April 09, 2021

Podcast 415, Gene Mehigan on Literacy & Disadvantage (9-4-21)

59 minutes

Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.

On this week's episode I interview my long-time colleague and fellow vice-president of Marino Institute of Education on the topics of literacy and disadvantage and more. Among the topics we discuss during the podcast are the following:

What constitutes a struggling reader

Identifying a struggling reader in a class setting

Why it is important to move on from focusing on individual sounds and words to help students become fluent readers.

The article referred to in the programme can be downloaded here: Effects of Fluency Oriented Instruction on Motivation for Reading of Struggling Readers

Fluency oriented instruction and the work of Stephen Stahl, Kathleen Heubach and Bonnie Cramond.

The value of repeatedly reading the same text

Why fluency oriented instruction is particularly important around first class

The value of teachers and parents reading to children, modelling the reading process

Why choral reading is helpful in developing fluency – communicatively choral reading

Echo reading, antiphonal reading,

Why motivation may be the most important factor in learning to read

Louise Rosenblatt and the efferent/aesthetic continuum.

Story of “Jason” a non-reader who loved Buddy Holly songs

How teachers believe that fluency comes after mastery of more cognitive skills of reading and that motivation is important for beginning readers

Conducting research in schools serving disadvantaged areas in Dublin

Looking at motivation for reading:

Self-efficacy for reading

Orientation towards reading

Perceived difficulty of reading

The value for teachers of knowing the science of reading. Read Daniel Willingham’s The Reading Mind

Our brains are not wired for reading (alphabet principle; decoding)

How parents can promote motivation among children – reading to children and reading with children

What it means for a child to be alliterate

The role of education in a disadvantaged setting

The “network gap” that children in disadvantaged settings experience

The extent to which education can ameliorate disadvantage

The value of teachers collaborating, especially in a disadvantaged setting (and in planting allotments and solving crossword puzzles and in teacher education too)

Role of a principal in a disadvantaged school

Derek Sivers’s book notes

Ken Robinson

Science of reading podcast and blogs (http://textproject.org/teacher-educators/science-of-reading/, https://understandingreading.home.blog/)

Timothy Shanahan blog.

Autobiographies: John Major, Arnold Schwarzenegger & André Agassi

Derek Sivers's book notes and podcast interview

...more

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By Sean Delaney

22 ratings