Module 1
Charlotte K. Sills
I
have found a new resource – The Reading
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!)
Charlotte,
ReplyDeleteThe way that you described the information in The Reading Teacher is excellent. It has influenced me to go back and look at this resource more closely. I am at the high school level, so their is not so much reading instruction as there is literature instruction. The assumption (and just that, an assumption) is that by the time students reach high school, they should be reading and comprehending well enough to be successful in high school. In my experience, this is just not the case. I am currently working with struggling readers at different levels and I think that this resource may prove to be exptremely helpful.
I totally agree about students getting to high school and not being able to read. They get passed along to the next grade due to age, or have already been retained too many times, etc. and nobody seems to want to look into the reason why they are so old in such a low grade, etc. If a student cannot read, they cannot pass any subject, even math as math has so much reading included. There was a time you could do well in math if you were good in computation even if you could not read well; things have changed and computation is a small part of math now! I really think you will love the magazine!
ReplyDeleteThank you for introducing this journal to me! I love it as well. So many ideas and techniques. So much that can be taken down for lower level students and emergent readers
ReplyDeleteI love that magazine as well!! I think, as educators, we should all be sharing resources that we come across! Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteMrs. Sills, I really enjoyed reading your Module 1. I'm glad I went back and caught this one. Thanks for sharing the reading teacher magazine. I will order this, and use it with my adult basic education students at CSH, and with my 2 sons in 2nd and 4th grades. I liked your description on your room set-up utilizing "vocabulary flooding". I will do this also. Next time I walk Cameron in to 2nd grade, I would like to stop by 3rd grade hall and see your room, and how you set it up. Keep up the great work you are doing. Midway is very fortunate to have you on their instructional team.
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