On Nov 17, 2006, at 5:53 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Bill, and all-- > this kind of dscussion always intrigues and scares me a bit. As a > reading teacher, I am wary of the "everyone teaches reading syndrome" > for a few reasons. First of all content teachers immediately get upset. > They don't want to teach reading--they will be the first to tell you > they don't know how and that scares them. All kinds of walls go up.
Mary Anne, you are so right. With our school-wide effort, we have stressed that we are working with "reading to learn" as opposed to "learning to read," using the same focus as you mentioned. When strategies are presented as ways to help kids learn how to read textbooks in different content areas, it seems teachers are more open to ways that will help get their subjects across. At our recent FCTE conference, Kylene Beers (newly elected VP of NCTE) stressed that we must get the textbooks off the shelves and scaffold the skills so that kids can read them - helping content area teachers understand how to do this successfully is a bit more appealing that just saying "everyone teaches reading." Interestingly, our science teachers are sharing many of the great reading strategies in their brand-new science textbook. I think it helps when teachers see a strategy applied to their subject, and it really helps if we're all working toward a common goal. Ginny White Fernandina Beach Middle (FL) _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
