Placement

In my placement I have had a lot of difficulty seeing literacy development. Between substitute teachers, snow days, my own personal lessons, and other activities, I feel that I have not been able to see enough of the same type of literacy to watch students grow.

I have seen that a lot of my students are struggling with literacy and are noticeably below grade level. There are also a handful of proficient readers, but I feel that the majority of the class struggles with reading aloud and spelling. Their comprehension, especially when reading aloud, is surprisingly high for the difficulty they seem to encounter, but they still seem to struggle with the basics.

I am not sure where it is coming from, but many students seem to skip words or replace them with words they are more comfortable using while reading aloud.

I have seen several of my best 5th grade readers struggle with writing. This surprises me as well, as I have always thought that the two went hand in hand. For the most part, these students seem to lack detail in their writing. They cover the basics, and they tend to repeat these basic ideas in different words several times in order to cover a length requirement. I have yet to see a particular high achieving student use detail and elaborate in his writing.

On the other hand, I was absolutely blown away by a girl that struggles in reading. When reading some of her writing samples I found that she was a great writer. She used details, emotions, and higher level thinking. Her paper was by far the best when I read through the writing response to my lesson.