In re: Crob's question about middle school reading material

I saw your question about finding reading material for middle school students not reading on grade level on another post.

At the end of last year, I had purchased (own funds) Reading Reflex and was excited about using it this year. I teach 7th, 8th, 9th language arts-LD, reading levels from 1.8 to 6.5 grade equivalents. I did not have any good reading materials available to me for this age group/reading level. What I did have was old, boring, and stupid. Someone gave me a trial copy of [/u]Bridges to Literature[u] (sorry but I can’t at this moment recall the publisher—a subsiderary of Houghton Mifflin maybe?) and it looked pretty good to me. It’s new so I couldn’t find any used textbooks and the price was about $44 per student textbook. If I kept them in my classroom I figured I needed at least 10 copies to share between all my classes. There are three different levels—3rd grade reading level, 4th, and 5-6th. The kids really seem to like them. I was so excited with one of my most reluctant groups when they began to laugh aloud at a story about a kid who always screwed up any job he ever had.

Besides kid appeal, I like the fact that we can study different genres and literary terms and ideas while we practice reading. There are also comprehension strategies imbedded in the passages for reading a variety of texts. The series is weak in its call for responding in writing to the reading, but that can always be incorporated through assignments by the teacher. All in all I have been very pleased with it.

Hint: I was initially rebuffed when I approached the administration for the money to buy the books—it was about a $1,000 expenditure—too many budget cuts. When I asked the superintendent if I would be violating any policy or law if I set up a shaved ice booth advertising for the textbook fund during the town’s annual summer carnival, I was given blessings to do so. However, a few weeks later I learned that funds had been made available for my books. Hmm….

In any case, get a sales representative to give you a copy for examination. Good luck and God bless.[/u]