Hi Maggie, Good to see you online:)
Well, that is a big question....but I would guess that you pretty much have the strategy teaching down....you use Strategies that work for that, right? And one question that you asked is easy to answer. Yes, at least for me, I find it easier to teach a reading unit using mentor texts on say creative nonfiction and then do a writing unit....and one of the things that troubled me last year with my first year of doing a real writing workshop (though I had taught writing integrated into high school English before) was how to balance student choice and writing to enhance their lives with genre writing. This is what I have come up with: I am planning on using the Daily Five for a structure for Independent Reading and am going to use The Teacher's Guide to Big Blocks: Grades 4-8 for a framework for times and such while balancing science, social studies, and literacy. (I am going to be the reading inclusion teacher for a new middle school in my district, grades 6-8, so I am sure teachers will be relying on me for recommendations on how much time to spend on each thing, etc. And yes, it is recommended in this book that guided reading takes place 70% of the time during content time....remember, though, that a book is only suitable for guided reading when students can read it with 95% accuracy or more....therefore, if you are using content time to do guided reading, you need to use trade books, picture books, etc. to teach the content....student inquiry is a great way to organize this (or content lit circles). When the textbook is too difficult for students, it is best to read it aloud while students follow along (using whole-class reciprocal teaching) or students can listen to recorded tapes, if available, but this is not guided reading. As far as integrating test-prep into guided reading, sorry to recommend books, but I am just telling you what I do....(and this comes from a teacher who has read literally hundreds of professional books due to similar questions to yours) I use Beverly Tyner's Small Group Reading Instruction: Grades 3-8. It is published by the International Reading Association and has a great lesson plan framework for several different stages of reading, much of which focuses on the test-strategies that you mentioned: analyzing character, compare/contrast, fluency, etc....word study cards for the stages of development do not accompany the book but are available for free on the IRA website for print-out. As far as a yearly schedule, I think I have a curriculum map for reading strategies somewhere on my computer....it has a suggested framework I think based on Juli Kendall's work, with teaching monitoring comprehension and fluency in August and September, Making Connections in October, Questioning in November, etc....and of course the already-taught strategies get reinforced throughout the year. There is also a chart you can get somewhere (I should have one saved somewhere) that correlates Mosaic strategies with the Six traits, or someone else on this list might have one readily available? If you google "Middleweb listserve" you can find Juli Kendall's curriculum units for the year. The Daily 5 structure has a section of the Daily 5 for personal writing and a writing workshop completely separate in the afternoon in which genres are taught....I loved this idea. Living Books can be used during the Daily 5 writing time. Feel free to email me offline for more information about the Daily 5 or anything else. Good luck this year, Maggie! I'm sure other teachers will also have some great ideas, and I hope at least some of this might be helpful to you....I know being a new teacher can be overwhelming....remember to be patient with yourself. None of us is born knowing everything that would be helpful to know when teaching, unfortunately. May Dartez/6-8 Title L.A./GA [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ 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
