Every year, we have studied 'Letters From Rifka" as part of our immigration unit. We were told that because it is 'above' the level..as in accordance with DRA levels...more of a fifth grade text we are not allowed to use it for guided reading, shared reading but only as a read aloud. It doesn't matter how the book is used and how we differentiate to enusre the 'message' of the book reaches the ESL kids and the kids who are not strong readers, it's not ALLOWED. I have had all kids write the most wonderful reflections after reading, poetry, and then their own journals using the style. So, I am at this point of incredible frustration with the whole 'levelling' drama taking away what was good and worked well. The person making the decisions is adament.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Renee Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2008 9:28 PM To: Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] just right books? I'm sure I will get some flack for this, but in my opinion once a student is reasonably adept at figuring out text, worrying about *levels* is silly, unless the student consistently chooses books to read that are way too easy or way too hard. I think it's real easy to get nit-picky about these things. I remember about ten years ago or so, the Reading Recovery teacher at our school saying that with a third grader past a certain level (RR, maybe level 17 or so) it was not necessary to do running records anymore, and yet these days it seems like people are doing running records on sixth graders at level bazillion. Why are we making more work for ourselves? For what reason? Renee On Apr 23, 2008, at 9:17 PM, HERBERT Suzanne wrote: > It would be great if there was some feedback on this. We are > levelling 40 percent of the books that we should be using in the > classroom for reading. I would assume that literature circles and > silent reading, the children will take their own choices. I teach > fourth graders, and out of my 18 kids, 15 are independent on DRA Level > 50. So, I'm thinking, how essential is it to stick to 'levelled > books' if this is the case and why wouldn't you just encourage wider > reading and child choice? I haven't in the past been into 'exact' > levels for guided reading, somewhere in the 'range' and then lots of > other reading instruction. We're an international school, and a bit > isolated in terms of these types of conversations. At the moment we > are just following directions blindly but now all these types of > questions are starting to be asked. Any ideas/advice/thoughts greatly > appreciated and I so appreciate the chance to speak with you all. > Suzanne "We are here to infiltrate space with ideas." ~ Ramtha _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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.
