Article # 5

Learning from Text

Dave Edyburn article begins with a detailed description of how easy it is to fall behind as a struggling reader. Since grades K-3 are marked as "learning to read" years and grades 4 and up are considered "reading to learn" years, it is very easy to understand how if a student is not reading at grade level by entry to grade 4 they will have major difficulty with their context courses.

Many classroom are still teacher directed and text rich. Edyburn states a valid point reminding us of the cumulative files filled with evidence to academic failure and prove they are not meeting the outcomes or expectations. He asks a very important question:

"...how do we decide if the best course of action is remediation (i.e., additional instructional time, different instructional approaches) versus compensation (i.e., recognizing that remediation has failed and that compensatory approaches are         needed to produce a desired level of performance?)" pg 17

According the Edyburn, we are failing our students because we are not questioning remediation vs compensation enough. I like how the author routinely compares educational dilemmas to real life situation. He rewords the situation to make sense to the reader. For instance, he compares allowing a student with retrieving information difficulties to use Ask Jeeves to an employee finding an answer to a question in a timely manner. It does not matter how the employee found the answer, only that he found it quickly. Why should it be different for the student?

Edyburn asks some very important question throughout his article and I must admit I've answer some of these wrong at some point in my career. I have been reluctant to allow particular students use an assistive device, considering it to be cheating. However I do believe each situation is different as well and sometimes a device is not warranted.