International Literacy Day

In honor of International Literacy Day, I would like to share with you a snippet from an article written by Sebastian Wren.  The Article is entitled "Ten Myths of Reading Instruction" and was published in SEDL newsletter Volume XIV, Number 3 in December 2002.

"Although such reading programs can be a useful part of a larger reading curriculum, no reading program by itself has ever been shown to be truly "successful"—not with all children and all teachers. And no reading program by itself has been shown to accelerate all children to advanced levels of performance. . .
There are a few programs that, if properly implemented, could help a school move in the right direction, but nothing could ever take the place of a knowledgeable and talented teacher."
You can find the entire article here:
http://www.sedl.org/pubs/sedl-letter/v14n03/2.html

A hats-off salute to dedicated knowledgeable and talented teachers everywhere!  There truly is no limit to your influence in the lives of children.

From September 8 to September 12, I have put these two literacy-building products on sale at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store:

Genres of Literature is a 26-page unit that explores 11 different genres: fairy tales, fantsy, folk tales, fables, legends, realistic fiction, historical fiction, biography, informational text, poetry, and drama. Each genre has a description and an example, followed by an engaging activity for students to complete. Activities include writing a journal entry about a biography, writing newspaper articles about fables, writing a personal letter to a fairy tale character, illustrating a folk tale, writing a story ending for realisitic fiction, making a map for a legend, creating a post card to send to someone about a fantasy, writing dialouge for a script, etc.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Genres-of-Literature

Reading Strategies

These worksheets can be used with any book or passage, and will guide young readers in learning and using reading strategies that support and improve comprehension. Students will practice previewing, predicting and identifying reasons for reading. They will learn to ask and answer their own question, clarify as they read, identify story elements and summarize after reading. Activities are open-ended and can be used with any assigned reading passage.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Reading-Strategies-Worksheets-for-Use-With-Any-Book

Reading Fluency

For decades, the battle of ideas has raged over reading instruction.  There are many ideas, opinions, and methods for achieving the same goal.  Many teachers and districts today use reading workshop.  That method is not well-accepted in my district.  Reading instruction in my district is very skills based and data-driven.  It is an approach that is working very well. 

One element of comprehensive reading instruction is building fluency.  A quick one-minute timing of a child's oral reading can yield a wealth of information.  Easy and inexpensive to administer, these timings provide a snapshot that is invaluable in collecting data and tracking student performance and learning trends over the course of the year.  Reading fluency has been shown to be a reliable predictor of performance on high-stakes tests.

Automaticity--how quickly and effortlessly a child can process words--is a key factor in identifying children who struggle and why they struggle.  During a fluency timing itt is easy to identify children who guess at words rather than decode them, children who don't read the endings of words, children who skip words, and so on.  Reading rate is important in measuring the extent of automaticity.

An effective way to build fluency is through repeated readings.  This method is research-tested and proven.  The child reads a passage cold, and the number of correct words per minute is recorded.  They then read through the passage with adult, and practice the same passage repeatedly until they are fluent.  They do a final timed-reading, which is recorded.  Students are able to compare their reading rates and accuracy rates from the first reading to the final one.  Seeing their own growth gives a big boost in confidence. Students who are struggling, start out with reading passages below their grade level.  As their automaticity improves, they progress to passages that are more difficult.