The middle school where I taught for two years offered a Literacy Lab class to support students who were struggling with reading. This class was in addition to their regular, grade-level reading class.
Our district did not have an established curriculum for this class but did have some materials available. Preassessments with the students indicated that the students primarily needed practice using reading comprehension strategies. Based on the current research at the time, I developed a new curriculum based on the following strategies as a focus:
– Determine Important Ideas
– Asking Questions
– Background Information
– Drawing Inferences
– Visualization
– Synthesize Information
Because the class was required for these students and took the place of an elective, I wanted to make it as interesting a class as possible. All assignments were completed in class so there was no homework. Because their regular reading class covered several novels, I chose to focus this class on informational reading – primarily non-fiction novels.
Most of the weeks had themed content, articles that related to each other in some way. For example, one week the articles were about making healthy choices; another week focused on advice for parents of teenagers. Along with the articles, other resources were brought in, such as related news and video clips, charts and graphics, and other written materials. The articles were read as a class, with the teacher modeling use of a reading strategy throughout the reading. Class discussion was a crucial part of the process, as was a graphic organizer used every week so students got repeated practice.
Articles were chosen based on expected interest. I chose topics such as school uniforms and winning lottery tickets which I thought students would have opinions about. This provided a good opportunity for students to practice reading for information and critical thinking, being able to explain the viewpoint of the article without letting their own opinions take priority. They were also given a lot of opportunity to share what they thought, which resulted in some lively discussions.
