Alright, friends, here goes: I need help with my entire reading curriculum. I have asked for help with various details, but when it comes down to it, I really need an outline to plug those details into. I just finished my first year of teaching, and I can't bear to let down another group of kids when it come to reading. (Exaggerating; I think I'm an excellent teacher, but I hate those areas of weakness!) My school and district are VERY traditionally-oriented (book reports out the yang), so I feel isolated and need some help from teachers I actually admire!
Please help. (By the way, I have read all the professional books you are going to recommend. I can't seem to integrate all their ideas satisfactorily.) Some of the issues I struggle with are: 1. *Teaching strategies (making connections, visualizing, etc.) versus text structures (setting, character, etc.) versus genre*. Do you teach all strategies early in the year and then literary elements later, or do you mingle both? (Clarification: I can see the year being arranged like this: "fiction, nonfiction, poetry, test prep..." or like this: "making connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring...") 2. *Integrating test preparation for the big reading test*. See previous posts. Do I teach a whole unit on test-taking, with test passages and the whole deal, or do I teach the type of questions that will be asked (compare and contrast, author's purpose, cause and effect) in another context (i.e., guided reading)? 3. *Aligning reading with writing topics*. When I'm teaching nonfiction in writing, should I do nonfiction in reading at the same time? 4. *Guided reading*. WHAT texts do you teach? Do you reinforce whatever you taught in a minilesson, or is it a different focus entirely? 5. *Content-area reading*. Probably some of you don't teach all subjects, but I do, and I wonder if I should teach reading the science textbook in science or in reading. Is content-area reading a unit you teach? Should I do it as part of guided reading instead of whole-class? Okay, that is it for now. I TOLD you it was the big question. For ease of responding, I have numbered each issue and you can jot some ideas for that number only when you reply! I am relying on your expertise, everyone! Thanks in advance. ~Maggie 5th/TX -- Maggie Dillier "If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) _______________________________________________ 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
