Re: need information

[Kruchma@aol.com]

Robin and Sherri,
 
The expensive programs you have mentioned, along with prescriptive programs  
that are technology- based, have  poor track records for either improving  
students' reading  levels or interests in reading when applied to new  contexts 
(those beyond the programs used).
 
If you are lucky enough to have a school-wide SSR or at least have planned  
open reading time within your classroom on a regular basis, the next step is to 
 allow multiple responses to what students have read, time to converse about  
their reading with peers, and then the opportunity to share with the class or 
 take part in larger discussion.  You can write a focus question for them to  
consider depending  upon genres, if you need or want a more structured  
response.  Also, read along with the class,  respond in writing,  through art or 
other modes, and then share a viewpoint, new learning, or  your own answer to a 
focus question, if that is the case.  You  will find that students' interests 
are piqued with this sharing, and texts  read by peers will often wind up on 
their reading  lists.  The teacher modeling along with taking the time for 
students  to converse are strong motivators for students to consider multiple 
viewpoints  while refining their own and also to read genres in addition to 
perhaps the  fiction or graphic novels they may usually choose.  
 
Some great sources on the topic of reading responses and insights into  
students' interests and motivations are Louise Rosenblatt's Literature as  
Exploration  and The Reader, the Text, and the Poem , along  with Jeffrey D. Wilhem's 
Going with the  Flow:  How to Engage Boys  and Girls in Their Literacy 
Learning and Engaging Readers and Writers  with Inquiry.  There are many exceptional 
texts that will inspire you,  and perhaps others can add to this list.
 
Feel free to write to me off-list if you would like to explore some  
additional specific strategies.  It is worth the time you invest in  creating a 
reading approach that works for your particular situation.  And  I am pretty sure 
that your students will thank you.
 
Best wishes,
 
Mary Anna
 
Mary Anna Kruch, Ph.D.
President-Elect,  Michigan Council of Teachers of English
K-12 Writing & Literacy  Consultant

kruchma@aol.com

P.O. Box 561
Williamston, MI  48895
517-655-1633


"If education is to be done  expertly, it must be done by the teachers 
themselves who as experts use their  own knowledge and understandings to define in 
particular pedagogic situations  the problems that are worth solving and 
soluble....education cannot be exercised  mechanistically or according to prescribed 
programs and algorithms." (p.  33)

Donna H. Kerr in The Ecology of School Renewal, John I.  Goodlad, Ed. (1987)



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