Thank you. Very helpful. I'm concerned about the strength of the writing instruction as well.
Karen Sent from my iPad On Oct 28, 2013, at 5:32 PM, Jeanne Canon <jca...@optonline.net> wrote: > We adopted this program in our district for grades K - 3 and it is now being > piloted in grades 4 and 5. Because I am a support teacher and not a > classroom teacher, I can deviate from the program to differentiate and tailor > the it more to my students' needs. If I were a classroom teacher I would > most likely feel pretty overwhelmed by all of the program’s components. > Since it has A LOT of components, I believe that the challenge for many will > be to decide which components are "have tos” and which components are at the > teacher’s discretion. I too feel that the writing is a bit weak, so I do my > own thing with the writing piece. I like the leveled guided readers. I have > four levels of guided reading books (from the Wonders Program) which are at > different reading levels: approaching, on level, ELL and beyond level. > What’s nice about the guided reading books is that they are all on the same > topic. For example, we were exploring how animals survive and we read guided > reading books on animal babies. Everyone in the class read books with the > same titles and topics, but they were differentiated for each guided reading > group. This gave them a common experience and the same background knowledge. > I don’t like the ELL guided reading books because the publisher added all of > this additional print to the pages in an effort to explain some terms to the > ELLs, but all that extra print is overwhelming. Also, to state the obvious, > explanations in English are not particularly helpful for many ELLs. I > prefer to use the non-ELL guided readers for my ELLs and I just scaffold for > them. They are more successful with this approach. > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
