I teach basic reading and English Language Arts in a rural public middle school in Archdale, North Carolina. I chose to implement the Word Mapping Strategy in a small group special education classroom. The class is a basic reading content support focused on increasing basic reading skills as well as increasing overall literacy. The small group has 4 8th grade students in it that have all been previously identified as exceptional learners. Two of the students are identified as having a specific learning disability and two are identified as other health impaired due to attentional struggles. The reading levels of this group of students, measured by the San Diego Quick Reading Screener, are between the 2nd and 5th grade levels. This group of students was chosen for several reasons; they were already scheduled in and require, a small group exceptional children’s (EC) reading class, they all are reading well below grade level, and they all have a history of doing poorly with word part (roots/stems) assessments. The students in my school are all expected to learn and memorize science stems each week. This particular group of students has historically struggled with this task as well as struggle to demonstrate a skill set to break apart words and understand their meaning. Based on reading assessments and classroom observations, this small group of students often do not attempt to read, break apart, or guess at a words meaning, especially within grade level text. This class, per county expectations, is primarily the implementation of the Reading Achievement Program (RAP) from the Hill Center in Durham, North Carolina. However, as teachers we have the freedom to embed other research based instructional practices based on student need. Therefore, this group began the Word Map Strategy once or twice a week for the 50 minute class period. The lesson implementation took approximately 12 weeks and the students will continue to generalize and practice with the strategy with grade level content area textbooks for the remainder of the school year.
