Reading Next Online Activity

1.) Literacy programs in the United States have been changed over the decades many times in order to fulfill the criteria needed to “fix” the increasing rate of students achieving below grade-level. In the article, Reading Next, it made valid points about the American literacy rate and the affects administrators and teachers need to consider when teaching the curriculum. Reading Next made many connections to the topics we have discussed in class. McKenna’s reading guides are the perfect expectations students need to follow and they set clear purpose for the text and or topic they are reading. When creating reading guides teachers need to be considerate of the students to make sure they are not “general” and are actually helping students who actually need to the extra organization and comprehension of the text. Moore, Bean, Birdyshaw, and Rycik mention the seven principles students deserve. The first principle, adolescents deserve access to wide variety of reading they mention the decrease in amount of time they spend reading for fun. This holds very true because adolescents have difficulty comprehending newspapers, magazine articles, even recipes. While in school students are either not caring enough to try or students are having a much harder time comprehending the curriculum because it is too high. Gunning mentions the use of graphic organizers. This is a very important tool for students who are struggling or need the extra organization skill/tool to help them comprehend what they have read. Literacy programs need to be reevaluated and teachers need to consider making sure the steps they are using is to help their students achieve are actually working to help students twenty and thirty years from when they taught it.

2.) In my language arts classroom I would have students use text-based collaborate learning by engaging them in a variety of activities. One way would be to prepare a critical thinking reading guide on a text we were reading in class. In order to have student collaborate I would break them into groups of four. While in these groups they would be given the opportunity to build and express background knowledge of the topic being discussed in the text. Students would also be able to refer to the text and make connections. The texts that would be used during the small group activity would be articles that are different and vary in complexity. Although, the text would be of interest, so students can relate and help generate discussion. By giving the student different ability texts it differentiates instruction and allows students to explore new topics. With using the reading guide and the variety of texts students are being set-up to have success in discussion and participation.

Intensive writing is a skill and approach I would teach in my classroom; there are many ways to address intensive writing. In my class, students would use simple articles, reading guides, and or critical thinking short stories to help reinforce comprehension and to help them generate ideas about what to write about. Students would be asked to complete writing samples while completing the writing process. Making sure to think about the writing process and what is going to truly help them well into the future, I would have my students write resumes, cover letters, research papers, and narratives. Each one of those writing topics would help any student way into the future. The writing process would be separated into parts so that students can work at their own pace and so the writing taking place is clear and written well. Students would be able to complete each part of the writing process and would be able to check his or her own work this way the student feels ownership of their work.