An Interesting Thought on Reading... 1-28-08

Yesterday when I went to my field placement I witnessed something very funny to me but at the same time very interesting to think about. It was during workshop time when the students rotate through literacy based centers and I was sitting on the center called, "Read with Mrs. Tazelaar." During this time the students read to my CT and she takes notes on their decoding skills, comprehension, summarizing, etc. I was listening in on Evan, a more advanced reader when he made the most interesting comment. He finished reading his passage and had a little bit of trouble with some new vocabulary words. They were words that he had never seen before and he said, "I think I was a better reader when I was four." Mrs. Tazelaar and I were both really surprised when he said this. To an observer the obvious would be, how could a first grade student reading chapter books be a worse reader now than three years ago. His reasoning was that he knew how to read more words when he was four-years-old than now. Then he started reading again, and came across the name of an animal called an Eland. He pronounced the word perfectly although he had never seen or heard of this animal before either. Mrs. Tazelaar stopped him and asked how he knew to pronounce that word. He said that he knew the word "land," and simply put an "E" in front of it. Mrs. Tazelaar asked him if he could read that word when he was four? He said no. She then pointed out that he is in fact getting better at his reading. My interpretation of this entire instance is in the new challenges Evan is facing as an advanced first grade reader. Before, when he was only four-years-old, I'm sure he was only given books to read that he COULD read. I can't be certain, but this is what I would assume. And now, he is given books with unknown words and a greater level of difficulty so he interprets his ease of reading at four as BETTER than at seven. But, really I believe that it is just his challenge that he cannot recognize yet.