At the beginning of the year our new literacy coach wanted us to purchase Making Meaning. >From what I watched on their website, part of it looked like a rather scripted program. >From one who could not run fast enough away from Success For All, I was opposed to purchasing a boxed program. However, our literacy coach has been able to go into everyone's room and from her point of view, we are very inconsistent across grade levels. It is not her intent to have us on the same page on the same day, she wants us to do more collaboration and planning (something our school does not readily partake in). By May we were ordering Making Meaning. But, I don't feel defeated. I look at this as a support. She knows I will not follow a script but I will follow a genre for a unit of study. My coworker this year was new to 2nd grade. He was moved from 5th to 3rd then 2nd. He teaches to the higher level. We no longer us the basal. In the fall we were giving him our recommendations: The Daily 5, Reading With Meaning, The First 6 Weeks of School (Responsive Classroom) and Growing Readers-that's just for reading. He was overwhelmed and tried to stick with Growing Readers. I know I am an eclectic reader, using a variety of professional books. But, he was drowning. Because of him (and some teachers that don't bother) I realized that we just might need a layout with more "structure". It is my hope that if we all start with the concepts in Making Meaning, teachers will learn to incorporate the comprehension strategies and teach through quality children's literature.
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