Question 1: Critical Evaluation

In teaching and learning reading skills, there are a number of methods,

approach and materials that can be used to suit the different types of reading skills
taught. There are two videos uploaded by Rick Kleine, a fifth grade teacher in Jefferson
Elementary School which used as the videos to be critically evaluated. The videos are
Rick's Reading Workshop: Mini-Lesson (In Group) and Rick's Reading Workshop: Silent
Reading. In both videos of Ricks Reading Workshop, there are a few aspects that can be
evaluated regarding the teaching and learning of reading skills.
As a brief introduction to both videos, Rick's Reading Workshop: Mini-Lesson
(In Group) is the classroom close-up of a mini lesson where Rick aims to focus on
certain aspects of reading. On the other hand, the video Rick's Reading Workshop: Silent
Reading focuses on the reading activity where the pupils choose their own book and read
it silently. Both videos have shown different and similar methods, approach and materials
used throughout the reading session.

Video 1: Rick's Reading Workshop: Mini-Lesson (In Group)

The video of Rick's Reading Workshop: Mini-Lesson (In Group) is where
Rick focuses to get his pupils feel the character of the story within them. Rick and his
pupils talked about character traits and feelings using the exact words to describe those
traits and feelings in the previous reading lesson. He used discussion method in this mini
lesson. Rick continuously asks questions to the pupils and gets the pupils to share their
opinions about the story read by him. He starts with asking whether the pupils can feel
the character in the story from reading the title. In the mini lesson, Rick uses a story book
entitled The Wednesdays Surprise as the main reading material for the mini lesson. The
pupils get to guess the gist or main idea of the story book from the title. They know that
the story is about surprises but they do not know what surprise that will be, who is giving
the surprise and who will get surprised by the surprise. In a reading session, it is a good
choice to have discussion question and answer session throughout since the pupils will
be constantly engaged to the story, apart from developing their existing knowledge about
the story. The pupils can keep on widening their ideas and confirming and reconfirming
their early predictions about the story as the story is being read to them.

There is one part where Rick reads a page from the story book where the
grandmother mentioned how her granddaughter had grown a lot from the last week she
met her. And as a reply, the granddaughter also mentioned that her grandmother also had
grown a lot. Rick get the pupils to think whether a person can grow that much in a week
and the pupils respond with No as an answer as they know the logic that a person
cannot grow that much in a short period of time. Rick constantly get the pupils to think
whether about the character or about the storyline. Rick concludes the question and
answer about the grandmother and granddaughter by saying that they are close together
that they can joke around about being grown up a lot. That way, Rick teaches the pupils
the close relationship between families from that one particular page. He is able to get
the pupils to think away from the context of the story. However, Rick may involve the
pupils in the reading by asking a few pupils to read part of the story so that they are more
engaged to the story or the learning process. When the pupils are involved in the story,
they actually will feel important and appreciated as they are given the mandate to
exchange role with their teacher to read the story to their friends.
In another part of the mini lesson, Rick asks the pupils to turn to talk to a
partner about what do they think is the surprise for the fathers birthday. This is because
in the previous part of the story book, there is a question on who learns to read and wants
to get it as a surprise for the father. The pupils talk about their opinions regarding who
wants to give surprise for the fathers birthday by learning how to read. Through this
session of Think-Pair-Share, the pupils are interacting with one another instead of sitting
and listen quietly to the story. The one-to-many approach during the discussion and the
one-to-one approach during the sharing activity, actually help the pupils to further
enhance their reading skills as well as their communication with friends by sharing their
opinions. Rick then reads the ending of the story by confirming that it is the grandmother
who learns to read for the fathers birthday. The pupils get to know whether their
predictions and opinions about the surprise are true or not. Predicting is another reading
skill that should be applied in every reading teaching and learning session. This is
because every pupil has their own imagination of the story and through predicting, they
will be able to develop their predicting skills and apply it in their daily life situations as
they see fit.

