSARY FORTUNATE ACTIVITY PROVIDE

UNCONSCIOUSLY SADDLED BRIDLED UNCONDITIONAL CATASTROPHE

GENERALLY DETERMINE UNDERMINE

OVERCAME ESTIMATE

TIRE TWICE

STRIKE STRUCK

TRICE STROKE DIRE SUFFICE STRIDE

STRESS TRAP

FIRE DEVICE

SPIKE STRIVE MIRE

STRIP SIRE STRAP EDIFICE DRIVE

STOVE HIRE

STRAND THOUGH

TRASH PROVE STRUM STRODE STRONG ACQUIRE STREAK THOUGHT STREAM STRAND STRAM DROVE STRING

And the last session was devoted for him to answer a comprehension tests that I compiled. PROBLEMS MET My client has difficulty in pronouncing long words no matter how simple the words are. Examples: HEREINAFTER THEREFORE WHATSOEVER EVERYWHERE

Whenever he encounters a long word he hesitates, then, read it so past that there are blurred syllables or sounds that are not produced so

mispronouncing the word and sometimes he substitutes it like in the case of changes and ganges. He also has difficulty in reading words with consonant cluster endings like in the word beasts. He interchanges the vowel sound [i] and [I] as well as [ ] and [e] like in the words bitter and better. I also notice that he has low retention. He is an hourglass reader. When he reads it is as if everything runs out and leaving nothing behind especially if the selection is compose of three or more paragraphs. He has poor comprehension. If I asked a question he goes back to the selection and read the whole sentence or the whole paragraph where the answer can be found. He cannot paraphrase it or re-state it. He doesnt have wide vocabulary knowledge. Even simple words like conflict and rejoicing. He keeps on pronouncing claim as [klaIm] and interchanges [a] and [ae] like in the word having.

HOW THE PROBLEMS WERE SOLVED After he reads the word mispronouncing it I correct it by asking him to pronounce the word by syllable. For example the word disappearing I cover the appearing and leave the dis for him to read and uncover the next syllable and the next until all the syllables were pronounce and I asked him to read the word.

I prepared word lists for him to read that contain the words and the consonant clusters he mispronounced. Regarding his being an hour glass reader. Well, instead of letting him read the whole selection in one reading I let him read it over and over again. Then I asked him to read it by paragraph and instead of asking questions after he reads all I asked questions after he finished reading a paragraph. Then after we are done with the paragraphs, I asked him to summarize it and asked the same questions for comprehension. I also used tongue twisters for his tongue. To improve his comprehension, I started by improving his vocabulary through word association, word configuration and word web. It was difficult at first but once he gets the knack for it, he finds it easier. Aside from this I choose several selections composed of just a paragraph and asked literal questions but as he goes reading and answering the items, the passages and questions get more difficult thus unconsciously forcing him to concentrate and think more. RECOMMENDATIONS There will be no poor reader in the intermediate years if the teachers do their work and do it well. Teachers should at least make sure that pupils know how to read at a literate level before passing them. This may be

idealistic but it is better that the child stays in a year level for sometime learning than being passed to another level learning nothing. Reading is an essential skills and teachers and school administration should do something to make sure that learners are at least in the simple literate level of reading. Before going for the reading comprehension, prerequisite skills such as word power, contextual clues, word association and others should be taught first Develop the four communication skills in the appropriate sequence and not in the inverted sequence The standard in judging reading skills should not be on fluency but in comprehension and it should not be pretty good but pretty well because pretty good is actually pretty bad.

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