Adolescent Literacy Reflection

While I was not certain what to expect with the class, Adolescent Literacy quickly became my favorite class of the three I am taking this session. Although I am not one who often reads for enjoyment, there was an unexpected degree of excitement for me while reading our 6 young adult novels for class. Being assigned the books made me make time to read them and I found myself getting through them rather quickly and enjoying the reading.
I feel as though this class and Teaching Reading in the Content Area have given me new insight into the important job teachers have to not only include reading in their instruction, but to give students the tools needed to increase their love of reading and their comprehension and abilities. I feel excited to come up with new ways to include reading and even writing assignments in my art classes in a way that will help students long after they have left my class. Reading was not an important part of my art instruction through high school and while earning my art degree, but it would have made me a better reader and student, I am sure.

What is the most important thing we can teach about word recognition

The most important thing we can teach students about word recognition is that the more sight words they know, the better they will read and the more they will understand what they read. When students increase the amount of words they can easily and effortlessly identify while reading, they will increase their understanding and the speed at which they read. If you check the following link, 

https://www.speechbuddy.com/blog/language-development/what-are-sight-words

there is quite a bit of interesting information, such as:

• Sight words promote confidence. Because the first 100 sight words represent over 50% of English text, a child who has mastered the list of sight words can already recognize at least half of a sentence. If your child begins to read a book and can already recognize the words, chances are he won’t feel discouraged and put the book down, rather he’ll have more confidence to read it all the way through. And, choose another!
• Sight words help promote reading comprehension. When your child opens her book for the first time, instead of trying to decipher what ALL of the words mean, she can shift her attention to focus on those words she is not familiar with. She will already know at least half of the words, so focusing on the other half helps strengthen her understanding of the text.
• Sight words provide clues to the context of the text. If your child is familiar with the sight words, she may be able to decode the meaning of the paragraph or sentence by reading the sight words. And, if a picture accompanies the text, your child may be able to determine what the story is about and come away with a few new words under her belt.