Ahh, my specialty :) I've taught intervention classes and am now a literacy coach for the intervention classes at my school.
One thing many of these students need is success. They have had YEARS of failure and do not feel good about it. They will tell you they do not like reading, but if you find the right book for them, they do! I always had a read aloud - sometimes they had a copy of the book, sometimes they didn't. I also think teaching *strategies* (like you would do in workshop) is the way to go. When I taught my intervention class I used a lot of ideas from Cris Tovani's I Read It, But I Don't Get It. One of the most important lessons I did was about listening to the voice on your head from that book. Many of these students don't realize that you talk back to the book and there is that voice in your head. Also, another important area to work on is teaching them how to access texts in *every* content area. This is what the program I work with now focuses on, and we have seen great success! The students go to their content area classes and feel like experts because they know how to navigate the text. It's super important to teach them about text structure - if they know how a particular genre is set up, they will know what to expect from that type of text when they get to it. For example, the articles in Scholastic (a GREAT resource) are set up: Anecdote, general info about topic, back to anecdote. When they kids know this and are taken through it and you discuss why the anecdote is there, they really start to understand. Often, when you give them these articles without going over the text structure, they get caught up in the anecdotes and think that is the point of the article, when it's not. Textbooks have a different structure, as do other genres. In the intervention classes at my school, we keep charts up about the different text structures, text features, and different processes we go through to understand the text. On 9/8/07, Janet Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Pat, I have had at least one Reading Intervention class for the past two > years, and this year I will be having two. The first year I really > floundered.....tried to make it "fun" and do some novels, etc. That did > not > work at all. So last year I tried to make a routine that would make the > kids > feel safe, but not punished. I did a vocabulary activity (including a > SHORT > worksheet , modeling state questions) on Monday, some short text from > magazines on Tuesday, some extended response questions on Wednesday, and > some personal responses to articles (including compare/contrast, > questioning > visualizing, connecting) on Thursday. If everyone was there every day, and > tried to complete the work, on Friday I gave them a day to play chess, > scrabble, or do jigsaw puzzles. These activities are excellent for > concentration and problem solving. I had a very successful year with the > kids, and all but one passed the Ohio State Reading Achievement Test. When > I > use short text, I often use magazines from Scholastic. Hope this helps. > Janet...Ohio 8th Grade Reading > > > -------Original Message------- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: 8/8/2007 4:23:50 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [LIT] Struggling MIddle School Readers > > I just received my schedule for the next school year. I will have three > 8th > grade AIS (academic intervention services) classes. These students are the > lowest regular ed readers on the grade level. Class size will be kept > small. > These > kids will be missing some of the more fun classes (technology, art etc) to > take this reading course. I would love to hear how other middle school > teachers > would work with this group. > > Pat - NY > > > ************************************** > Get a sneak peek of the > all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour > _______________________________________________ > 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 > _______________________________________________ > 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 > -- - Heather "The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead." --Clarence Day "While the rhetoric is highly effective, remarkably little good evidence exists that there's any educational substance behind the accountability and testing movement." —Peter Sacks, Standardized Minds "When our children fail competency tests the schools lose funding. When our missiles fail tests, we increase funding. " —Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Presidential Candidate _______________________________________________ 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
