Sunday, September 07, 2008

I don't read, mister...

After a week and a half of easing my students into their reading support class, this week will finally offer the chance to teach skill sets. My students filled out many reading surveys that offered me insight into their views on reading. Mostly, they just don't read. It isn't interesting, nor is it relevant.
With no district provided curriculum, at least not yet, I've chosen to follow the model I used while teaching north of Seattle: Scholastic's Read 180.
The first set of skills we will focus on are reading for detail, identifying main idea, summarizing, and the more abstract skill of evaluating.
For the first nine skill lessons, we will use reading selections from the book How Full is Your Bucket? My goal is to offer the students content that they will not find in any other class, and is based on leadership and life skills. I hope that they will find it interesting.
Trying to convince students who are yet to find value in literature, fiction or non, has to be the toughest task in public education.
Not only am I scared I won't succeed at the overall purpose of generating enthusiasm for reading, I am scared I won't be able to properly teach the skills. It is unfortunate that I am the best choice to teach a reading support class, especially when my skill set is geared towards college prep literature and writing.

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