| OR: It my little monkey here. | ER: Is my little monkey here? |
| OR: We got to tell. | ER: We've got to tell. |
| OR: Frog look at Toad calendar. | ER: Frog looked at Toad's calendar. |
| OR: A word what sounded good. | ER: A word that sounded good. |
| OR: hisself | ER: himself |
| OR: I can come to your party? | ER: Can I come to your party? |
At first glance, I question whether or not this is considered proficient or non-proficient reading. The original response does not mirror what would be expected from a child speaking proper English. However, the child has still derived the proper meaning from the words read. Once I understood that the child still received the correct meaning, I determined that this child should be considered a proficient reader. For anyone deeming this child non-proficient, Weaver says, "this assumption should be reconsidered in light of the evidence that understanding usually precedes oral verbalization and in light of the evidence that proficient readers make miscues that reflect their predictions, their prior knowledge, and even their preferred language structures" (Weaver, 2002, p.74)
The idea that understanding usually comes before verbalization is a new concept to me. I had never thought about it before, but in order to verbalize what we are reading, we have already had to gain an understanding of the words. If the child did not understand the passage, they wouldn't have been able to verbalize it. Although they verbalized it in their own dialect, they simply changed the words into their preferred language structure. If we speak in what is considered "proper English", that is our preferred language structure.
I also consider this child a proficient reader based on his or her ability to change the surface structure. Weaver points out that "what we often fail to realize is that such dialect translation would not be possible unless the reader had understood the deep structure of the author's sentence. Actively transacting with the text, the reader has simply expressed it in his or her own surface structure" (Weaver, 2002, pg.74). We each add or take away from the surface grammatical features as we read. When speakers from other dialects read a passage of standard English, they are doing the same to best fit their dialect.
Weaver, C. (2002). Reading Process & Practice (3rd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Madison,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about this child being a proficient reader and I've seen children just like this in my classroom over the last year. I found that sometimes the students who had the hardest time with fluency were those who still understood what they were reading. I think that is exactly how this child was reading in the challenge posted above. I see the child just took the words and put them out of order which probably happened while he was processing the meaning of what he was reading. Great ideas.
I like the direction you took with this when you mentioned understanding coming before verbalization. I think that is the perfect way to describe these readers. Just because we do not hear them reading the phrases the way they are written, they are still getting a bulk of the words correct and would probably be able to determine the meaning. It is up to as teachers to recognize and identify readers like this. While these students might need some help overcoming their dialect in order to better their overall reading future, I agree that they could be called proficient readers.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your paragraph about verbalization. As we process new information and translate it into our own dialect or a language that is meaningful to us, we can gain meaning from what we have read. As I did this activity myself, I believe these are proficient readers. Many of the miscues were made because dialect or affected the surface structure like reversing words. The overall meaning was not lost in their responses. Great job!
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