Struggling Readers

My first reaction to these selections is that struggling readers come in all shapes and sizes. They can be the obvious slumped over kid, or they can be the perky girl in the front row. It seems that there are far more dependent readers than independent readers. My immediate fear is that I cannot relate. I remember being able to read from a very early age, my mother was a reading teacher. I always read well above my grade level. I did watch my little brother struggle through a learning disability, but my parents felt it was important to hide this from his older siblings. They didn't want an insensitive comment to discourage him and ruin what little confidence he did have. The reality is you cannot protect most struggling readers. By the time they've reached middle school, they've probably had moments of embarrassment when they attempted to read aloud to the class. This means that the cat is out of the bag. More than likely, all the struggling readers' classmates know his secret too. So how, as a teacher, do you build confidence in one struggling reader without calling attention to the fact that they are, indeed, a struggling reader? In a classroom full of students, how can you focus your attention on the struggling readers while not neglecting the independent readers? In what ways could independent readers set an example to the dependent readers and help them build text confidence without destroying their social and emotional confidence? Beers makes it very clear that a GROWTH mindset is the most essential part of creating independent readers.

Parts of a Whole

Upon reading Swagorinsky's entire unit plan and the thought process required, it is clear how important it is to envision the "big picture."  Rief also discusses planning long term, going so far as to map out the entire school year, ready to make adjustments. I prefer Swagorinsky's approach to planning a unit and allowing each lesson plan to build on one another in order to accomplish the unit goals. Rief suggests having three different hand outs for parents so they know what to expect of their students, but I feel this is excessive, especially if you are teaching to Swagorinsky's hypothetical class. I found his detailed lesson plans to be very insightful. The fact that he plans down to the minute allows him to predict the way each class will go. He does leave a lot of Fridays open, in anticipation of previous days of the week running over. He saves a few minutes here and a few minutes there for things that had not crossed my mind. For example, at the beginning of every class he allots 3 minutes for "attendance, housekeeping." He understands from experience that class will not just begin when the bell rings. I also like that after each unit, he allows the students to give feedback on the literary materials he chose, as well as the group activities. As Swagorinsky points out, this is especially helpful when you're first starting out. In the same sense, I liked that Rief each year builds a list of student feedback on their Readers and Writers Surveys. This allows her to know her students and what to expect of them that year. It also allows her to conform to their needs.