Adolescent Literacy Reflection

Sometimes college classes fall short of preparing us for the classroom, but Adolescent Literacy is not that type of course. The text book, When Kids Can't Read by Kylene Beers, in and of itself is a phenomenal asset to my future classroom. It is full of rich information, teacher and student action steps, and helpful lists and resources. I would highly recommend it to anyone teaching 5th grade through 12th grade, regardless of what subject you teach.

The discussions we were able to have about books that our students will read will allow us, all, to better connect with our kids and the books that they choose. Showing students a desire to read is going to encourage them far more than simply assigning different reading material, hoping that they learn to enjoy reading. This class challenged, in a positive way, what I knew about teaching older students and gave me insight to be a better teacher.

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go." -Dr. Seuss

Book Talk - Rules by Cynthia Lord

Book talks are a great way to get students interested in reading a certain book. Here is a link to a book talk video I made about the book, Rules by Cynthia Lord.

Book Talk - Rules by Cynthia Lord

Scholastic has also created a Teaching Guide to go along with the book if you choose to use it as a whole group book study.

Teaching Guide from Scholastic - Rules

Happy Reading!

It's All Greek to Me - Word Recognition

Have you ever tried to learn a second language? Not always an easy task, right?!

Now, can you imagine trying to learn the English language? We have rules and then the rules don't apply. We have patterns and then words don't follow said patterns. We have sounds but then letters in certain words don't make the same sound.

To a struggling reader, all of the above are incredibly frustrating. That is why it is so important to teach our students about word recognition. We have to give them the proper tools to navigate through the reading rules.

I think the two most important strategies when teaching word recognition, besides the common letter/sound relationship, are chunking and syllables. When students are able to break words down into chunks and syllables instead of sounding out letter by letter, they are more able to recognize the words they are reading. Just like reading word by word stifles reading comprehension, sounding out letter by letter stifles the comprehension of the single word.

Students may not be able to see chunks or syllables in words, therefore we must teach them how to recognize these important word components. If we don't, they will be left feeling as if it is all Greek.