teaching reading in a reg. class/early elementary

Well, you’re not being too idealistic; I have seen several teachers working effectively, often despite their school boards. You may be a bit naive . .

Usually each school and/or district has an official curriculum and official text series and usually workbooks to go with that series. Or you can live in a determinedly head-in-the-sand “whole language” district like the one near here and have an official policy of no textbooks at all and no workbooks in the class, only for parents to do as homework. You are expected to cover that official program, whatever it is.
However, the exact details of the implementation are generally left up to you. You can put more or less weight on various parts, more phonics and handwriting and less guessing from pictures, more reading of developmental vocabulary stories and less re-reading and memorizing, for example.
And if you want to add a certain amount of supplemental material, that is usually all right; you just have to stay within your materials budget or take the cost from your own pocket. And make very very sure you don’t use anything offensive to the morals of the community. Ask around among other teachers for how the school views supplemental materials.

You can also get into the school book storage closets and find various old texts that you can add to your program for more extensive reading.

The one problem that often comes up is that even if you are doing everything legally and properly and well, you will get grief from people who hate change, never mind that it’s change for the better. You will keep hearing that Miss Smith from last year and Miss Jones from down the hall don’t do it that way. And if you raise achievement levels and expectations, then you will get cries and moans that the work is too hard, even if the kids are succeeding. Be prepared for fear of success.

I do think you are only slightly ahead of the ‘wave’ of the future — in Ontario, the literacy test in HS is pushing early elementary to use more effective methods — be prepared, as Victoria says, but quietly do what you KNOW is right…your satisfaction will come through your student’s success.

I for one applaud you! I was horrified to find that my dyslexic son had the SAME treatment in a fully whole language classroom as my dyslexic cousin 20 years earlier — ‘guess and go’ and then some TOTALLY ineffective reading recovery, after which they were SURE he was ‘ADD” (he’s NOT!) — if not for a local private school that offered tutoring as part of a summer camp program, where he was taught using ‘Spalding’, I shudder to think what might have been the outcome.

After 9 months in Gr. 1 with NO progress other than using his excellent memory to fake reading the whole language primers, 4 weeks at summer school with effective teaching from a teacher who BELIEVED he could learn had him reading Beginner books such as ‘Frog and Toad Are Friends’…and he had stopped hitting himself in the face when faced with reading…had stopped gazing into space and tuning out during class…At the end of the 6 week program, the private school teacher, who said on day one ‘Yes, I see many ADD behaviours’, said ‘You are correct, David is NOT ADD…but he’s dyslexic and very bright!’ I can’t tell you how important your convictions will be to your future students!

You will be a GREAT teacher, I predict!

I have to applaud you also. It is teachers like you that we need who are willing to “try” different methods that to stick with that whole language crap.
All children differently, and you have obviously done your homework

I don’t know what happened to my words in there, but I meant to say:
“all children learn differently”
:)

Schools vary widely in how muich leeway they give you in how you teach. You can generally get a good idea in the interview, though (by asking them about their reading programs and seeing jut how fervent they are).

If you’re a special ed teacher, generally they don’t care what you do — that was one of the things I loved about Sped. Nobody tried to tell me what books or methods or materials to use.

I would suggest that you be diplomatic — go in with a “let me learn from you” face on, not “hey, I’ve heard teaching is in bad shape and I’m here to fix it!” This can be really, really hard sometimes, when people *are* fervently attached to things that work for exactly enough studetnts for them to focus on and glow about (and those other students — well, they’re those special ed kids, you know, they’ll Get The Special Help They Need From The Specialists… forget figuring out that some of them wouldn’t NEED sped if you would teach them effectively… and that “the specialists” often know even less about reading)

but NO NO NO :) :) :) the fact is that these are folks who are on your team, even if you wouldn’t have picked ‘em from the draft. They’re who you’re working with, they’re who are teaching kids… and you can have a positive effect on the situation if you keep things positive.

Hi, Where are you in VA? Where will you be teaching? I teach SLD with Halifax County, VA. Anita www.learntoreadnow.com

I am also attending VWC, I am in the adult studies program, my first semester. I am hoping to teach in Hampton, NN, York CO, or WMSBG.

I am just finding out that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, it has really gotten me thinking about parts of education I hadn’t really thought about before. Which is a good thing. I think I am just impatient to know more.

How do you feel about your education at VWC?

best wishes,
Amyf

This forum gets screwier every time I come back to it, I kept getting invalid session notes instead of my messages posting. So I gave up for a while.

Anyway, my 15 yr old son is my incentive for going back to school. He was casualty of whole language, ended up being evaled for sp.ed twice, qualified in 4th grade. I just see a lot of parents’ stories and their kids are at that grade level when help finally arrives. I figure I might have at least a fighting chance at noticing problems before it gets that far since I have some experience with it.

This website was my lifesaver during that whole sp.ed roller coaster time, thank you all by the way. This is where I have received the most knowledge and I hope to use all of your collective knowledge when I teach.

best wishes all,
Amyf

Hey, that’s interesting that you are at VWC. I really enjoyed my years there. Some really great professors and instructors.

My reading course was not the best, however. We had as instructor the reading director for one of the area schools. At the time, it was thought that any whole language basal was appropriate. So any time I had a question about teaching some skill, the instructor would inform me that “all the info you will need is in the teacher’s manual. You will just follow the manual.” Which did not really answer my questions, and the rest of the time she spent sharing her little antedotes from her experiences teaching.

So when I began teaching, I still had the unanswered questions, which remained unanswered until I developed my direct method later. Now I love teaching anybody to read, because I have figured out how to help that person be successful. I hope that one day one of the textbook publishers will pick up my method. Because I think it is truely the missing piece…

If you will send me your email, I will send you further info, letters I have exchanged with other teachers, more detailed, etc, about the method. My email is amlandoll@yahoo.

Have fun at VWC! Anita

Hi
I just wanted to share that I have used the “Recipe for Reading” program with some first grade students that weren’t successful in Reading Recovery or the “conventional” reading programs. It is a multi-sensory approach. YOu can get the manual online for around $20. It was the best twenty bucks I have ever spent. Good luck!
:)