Tuesday, October 2, 2012

I need some help!

Alright teachers! I am in need of help. I know I haven't been the best blogger here but if you would be so kind to comment on this to help me out I would really appreciate it. I have seen and thought of all of these cute ideas that relate to teaching lessons with stories. However, here is my dilemma. I don't have class sets of any of these books. So what do you do? Do you do read alouds and teach skills with the read aloud? Or do you have class sets of books? If you do read alouds, what do you do for students to practice reading? Please before you say independent reading time, know that my students do NOT read independently. If I ask them to do that, they just flip pages and/or have no idea what they are reading. We do not have AR or any other way to level students so students have no clue what level books to pick so often times they pick a "typical third grade book" from the library that is often times too hard for them. I am not a fan of our reading series stories however it is all that we have that EVERYONE has a copy of. I would rather do more interesting lessons but I am in a rut. Help me out please!

And I know I blogged twice in one day but this is just been driving me crazy for too long.



2 comments:

  1. Even though you dont have ar..you can still go to ar book finder website for free and look up levels of books. The book whisperer has really helped me focus this year and the kids have a renewed passion for reading :)
    good luck
    Amanda
    Rock Stars At Work

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  2. I primarily teach skills through read-alouds, so you really only need one copy! We do have a leveled book library that we can pull from for our small groups/ guided reading, but I do read-alouds every day with my 3rd graders. If you don't have group sets but want to do small groups, look into The Daily 5/ CAFE. CAFE suggests how to teach 'good fit' books without needing AR or anything else (although for your own knowledge, running records will work and there are multiple websites that will help you know the levels of your books!). CAFE also suggests forming small groups based on the skill they need to work on, not a common book level. For instance, you would have kids meet that needed to work on fluency, and teach a lesson that applies to kids at different levels. You might have another group meet to work on non-fiction text features, and then they split off to work on it in their own independent books.

    I hope you have found something to work! :) P.S.- I'm a new follower and fellow 3rd grade teacher!

    Jenny
    Luckeyfrog's Lilypad

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