Video 2: Rick's Reading Workshop: Silent Reading

In the second video, Rick focuses on how he conducts silent reading for his
pupils. He lets the pupils to choose one story book and read it silently. According to
Rick, he personally believes that silent reading is a good approach of reading for the
pupils as he knows that there is a war going on the pupils head. Rick further explains
that little noises coming from the pupils while they are reading show that there is brain
activity going on through the reading. Silent reading is where the pupils read the book of
their choice or of the teachers instruction without making any loud noises throughout the
process. Some pupils find it difficult to read loudly as in choral reading because they
cannot understand what they are reading fully as there are other people reading with
them, what more with the different pace and pronunciation that other people have.
Through silent reading, the pupils may be able to read on their own silently and find
understanding on what they are reading on their own.
One of the reasons that Rick uses silent reading in the teaching and learning
session is that he wants to focus on one particular pupil at a time during the session. He
believes that the pupils can read and understand on their own, thus making him deciding
that the attention should be given to pupils who need extra guidance and help from the
teacher. This is one way that the teacher can use to do a one-to-one session with the pupil
that he or she thinks needs extra guidance to read and understand what is being read. As
for Rick, in the video, he chooses a girl to be given guidance during the silent reading.
He aims to give her ways to read better and later will give them skilful work related to
reading such as comprehension work. The goal at the end of the reading session is to
enable the pupil getting help to become better reader.
Rick uses a few methods in the story just like in the first video which is
through question-and-answer session, asking the pupils to share their opinions and ask
them to communicate with their friends. However, the execution of the methods is
different compared to the second video. Rick asks the pupil questions regarding the story
she is reading to catch her range of understanding of the story. The pupil shares her
opinion about the story and the character while being prompted by Rick. He believes that
through asking the pupils questions, they will be able to unveil their understanding about
the story. Rick asks the pupil to talk more about the characters in the story and what she
thinks about them. This is a good method in teaching reading as pupils will get to

develop their thinking skills and be more open about what they are imagining about the
story.
The pupil that Rick has chosen actually is not able to monitor her reading well
as she cannot understand words, individual words. She may have problem with
connecting the words with the entire sentence and visual aid to actually get the meaning
of that one particular word. She may be able to guess the meaning if she can relate the
context of the sentence with the word. That is where the predicting skills come to life.
Pupils need to apply predicting skills as much as reading skills in the reading session. As
for the pupil, Rick asks her to read the story in front of him and tries to find places where
she will be able to get the understanding of the words. For instance, the girl did not
understand the word conceal, thus, for another option, she lets the pupil to ask her
friend the meaning of the word since she cannot find the meaning from other places in
the book. Besides, through asking friends, pupil actually will be able to get the meaning
of the word in a non-threatening way.
Apart from that, Rick also uses another method that is not used in the first
video which is keeping track of the pupils progress in a notebook. Rick approaches one
by one pupil during the silent reading session and jot down their progress in reading the
book in his notebook. That way, he will be able to know what is needed by the pupils to
become better readers. This is a good method that a teacher can apply as they will be able
to maintain the attention to the pupils while they are reading and analyse what problem
the pupils are facing while reading the story book during silent reading.
In conclusion, from both videos, there are various methods, approaches and
material used by Rick in teaching reading to the pupils. By varying the way of teaching
reading, teachers may lead the pupils to read better and in a more enjoyable way that the
pupils think are interesting. However, Rick may have used many other additional
materials other than story book. He may vary his materials such as using picture cards,
reading worksheets and so forth. Using more than one materials for teaching reading will
enable the pupils to be more interested towards the learning session and will gain
motivation to finish what they are reading.

REFERENCES
Kleine, R. (2011). Rick's Reading Workshop: Mini-Lesson (In Group). Retrieved on 5 th
November
2015
from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=CJjGKJawG8U&feature=youtube_gdata_player.
Kleine, R. (2011). Rick's Reading Workshop: Silent Reading. Retrieved on 6th November
2015
from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=lFcNpqNAL0&feature=youtube_gdata_player..