NORTHWESTERN AGUSAN COLLEGES

BAYVIEW HILL, NASIPIT, AGUSAN DEL NORTE

COLLEGE DEPARTMENT

EXPLORATORY RESEARCH 1

READING CHALLENGES: DEVELOPING CONTENT AND APPROACH

FOUNDATION FOR ELEMENTARY READING

RACHELLE ANN C. TIMOGAN

COURSE & SCHED: BEED- 3 (2ND SCHED)

COURSE CODE: ENG 103

SUBJECT AND COURSE DESCRIPTIVE TITLE:

TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES THROUGH LITERATURE

INSTRUCTOR: KHEVEN D. GUYO

Children must have a strong language and conceptual foundation, a wide and deep

vocabulary, and the verbal reasoning skills to comprehend the written information in order to

become proficient readers. Children also need to learn code-related skills, phonological

awareness (the understanding that spoken words are made up of smaller elements of speech),

the alphabetic principle (the idea that letters represent these sounds), the numerous systematic

correspondences between sounds and spellings, and a vocabulary of widely recognized words

that can be recognized quickly and automatically (McCardle & Chhabra, 2004; McCardle,

Scarborough, & Catts, 2001).

Discussion

Teachers face difficulties upon teaching reading to elementary students and these are the

few. Parental indifference, unreadiness of students, teaching of cursive italic handwriting,

lack of professional experience, student absenteeism, lack of interest by students. It is given

that the teachers will face these difficulties knowing that he/she has a diversity of pupils.

These pupils may just need attention and a lot of patience upon teaching. In this situation, you

need to introduce phonics and teach the relationship between sounds and symbols. Secondly,

the whole language immerses children in language and they will learn to read naturally. In

addition, teach children whole words, since they read whole words. There are changes in the

following: Ways of thinking. Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making

and learning Ways of working. Communication and collaboration Tools for working.

Information and communications technology (ICT) and information literacy. Skills for living

in the world. Citizenship, life and career, and personal and social responsibility
 Reading bestows enjoyment and enlightenment. It unlocks the unknown. It is a complex

cognitive activity that is indispensable for the kind of knowledge society. So, the students of

today's world must know how to learn from reading and to enter the present literate society.

One who reads can lead others to light. People who read can be free because reading banishes

ignorance and superstition. Reading has the power to revolutionize everyone's ways of

thinking and living. It makes everyone think critically and creatively. Teachers must

emphasize all kinds of reading, especially critical reading which is not just reading on the

lines but it deals with reading between and beyond the lines. A critical reader challenges the

author's assumptions, inferences, and conclusions, and judges the accuracy, reliability, quality

and value of what he reads on the basis of sound criteria or standards developed through

previous experiences. Although there are ways and means to acquire reading skill, there are a

few factors which affect it severely. Teachers must be careful in avoiding these hindrances

and make their wards' reading easy, effective and successful. Teachers are the prime source

for students in cultivating their reading habit. Their advice and encouragement will help the

students move a step further in developing their attitude towards reading. Teachers can teach

phonetics to readers of initial stage and help them pronounce the sounds of letters and words

properly. They can teach them syllabication to recognize new words. Special assistance may

be given to students with regard to the selection of materials for reading based on their age,

time and capacity and determine their reading levels. They must realize that they have to play

major role in encouraging and engaging the students to become voracious readers.

Few only of the children have their parents as an individual who develops the love for

reading of their kids. It is commonly the teachers who become their role model. That is why

teachers must be creative in such ways that he/she could always caught the attention of

his/her pupils. In addition, it would be better if he/she prepared various of activities a pupil

could learn at the same time they are also having fun and engaging with everyone. A teacher
must impose rules in a classroom so that the pupils have something to instill to their minds

the properly way of conducting a class even during any activities before or during a

discussion. Examples of activities that could be helping for reading comprehension. Assign

reading partners, cross-grade or peers. They can help each other improve reading

comprehension regardless of their grade level. Both older and younger students benefit from

this arrangement. They could share their ideas with each other and even could come up with

new ideas. Visualize reading passages, the key ingredient for visualizing passages is to

encourage students to create mental pictures or movies in their minds. They can take their

prior knowledge and combine it with their own visualizations. Kids may identify with

characters and the story’s world. Teachers may use picture books or text with descriptive

language to promote the use of this technique. Another example is by reading aloud. Reading

aloud promotes fluency and literacy. As teachers and parents read to children, it builds their

language development and communication skills. Teacher should also consider a session that

follow up reading with class discussions. After finishing reading a book to your students,

start a class discussion to help students retain what they've learned. By directing comments

and questions to students it encourages them to participate. Lastly, create reading quizzes by it

show teachers where students’ strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to reading

comprehension. When creating interactive or print quizzes, you can use fill-in-the-blank,

true/false or multiple-choice test questions. Pose a variety of question types to challenge your

students without making the quiz impossible to complete. Those are just the few examples of

strategies and key details that will help in enhancing each student's learning experience.

Changes in the demand for skills have profound implications for the competencies which

teachers themselves need to acquire to effectively teach 21st-century skills to their students.

A generation ago, when teachers could reasonably expect that what they taught would last for

a lifetime, teaching a fixed syllabus of content was at the center of education in most
countries. The past was about delivered wisdom, the challenge now is to foster user generated

wisdom among teachers and school leaders in the front line. In the past, different students

were taught in similar ways; today teachers are expected to embrace diversity with

differentiated pedagogical practices. The goal of the past was standardization and conformity,

today it is about being ingenious, about personalizing educational experiences; the past was

curriculum centered, the present is learner centered, which means that education systems

increasingly need to identify how individuals learn differently and foster new forms of

educational provision that take learning to the learner and allow individuals to learn in the

ways that are most conducive to their progress.

As a future educator, I will try to be versatile and flexible as much as possible. Coping

with any circumstances I will be facing. Knowing that this career or profession that I will

taking will gone through a lot of process and steps. I will gather myself up and motivate

daily. I should consider learning from a lot of things and be open minded.

Summary

Reading is a complex and multifaceted process, and children need an approach to learning

that integrates many elements. Children who are first learning to read need appropriate help

in understanding, learning, and using the spelling-sound conventions of the writing system, as

well as opportunities to appreciate the information and pleasures offered by print. While from

the point of view of a teacher, it is also hard on their part because that needs a lot of efforts

and patience. It would be helpful if parents take part on helping their children to learn at

home even on basic step at an early age. So that as their child entry preschool and later on

primary school there would be a big chance that the child could do well and easily cope up

during the discussion, as well as read and comprehend any topic or subject.

Conclusion
 We are now in the 21 st century, and by that we already notice and observed the changes in

the curriculum. These days students are digital learners we integrate technology in teaching

and learning. Sources or information are also accessible easily by now we can open various

websites for our presentation or getting video clips for any activity. And that is an advantage

because mostly of the pupils are visual learners and audio learners. Given that we pursued

Bachelor of Elementary Education, we should be competent enough to cope up with the

needs of the pupils. Our knowledge should be few steps ahead from them. That’s why as

early as today we should manage our time wisely. There is a time that we do recreational

activities, hobbies and bonding with friends. But we should also never forget to have time for

studying. Read books even for just few pages. Also, if ever I luckily enter the field of

teaching. Joining webinars and seminars could also help in my own growth as an individual

and as a future educator.

References:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1081986.pdf

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1170479.pdf

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/cultivating-love-reading-students-elena-aguilar

https://tinyurl.com/oecd-ilibrary

https://www.readingrockets.org/article/foundations-reading