Module 1

Charlotte K. Sills

            I have found a new resource – The Reading Teacher.  I love this magazine; besides being easy to read, it is full of information that I can use on a daily basis as I teach reading to all of my little third graders!  I opened the May, 2012, addition and there it is, right there in black and white – an article on fluency that retells exactly what I have been trying to get across at my school for the past 3 years:  fluency is not how many words you can read!!  And I quote, “…fluency is reading with and for meaning, and any instruction that focuses primarily on speed with minimal regard for meaning is wrong.” Amen!!  At my school the reading score for each nine weeks is an average of three grades:  Reading Fluency (which is just speed), Vocabulary and Comprehension.  So, if a very high functioning student does not read 120 words per minute, their reading average for the nine weeks it going to be lowered because reading speed is one/third of their grade.  I cannot wait to share this with others!!

            Who knows what a “vocabulary flood” is?  I do, thanks to another article in the same issue of The Reading Teacher!  “…a vocabulary flood is an environment of immersing students in word-rich environments, maximizing both intentional and incidental word learning and breadth as well as depth of vocabulary instruction.”  Not only does this article give you meaning and example of vocabulary flooding, it also gives you resources to use, so you can start turn your classroom into a vocabulary rich environment.  We have to move from the 10 words a week to hundreds of words per year!  I am already setting this up in my classroom.

            Formative assessment is the topic of yet another article in the same issue of The Reading Teacher, May, 2012, issue.  So many teachers do not truly understand the reason for formative assessments and thus do not use them correctly when teaching their students.  It should be a snapshot that tells the teacher how large a gap if from where students are in their reading and where they need to go.  Used correctly the teacher will go to have the students self-assess in such a way to prove productive in helping to close their reading gap.  This article offers many useful ideas and strategies for reading differentiation to help close your students’ reading gaps.

            I think a reason that I so like this magazine, besides the obvious, is that is written by teachers for teachers.  The best reading teachers out there are offering their own experiences and what they did that has proven very useful to obtain success in the classroom when teaching reading.  I have subscribed to this magazine and look forward to the next issue (and to reading more of the past issues!)

Literacy and Teaching Reading in Public School

I am taking classes to add a reading endorsement to my teaching certificate.  Please share with me your thoughts, practices, ideas, antidotes, anything that will help me be a better teacher of reading to my students. I teach third grade reading, but I have readers that range from pre-primer to fifth grade!