Running head: JOURNAL ARTICLE CRITIQUE 1
Topic
Eliseo Perez
Liberty University
Author Note
Eliseo Perez
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Eliseo
Perez Email: eperez14@liberty.edu
JOURNAL ARTICLE CRITIQUE 2
Topic
Upon teaching students in a class, the teacher will find out that not all students are on the
same comprehension level. Classroom teachers and reading specialists are tasked with
identifying the students’ current reading level in order to provide any interventions necessary in
reading. This is to help students have an accelerated growth in reading and to ensure the students
meet their critical needs. Unfortunately, there may be too many schools that have “adopted too
many ‘quick fix’ interventions that simply are ineffective” (Jones, Conradi, & Amendum, 2016).
This makes certain individuals become “motivated by a belief that too many interventions are
inefficient and fail to accelerate readers’ progress,” (Jones, Conradi, & Amendum, 2016).
Main Ideas
The primary point of the authors revolve around identifying the fundamental needs of the
student by the teacher or reading specialist.
The authors first point was the teacher or reading specialist must identify the fundamental
need of the student. The teacher or specialist must know in what area or areas the student is
struggling before they can administer the correct intervention. Is the student having issues with
word recognition, reading rate, or comprehension? For word recognition, they suggest modeling
how to blend words and having opportunities to “practice reading individual words and text
containing words with these patterns” (Jones, Conradi, & Amendum, 2016). If a student needs to
improve their reading rate, the authors suggest that repeated readings. With repeated readings,
the student reads a passage three or four times. Each time they read the passage, the number of
words read per minute is counted and graphed. By counting and graphing, the progress of the
students can be tracked. The teacher will provide corrective feedback before the student will
reread a passage. The teacher will help with difficult phrases and then have the student repeat the
Conclusion
The authors conclude by stating that “To best meet students’ need and capitalize on intervention
time, classroom teachers and literacy specialists should develop targeted interventions closely
matched to students’ reading needs” (Jones, Conradi, & Amendum, 2016). They “maintain the
need for differentiated, efficient, and focused interventions to expedite reading progress. Beyond
interventions, effective whole-class literacy instructional practices were also recommended”
(Jones, Conradi, & Amendum, 2016)..
Reflection
In my opinion, the data that the authors presented in their article supports their
conclusions. I personally feel that the authors’ results are very thought provoking. We as teachers
must wonder how we can help our struggling readers. The only thing I can think of that would
improve the research would be to do more research into each of the different interventions to see
JOURNAL ARTICLE CRITIQUE3
correct phrases (Jones, Conradi, & Amendum, 2016). The authors next discuss what a teacher
can do for students who have trouble comprehending. The students need to be taught to question
the text. The authors suggest for fiction that students ask the following the questions: “What is
going on? Does this make sense? Does it help to make a picture in my mind? What does this
remind me of? What is going to happen next? What is confusing me? (Jones, Conradi, &
Amendum, 2016) For nonfiction, they suggest asking these questions: How is the text organized?
What do I already know about this topic? Does this make sense? What do I know so far? What
do I still want to learn? What is confusing me? (Jones, Conradi, & Amendum, 2016). Another
way to help students with comprehension is to use graphic organizers to help build inference
skills. Lastly the authors discussed what the teacher or reading specialist could do at the
wholeclass level. Teachers should do whole-class practice for word recognition, building fluency,
and building comprehension..
JOURNAL ARTICLE CRITIQUE4
what the success rate is for each. The most important thing I learned from reading this article is
that as a teacher, I need to be constantly aware of how my students are doing and how to help
them be more successful.
JOURNAL ARTICLE CRITIQUE 5
Topic
A question to be asked is if standards-based teaching and differentiation can be used
together or are they incompatible? The author of this article talks about if and how a
teacher can teach using standards and still differentiate her teaching to accommodate her
students’ needs. Carol Ann Tomlinson describe how differentiation is not an “instructional
strategy, It is not what the teacher does when he or she has time. It is a way of thinking
about teaching and learning” (Tomlinson, 2000). She says differentiation is a “based on a
set of beliefs” Tomlinson, 2000). Some of these beliefs are that students of the same age will
differ in their readiness, interests, ways of learning, experiences, and life circumstances
(Tomlinson, 2000). She also states that “Students will learn best when they can make a
connection between the curriculum and their interests and life experiences” (Tomlinson,
2000). Tomlinson states that the two can work together if done properly. She says that the
“Curriculum tells us what to teach: Differentiation tells us how” (Tomlinson, 2000).
Main Ideas
Tomlinson discussed how standards and differentiation could be used together. She gave
examples of how the two worked together and how they did not work together. She talked about
how to ensure that grading practices are productive for all students. She listed five questions to
ask as teachers about grading. The first question is: “How do learners benefit from a grading
system that reminds everyone that students with disabilities or who speak English as a second
language do not perform as well as students without disabilities or for whom English is their
native tongue” (Tomlinson, 2000)? The second question is “What do we gain by telling our most
able learners that they are ‘excellent’ on the basis of a standard that requires modest effort, calls
for no intellectual risk, necessitates no persistence, and demands that they develop few academic
ts on this matter by stating that “Once the teachers aligned
uctions, differentiation followed naturally” (Tomlinson, 2000).
sed their best teaching practices to ensure that they were
ds then they would be able to include differentiation in their
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coping skills” (Tomlinson, 2000)? “In what ways do our current grading practices motivate
struggling or advanced learners to persist in the face of difficulty?” (Tomlinson, 2000) is the
third question. The fourth question is “Is there an opportunity for struggling learners to encounter
excellence in our current grading practices” (Tomlinson, 2000)? The last question is “Is there an
opportunity for advanced learners to encounter struggle in our current grading practices”
(Tomlinson, 2000)?
JOURNAL ARTICLE CRITIQUE 7
References
Jones, Jill S., Conradi, K., & Amendum, S. (2016). Matching interventions to reading
needs: A case for differentiation. The Reading Teacher, 70(3), 307-316.
ila.onlinelibarary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002.trtr.1513 Tomlinson, C.A. (2000). Reconcilable
differences? Standards-based teaching and differentiation. Educational Leadership. 58(1), 6-11.
