Hi, all, I have questions regarding the text students choose to read during independent reading.
I had always been told that students should read at their independent reading (99%) during independent reading. When I heard Ellin last year at a conference, she talked about students needing to read challenging material during independent reading. It really started me thinking about how we can move students in our district forward. (You need to know that on our state test over 85% of our students meet and exceed standards in all grades 3-8.) We are being challenged by our board regarding the rigor of the curriculum, and I do agree that we do need to up the rigor, but am not sure what that means to a classroom teacher. I know that teachers tend to teach the same skills or strategies over grade levels. For example, our framework states that in grade 5 students will begin to identify double plot novels, yet I know some teachers are not introducing that strategy by that grade. With our population, that is not an unreasonable expectation. I realize that students need to read easier books when they are learning content in social studies and science in order to learn new content. But as we look at how to re structure our independent reading, I'd like to know what you all do. Do you encourage students to choose independent or more challenging reading/text. We are contemplating using the Schoolwide Enrichment Model - REading that is from the University of Connecticut, and they recommend students read 1 year above their grade level, I think. The SEM R model is recommended for grades 3-8. At what level should students begin to read challenging text? I understand that primary students need to develop their fluency and easy reading is excellent for that. But then, how do they learn to comprehend? In reading the posts both with this list and the MRA notes, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Carol District 102 Language Arts Content Specialist On Mar 16, 2008, at 8:44 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I have struggled with this for years. Maybe, we need to consider > what the > purpose is for our lesson(s). If we are working on fluency, > decoding skills we > need easy books. But couldn't we be modeling the struggle through > read alouds > when teaching comprehension??? > Then...there are books which are very simply written which require > inferential thinking---a struggle---to comprehend. An example might > be "the Giving > Tree" or "Grandfather Twilight." Many poems would also seem to work > for this > purpose...decodable words but deeper meanings when read and reread... > Perhaps it is all about balance...giving kids LOTS of easy reading to > develop proficiency AND opportunities to stretch their minds. > Jennifer > > In a message dated 3/16/2008 2:56:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > just heard Dick Allington at Michigan Reading Association on > Saturday, > March 15. It was very interesting. He spoke of the > misunderstanding that > kids have to struggle with text to understand, but adults won't. The > example he gave was this. If we have a typical adult text with > 300 words > per page. Thinking it is an independent level of 99 percent, the > reader > would not know 3 words a page. Most adults would not read the > book. Adults > expect to know 99.99999999999999999 percent of the words. So why > do we as > teachers think it is ok to give kids books at an instructional > level of 97 > percent let alone 99 percent? We need to be very careful with our > teaching > decisions. He had a ton more for us to think about > > > > > > > **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL > Money & > Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001) > _______________________________________________ > Understand mailing list > [email protected] > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/ > understand_literacyworkshop.org _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
