Increasing Reading Achievement with Struggling 2nd Graders With Failure Free Reading

Increasing the Reading Achievement of Struggling 2nd Grade Students

With Failure Free Reading (Proposal

by Dollie Jackson

November , 2007

Instructor : Mr . Felix D . Triplett

Increasing the Reading Achievement of Struggling 2nd Grade Students

With Failure Free Reading (Proposal

by Dollie Jackson

November , 2007

Instructor : Mr . Felix D . Triplett

Introduction

Reading is the most important skill that a student should master as it is the key with which they understand new information and is the key to formal education . Reading is fundamentally the basis of all other

learning because education and instruction makes use of written materials (Adams , 1990 . Mastery of reading skills is desired by all teachers and the complex and difficult process by which reading is learned has been the subject of various researches . However , education is more concerned with how to effectively teach reading skills and to make sure that students attain a certain level of mastery and competency . Reading instruction is composed of phonetic and phonemic knowledge and the ability to recognize letters , words and pronounce the words in the proper way as well as to understand the meaning of individual words and then stories (Cunningham , 1990 . Both comprehension and vocabulary is the core of reading skills , comprehension is the ability to understand the meaning of paragraphs and stories Comprehension and vocabulary is necessary for critical thinking and analysis as the ability to understand words lead to critical investigation and analytical examination of the written story . Reading achievement is measured by reading tests that are usually standardized moreover , the state has a prescribed standard appropriate for the grade levels of students that they must be able to reach at the end of the school year . Students who do not reach the said standards are said to be deficient in reading skills . Most students who have failed to accomplish state standards in major subjects like Science , Math and Language are categorized as underperforming or academically challenged (Phillips Norris Mason , 1996 . It is logical to say that increasing the reading achievement of students would also lead to an increase in academic performance as a whole , thus it is important to find ways to increase reading achievement

Several strategies have been designed to increase the reading achievement of students however , the basic principle that has been found to contribute to the learning of reading is when there is a supportive learning environment that scaffolds and encourages them to learn to read (Fielding-Barnsley , 1997 . The Failure Free Reading approach refers to the process wherein students are assisted in developing reading skills and which is not graded thereby failure is not a part of the program Moreover , students will be allowed to progress on their own pace in the series of reading activities designed to develop reading skills and other competencies required in mastery of reading skills (Ross , Smith Casey Slavin , 1995 . It is hypothesized that with this Failure Free Reading program the students would be able to increase their reading achievement scores after a certain period of time . This study would...