Teaching Kids to Read

Do you remember when you first started learning how to read? How did you feel about it growing up?

Reading Horizons. (6 July 2012) [Online Image]. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1Hcy1Av

Depending on your personal experience, learning how to read either felt effortless or challenging. For some students, the process feels natural and gradual. While other students are faced with certain barriers that make learning to read a more complex process.

With both types of experiences in mind, teachers should be sensitive to the different and many needs of their young learners. Since reading is such an essential life skill it can be a daunting subject for teachers. Fortunately, teachers have access to tons of reliable teaching resources!

For those of us new to the profession, I can certainly say that the level of teaching support Ontario curriculum offers is fantastic. We are given access to so many new and traditional sources for lessons. Yay Ontario!  

 “Don’t feel like you have to reinvent the wheel”

As just a Teacher Candidate, I’m constantly turning to more experienced educators for guidance on these topics. After all, reading is such an important skill. I don’t want to be that teacher who ruined their students’ experience of learning how to read (dramatic perhaps, but an honest fear nonetheless). My Associate Teacher passed on an incredible piece of advice recently, which was simply “don’t feel like you have to reinvent the wheel”.

Seems like that would be obvious right?

Of course! Yet, many of us feel the added pressure to recreate traditional models. This pressure is not necessarily a negative thing, our society does praise better, newer, bolder. However traditional teaching approaches still hold merit.

Now is a good time to take a sigh of relief. Let me introduce you to a fantastic resource called “Guide to Effective Instruction”. For the purpose of this post, I will focus on the Reading section of the Guide to Effective Instruction series.

 

The Guide to Effective Instruction series exists for all subjects and is an additional document that supports Ontario curriculum. It is meant to equip teachers with strategies for teaching that will directly support all four of Ontario’s curriculum for reading expectations.

For new teachers, I consider this basically a document to live by. The reading guide clearly outlines instructional approaches to teaching reading that are directly applicable to the classroom – simply put these strategies into practice and you’re good! Equally important though, the guide includes assessment guidelines and expectations to ensure we are matching curriculum requirements. These strategies are tried and true so as a beginner teacher don’t feel guilty about sticking to the book at first. These instructional approaches are specifically designed to meet curriculum expectations.

The Gradual Release of Responsibility

The model outlined in the Effective Instruction document is called the gradual release of responsibility.

This strategy moves students from full teacher support to independent reading through a series of steps.

Experienced teachers will be very familiar with this model. If you've been teaching for awhile you might think a lot of this information is obvious, but for us newer teachers this is a concept we must wrap our heads around. Yes, it’s been around for a while but that's for a good reason. Trust that there are some traditional approaches to teaching that are just as valid as the newer, more experimental approaches.

The website ReadWriteThink is another great resource to take a look at for more instructional approaches. It's very similar to the effective instruction series but offers even more detailed lesson plans and instructional activities.

If you have a few minutes, check out the video below! It's a brief introduction on how ReadWriteThink can help you in the classroom.

 

For the newer teachers reading, I hope I've offered some relief! It can be overwhelming sifting through the vast online information available to us but know that there are some solid and well-respected traditional approaches too.

On that note, happy reading!

References:

Ministry of Education. The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8: Language. Ontario: Queen’s
Printer, 2005. Web.

Ministry of Education. Guide to Effective Literacy Instruction Grades 4-6: Volume Five. Ontario: Queen’s Printer, 2008. Web.  

Digital Storytelling

The act of storytelling is considered one of the most effective ways of teaching. Why? Well, we often use stories to make sense of our world and who we are. At our very core we are a collection of stories, we are built from stories, and we learn from stories.

However, how we tell stories to our students has evolved over time to reflect the changes in our world. With the rapid rise of digital media and technology it is no surprise that our stories are being reinvented using digital media. Digital technology allows for a new kind of collaboration and creativity we haven’t seen before. To put it simply, digital storytelling is a term used to describe this new way of storytelling using digital technology. Digital storytelling is sharing and creating meaningful media, collaborating, and transforming stories with technology.

Why Teachers Need to Know about Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling can be used as a tool to enhance lessons, to spark creativity and motivation in students, and to deliver abstract concepts in a more relatable form for students.

Digital storytelling engages students in a process of researching, sharing, designing, creating, and more. The learning goal is not the outcome or the tools (technology) used but the creative process involved for students.  According to Ontario’s curriculum, to be media literate means to construct meaning through various “languages” – images, sounds, graphics, words (14).

Ontario curriculum expects that students develop media literacy skills by having opportunities in the classroom to analyse and discuss a wide variety of media texts and then be able to relate them to their own experiences (14). Digital storytelling is a prime example of how students can creatively blend personal experiences with technological tools already available to create their own, unique stories.

This video below is a great example of how the Internet can facilitate a rich collaborative environment.

 

Integrating Digital Storytelling into your Classroom

By now you probably have a good idea of what digital storytelling is but if you’re looking for some real-life student examples, check out this link.

Since the topic of digital storytelling seems like such a broad and encompassing topic, as a teacher, you have a lot of options.  Ways to incorporate digital storytelling into the classroom are almost limitless. To get started here are some project ideas:

            Language Arts (English, History, Geography, Drama) and Technology

·         Have your students write and design an alternative ending to a book studied in English class

·         Ask students if they can communicate their life story (or their family’s history) using words, images, sound, etc.

·         Have students collaborate in groups and recreate a story – either historical or fictional (similar to the video above)

Of course, this list is just the start to the many directions teachers can take when designing digital storytelling projects. Remember though, digital storytelling is not just about the tools your students use but about the process of creation and collaboration. Provide your students with the tools they need but keep the focus on the process. The beauty of digital storytelling is that it enables students to challenge storytelling conventions so, as a teacher, it can be helpful to turn to your students for more ideas and inspiration as well.

On that final note, good luck and happy storytelling!

Reference:

Ministry of Education. The Ontarion Curriculum Grades 1-8: Language. Ontario: Queen’s

Printer, 2005. Web.