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