Please tell me about your school/district's reading philosophy. In your response, include what you feel are the strengths and areas that need improvement.This information will be beneficial to me so I can tailor this class to your individual needs.
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4 comments:
I have worked in the Madison Schools as a reading teacher for the last 5 years (10 years in special ed prior to that). During this time, the district has cut reading in the middle school level every year. As of last year, I was one of the only reading techers left at any of the middle schools. I'm not sure about this year because they also cut out our district meetings. On the positive side, I did hear that next year the district is increasing reading allocation across the district.
Historically, at the middle school level, the focus of reading has been on the strategies of a reader (making connections, inferenes, asking questions, etc.). At my school, Reading is subject area class in 6 th grade only (7th and 8th grade it is Language Arts/English), unless they are selected or elect to take a small group reading class in 7th grade. For 8th graders, there is an English Extra class which focuses on writing, but also strives to meet the needs of the lower level readers. I think the fact that we have these classes still available is an asset of our school.
I think there is always room for improvement, but particular areas in my school that need improvement include: meeting the needs of the EEN (we have some near non-readers in 7th grade)and ELL students (we have a large population due to student housing for the UW is in our attendance area and many ELL students' parents are at the UW). We also do not offer anything specific to meet the needs of the higher achieving students.
For me personally, I always find that taking a class helps me keep on top of my teaching by spurring new ideas and refining old ones.
At the elementary level we have a reading philosophy that is centered around trying to integrate comprehension and word attack skills of reading with grammar and mechanics of writing. We have a basal text which we use some but also use a variety of tradebooks. We have had many inservices on programs so that we can blend our reading instruction with other subject areas.
I think the strength of our program is the kids do read a lot. We kept a list last year of all the books and articles we read and it was amazing. It would be hard for adults to amass a reading list even half as long. I also think that the students that are good readers really have no limits and continue to get excellent.
I think the problems are that with the tradebooks we do not spend as much time with actual strategies as some kids need. I think the students that do not like reading find success but still do not like reading.
There are 3 elementary schools in our district, and the district tries very hard to ensure that we are all teaching the same thing. We have a required basal program. The program has a good balance. There is a solid base of phonics skills, as well as an emphasis of comprehension skills and strategies. The skills are introduced as part of the whole groups instruction and reinforced through small group guided reading. The program provides materials for guided reading. The advantage of this is that the guided reading materials have a similar theme and focus on the same skills that are being taught in the basal story. The disadvantage is that there is a huge gap between the below level and on level readers. While my low readers are not reading well enough to handle the on level material, they are not being challenged by the below level readers. Overall, I like the program. I'm looking for literature which ties into the themes of our units, and which I can use to reinforce the strategies that are being taught.
Posted for Jayne:
reading philosophy
St.Charles believes the reading curriculum should provide opportunities to read a wide variety of narrative and expository materials, read for a wide variety of purposes, build and refine one's vocabulary, build and refine one's pre, during, and post reading strategies, and master subskills in primary grades while reading for meaning and balancing sequenced subskills instruction with as-needed instruction.
I believe that the strengths of our reading program include: the emphasis on vocabulary-building. I try to do a variety of activities involving vocabulary including various puzzles and using the vocabulary in context. I also incorporate a wide variety of materials to try to capture all of my students' interests at some point.
I would like more strategies for during and post readeing strategies. I would like to give the kids tools to help them with comprehension when they struggle.
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