Everyone has a friend that always has his or her nose in a book. Don't you always want that person on your Trivial Pursuit team. Likely he's not the one that thinks you're playing the genius edition.
Reading is an amazing way to build your vocabulary, establish eloquent prose, build confidence and generally just be smarter.Researchers have long been asking when is the best time to focus on reading and the answer - always.
Kindergarten and grade one classes in the small rural community of Westbank piloted a reading-readiness project back in 2000 and the results are overwhelming.
"Every student who leaves my room read, and most are reading at or above grade level" says Leona Geber, grade one teacher.
So how do you get your students to read?
- Fill you class with books.
- Get your school to initiate a read-a-thon.
- Give them 5-10 minutes of class time each day.
- Make sure they have a book so when they finish a project or exercise they can pick up their book.
- Bring in a reward system for each book completion and a testing system to make sure they are reading and retaining rather than flipping pages for credit.
When Gerber started the program she says, "I wanted to know exactly what to teach, how to improve reading at every level and how to make it fun for everyone. And I wanted a clear way to evaluate and record results that didn't take up too much time or paper."
The Optimizing Reading Success Program
The Optimizing Reading Success Program has three guiding principles:
- Early intervention
- A systematic, sequential approach to instructing all areas of reading - strategies sight words, fluency and comprehension
- Closely tracking reading skills and passing this information on to the next teacher
Getting The Class Involved
Other ideas or strategies to incorporate into you classroom reading program are:
- modelled reading and writing
- small and whole group instruction
- multi-levelled literacy centers and reading materials in your classroom
- literature studies
- self-directed reading
- sight word flash cards
- Big Buddies support - get older students to help out. This is a great way for them to get involved, to teach and to learn themselves. Are there opportunities for Big Buddies before class? Or do you have an older class that would benefit from teaching to a younger class. Talk to other teachers about strategies and ideas and get classes co-operating.
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