Struggling Readers

After reading chapters 10 and 11 of Catching Readers Before They Fall, I noticed a comparison between the way teachers used to work with struggling readers and what they should do now. Before the tendency was to "bounce all over, trying to do too much all at once" (190). I understand this feeling. When you are working with someone who needs help with a lot of things, you get overwhelmed with everything they need to learn and it would be easy to throw too many things at them at once by accident. This will more than likely just frustrate them and there is no way they'll be able to master them all. What is encouraged now from teachers who are working with struggling readers is to "write down a few specific goals"(190). That way the student can stay focused on one thing at a time before moving on. This will hopefully prevent the reader from becoming too frustrated. After working with my case study student at Fairview I looked at a list of standards for 1st graders. I marked everything I thought my student could use help with. After looking at this whole list, I picked out two things to focus on.