Clarifying Differences Between Reading Skills and Reading Strategies

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Regina Nunez Clarifying Differences Between Reading Skills and Reading Strategies Peter Afflerbach, P. Davi Pearson, Scott G. Paris Reading Skill is a word used very loosely in discussions about education. I believe that the distinction between skills and strategies, is listed as what I saw as examples of each in order to amplify this statement “Good assessment techniques provide information about the skills and strategies students need help with.” But my thinking here fell into a semantic trap that was pointed out from this article. According to these authors, skills and strategies are sometimes used synonymously. And sometimes they're used to describe complementary behaviors. In any event, everyone seems to believe that whatever they are, they're important for kids and teachers to have and know about. Presenting them as separate things, as I did, wasn't really accurate. So this is an update on my thinking. The nagging question for me this week has been, What is a skill, anyway? And, how is that different from or the same as a strategy? And then, of course, why would it matter? Why they matter? Teaching reading skills or helping kids develop reading skills, however you characterize instruction, learning, development, proficiency and such is aimed at competent performances. And in the Age of Testing and Accountability test scores are used to rationalize claims about effective schooling – which boils down to skilled performances on tests. So from a policy point of view, skills are important, and they are being heavily promoted. The Reading First people who push the science-of-reading model see reading skills as a set of building blocks. Having a set of blocks, however, doesn’t guarantee that a person will build things. And even if they do build things, we can’t guarantee they’ll build things the way we want them to. Another problem with building

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