Your credential could be elementary or secondary. Your classroom
could have algebra all over the board, or pictures of the Civil War on
the wall. Your students could be taking Cornell notes on the scientific
method. You are still a reading teacher.
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Creative visuals for Pre-algebra. Math 7 |
Effective teaching includes opportunities for
auditory and visual instruction, throwing in activities to solidify the
lesson through verbalization by the students in teams and maybe
kinesthetic involvement also, like my math teaching collaborators,
creating a foldable pamphlet. Many students in the US are now learning
English as a second language, and what teachers in the higher grades
would normally assume the students had down solid in reading may be
necessary to introduce.
http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/PolicyResearch/ELLResearchBrief.pdf
Reading
academic language (or actually, any material) is a new experience for
many kids. They were not exposed to the basics of reading the English
language. And let's face it, English is a booger to learn, full of rules
and then rules that don't apply. Ay yi yi!
http://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/about_reading/
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Connecting words and symbols.Math 7 |
A word rich environment never goes out of style, no
matter what grade. Hurrah for the word wall! The students can see the
words, and the importance of words, and correct spelling. And in our
world learning is increasingly auditory, so kids have marvelous working
vocabularies of words and concepts from the Discovery Channel or the
History Channel--but have never seen the words written down. Therefore,
they usually don't recognize hundreds of words for which they know the
meaning because they've only heard the word, never seen it written and
connected it with the meaning. And the reading skills necessary to
access the word may not be in their skill set.
http://www2.yk.psu.edu/learncenter/acskills/auditory.html
http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/learningstyle.htm
It is interesting to find out your personal learning preferences, and help students to identify her own.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/bxb11/LSI/LSI.htm
What
can a teacher do without sacrificing crucial academic time? Give kids
lots of opportunities to read, read, read. Every teacher has new
vocabulary at the beginning of the chapter. Take a minute to
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Academic vocabulary in plain view.Science 7 |
write the word, syllabicate the word, decode the
syllables for the kids, and then have them repeat it. Having students
syllabicate, decode and read make the kids less anxious about words with
several syllables. I know that literacy coaches with reading
certificates can get high and mighty about the precision of
syllabication, but if you're teaching a seventh grade science class that
is having difficulty with the academic vocabulary--just go for it!
Quick and dirty--infer in fer, support sup port, formulate for mu
late....and if the students don't remember the essential decoding
phonics--what the hey-- just tell them the sound er makes, or what
silent e does, or when two vowels go walking the first does the talking.
For heavens sake, if they need it, they need it! It truly doesn't take
long for kids to catch on to decoding. And reading is so very
empowering.
http://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading101/fluency/
http://www.readingrockets.org/helping/target/phonics/
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Power lessons handwritten on giant sticky notes. Social Studies 8 |
Lessons to SYLLABICATE DECODE CONTEXT are used for
kids to analyze unfamiliar words in passages. They could be reading
along, then boom! an unknown word of scary length. What's a kid to do?
Skip the word? NO! Syllabicate the word, sound it out, then read the
surrounding context for clues as to the meaning. There are many, many
techniques for reading comprehension. But reading fluency also needs to
be addressed, and most instruction is supposedly completed in
elementary. Frequently the kids need to be reacquainted with decoding
and it is so very empowering for the students to read words fluently;
the brief and frequent reminder to syllabicate, decode and read is
totally worth the time and effort for all teachers.
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Reading advice displayed in Math 7. |
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/3479/
Every
teacher teaches reading. It is a privilege for me to collaborate in
classes where literacy is propagated and honored. My colleagues train
constantly for perfection of methods, and meet very frequently to
co-plan lessons. What a huge job. What a huge privilege.
The
last three years in our middle school I have collaborated with several
math teachers, usually seventh grade. They incorporate all methods for
the kids' progress in language, reading, and writing as well as Math
standards. It is amazing how thoroughly they coordinate instruction for
all students (including my students.)
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