I am so fed up with the way our school systems use, or, rather, misuse, the Accelerated Reader (AR) testing system. I work with struggling readers on a daily basis, kids who hate to read because it is difficult for them to do so. I view my job as a teacher to help ease the […]
struggling readers
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
The Reading Paradigm: Quality vs. Quantity in Reading Instruction
When you first started teaching reading, did you think your students had to read all those books that come with the reading program? I did. I opened my box, pulled out the teacher’s manual, organized the basals, decodable readers, and leveled readers. We would read the story in the reading book (basal), then break off […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy, Parents
The Importance of Reading Out Loud
Read out loud. It’s my mantra. I don’t care how old my elementary students are, I feel they all can benefit from reading out loud to their grown ups. And in this hurried world we live in, the grown ups benefit too. Younger readers need to read out loud to practice reading strategies, to work […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Literacy, Parents
Working with Struggling Readers at Home
For most of us, summer is already here. Your child has survived the school year and is ready to move onto other things – video games, camp outs, vacation, sleeping in late, etc. However, if your child struggles with reading, your child cannot afford to completely take the summer off. Following are tips I have […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy, Special Education
Understanding Dyslexia and How to Help Our Students Succeed
We process the sounds of our alphabetic language as we read and write. The three necessary phonological processing abilities are phonological awareness, phonological memory and the ability to retrieve auditory information from long term memory (referred to as rapid naming). A deficit in some aspect of phonological processing is considered to be the cause of […]
Posted inClassroom Management, Elementary School, Featured, From the Front Lines, Instruction & Curriculum, Kindergarten, Literacy, New Teacher Bootcamp, Opinion
Creating Confident Readers Out of Struggling and Reluctant Readers
So, it’s directed reading time. I have my readers grouped according to ability and the groups are reading different books, which I have geared toward the students in the particular groups. I have a group who collectively love animals, so we are reading Trouble According to Humphrey. I have another group who are mostly boys […]
Posted inFeatured, From the Front Lines, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy, Opinion
What Are We Accelerating in the Classroom?
As teachers we know how important it is to encourage reading in our classrooms, no matter what subject we teach. We equate reading success to lifelong success all around. As teachers we also know how incredibly busy our days are and how difficult it can be to meet children’s needs who either need daily remediation […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy, Opinion
Reading Strategies – By Kids, For Kids
One of my favorite things to do is read. Before bed each night, I crawl under my big cozy covers, grab whatever current novel I’m reading and disappear for at least thirty minutes into a different world. Usually I lose track of my thirty minutes and I’m shaken back into the real world by my […]