TED Talk Topic

The topic of my TED talk is going to be ” Meeting the Reading Demands of Upper Elementary”. I am going to specifically discuss how to help third grade students transition from “learning to read” to ” reading to learn”. This is a big part of third grade because by the time students reach third grade most of them know how to read. They will continue working on improving their fluency but they can get the job done. Their third grade year is where they begin to focus on comprehending the texts they are reading. From third grade on they are going to have to read to learn new information. Third grade is the introduction to this. If students don’t obtain the required skills to be able to read to learn they will struggle throughout the rest of their schooling because it will be highly required of them. The National Reading Panel reports that there are several parts to teaching this which include five major skill areas ( phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) which they need in order to achieve the reading goals for upper- elementary grades.

According to a special report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, ” low income fourth graders who can not meet the National Assessment of Educational Progress proficiency level today are too likely to become our nations lowest income, least skilled, least productive, and most costly citizens tomorrow.” By fourth grade students need to be proficient readers in order to be able to understand the content taught. According to the Children’s Reading Foundation, Up to half of the fourth grade curriculum is incomprehensible to students reading below grade level. They also mention that three quarters of students who are poor readers in third grade will remain poor readers in high school. Without the skills of reading comprehension and the motivation for reading to learn, students academic progress is limited. John Guthrie et. al. completed a successful study on the idea of increasing reading comprehension and motivation by focusing on the combination of motivation support and strategy instruction. This will be the main route for incorporating making into my TED talk. Using making to increase reading comprehension through increased motivation.

Resources

Early Reading and Academic Success. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.aecf.org/resources/early-warning-confirmed/

Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., Barbosa, P., Perencevich, K. C., Taboada, A., Davis, M. H., Scafiddi, N. T., & Tonks, S. (2004). Increasing Reading Comprehension and Engagement Through Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96(3), 403–423. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.96.3.403

Reading First Notebook: The Newsletter for the Reading First Program. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.sedl.org/pubs/catalog/items/read100.html