Emergent Literacy

Does the student comprehend when reading at her grade level? Does he comprehend when reading fiction? If those are problems, reading textbooks will certainly be as well.

Textbooks are an entirely different story. Most are written above the grade level they’re used and the language is so dry it goes over the heads of children.

If students are having trouble with textbooks, I don’t use the textbook. I find a different way to teach the material that’s in the textbook and do not require that any student read it.

Thank you both for being teachers. Teachers these days who seem to really care, are rare. You both seem expectional, wish I could find teachers like you both. Thanks again, for giving me renewed faith in the teaching profession!!!!!!!!!!1

I think that the very first step would be to determine the students’ actual reading levels. I also think that it would be helpful to identify some of the students’ interests and concerns. In doing so, you can provide your students with reading materials that are appropriate and fun. At this point you can also make some educational placement decisions. There may be a few students that you feel require more assistance than you are capable of providing for them. There may also be some that you feel could be successful with accomodations to the reading curriculum made possible through Section 504. Although these may be options that you might consider; they should only be considered when all else fails. It is always best to do everything possible within the regular education classroom setting before suggesting 504 accomodations or special education modifications.

tonya,

this kid is never going to understand middle school stuff until someone decides to teach him how to read, no more dumbing down the curriculum and god forbid we give him a 504, might as well stamp incompetent right on his forehead!

if you are his teacher, then teach him to read, and forget blaming those who did not do their job before you, he is in your class, get him reading,

who cares what his level is, if he cannot read on the middle school level, his level is umimportant,

what is important is that you access his PA skills and get him learning how to read, and if you use a method that has him guessing or reading to the end of the sentence before he makes a guess, then he will make zero progress in your room and next year’s teacher will be blaming you, teach him to read, simple as that

First, go into the old posts on this site and search for stuff posted by Shay. She has a program that she uses successfully with kids who have been passed along to the high schools as non-readers.

OK, your question about “emergent literacy”. This is a good concept that has gotten a bad reputation by keeping bad company.

Good concept: Beginning readers go through predictable stages and and have predictable kinds of concepts and misconceptions about reading. You cannot expect a child to learn everything at once or to be perfect immediately (unless you wish to breed neurotics, although many people try …), so it is a good thing to learn how kids work through these stages and to encourage them to move through the next stage.
bad company: This is a phrase much loved by the whole language people. Starting with the good concept, some misguided people use it as an excuse to not teach skills, to practice mistakes, to teach falsehoods, and to pass kids on without teaching much of anything.

For a comparison, consider a child learning to swim. You expect the child to first float for a few seconds, then dog-paddle, then do more complex strokes. You don’t try to teach the racing crawl to a child who is still afraid to float on his tummy or put his face in the water. However, if the child is ten years old and has been in swimming lessons for five summers, you do try to take some other actions - you don’t just say he’s still an emergent swimmer.