I just finished reading the Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. Holy cow. It was an easy read, but very powerful. I feel like I have been doing the exact opposite of everything she talks about in the book. Based on what I read in that book (and the week-long training I just finished in the Phonics First Structures program), I have a pretty good idea of how I want to teach reading this year. I will have three 90-minute ELA blocks per week. On the other two days, my students will stay with their peers for inclusion (after I teach Structures) and I will be working with my other group of students in math. This is what happens when you have kiddos in reading and math simultaneously! Thank goodness I have excellent teachers to work with who are flexible and don’t mind team planning with me. Anyway, back to my plans for reading! The Structures program is a multisensory method to teaching root words, affixes, and phonics. I plan to start each reading period with 20 minutes of targeted skill work from this program. It works. I have seen it work. It is worth putting in the time. Truly. Then I want to dedicate a good chunk of time to silent reading. I’m thinking 20-30 minutes. Every. Single. Day. My students do not read outside of school. The number one way for kids to become better readers is by reading. A lot. If reading is a priority, I need to MAKE it a priority! All of my students have special needs (alas, I AM an Intervention Specialist, after all!) and are given far less time to read at school than their peers. Instead of silent reading, they have been pulled for skill instruction and remediation. Without giving them time to practice these skills by actually reading, they will not master them! I want to create students who love to read. To do that, I also need to let them choose what books they read. I can’t give them the same genre requirements as what was outlined in the book because I have readers that range from K-3 (remember, I teach 5th grade). I’ve decided to divide my classroom library into reading levels and each level into the following categories: chapter books, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry/rhyming. The students will have to read from each of the categories and track their progress. In addition to the Structures program and the silent reading, I will teach the various reading standards via poems and short stories. If the students can pull out examples from their silent reading, I will know that they understand the concept. It is a more integrated, time-saving approach of teaching that should work well with my small groups of kids. I also will be using mp3 players loaded with the audiobook of the novel their general education teacher is teaching to the rest of their class. Because they are too difficult for them to read on their own, I will have them listen for about 10 minutes a day while walking outside. We will spend a few minutes after that discussing what they heard. This is a good chance for them to work on their listening comprehension and to hear someone read fluently and with expression. Hopefully, the extra movement will also help transition them to be able to sit and write! The rest of the ELA period will be spent on language arts. I don’t have that set up in my mind, yet. I know I want them to be doing some written responses to their silent reading and we still need to work on actual writing. The wheels are turning. Hmmm…
