Allison Sumerel's August Blog Post: Thinking Outside of the Box When Teaching Reading and Writing

In Heidi Mills and Jean Anne Clyde’s article Children’s Success as Readers and Writers: It’s the Teacher’s Beliefs That Make the Difference, I was able to see some things that I could look for with my reading students.  I teach the corrective level of reading to my fifth graders.  Even though they were using examples from first grade classes, it totally hit home and made sense.  

Not all teachers teach the same.  Even when you have teachers teaching the exact same curriculum. Different teachers are going to put their own spin on how it is taught.  Some students struggle in reading.  I am constantly trying to find ways to get concepts to make sense for my students.  We try scripted stories, novel studies, independent reading, guided reading, and many other strategies to help the students to be more fluent and comprehend what they are reading.  I try not to focus on the fact that some can read more fluently or comprehend better than others.  I try very hard to individualize it for each student.  What I see most by the time they reach the fifth grade, is that their confidence in reading is not where it should be.  Mills and Clyde said, Children with a foundation of confidence and literary skills are better off than they would be without both, regardless of what comes next. Yes, we try all things in order to improve their skills, but I want their confidence to be where it needs to be too. 

I tried something a little different after reading this article.  Instead of having the students write a response in paragraph form of what they thought two characters would say to one another, like the curriculum suggested, we did something else.  I noticed that some of my students were having trouble writing in dialogue.  We instead used thought bubbles with drawings.  This seemed to make it a little more understandable for the students.  They drew a scene from the story and used the thought bubbles to show what the characters would say.  The article mentioned this with the young boy Matt.  They urged teachers to see different methods beyond the traditional in order to teach.  I appreciated that this article encouraged us to think outside of the box when teaching reading and writing.