Monday, January 21, 2013

January 2013 - Focus on Reading

Did you know that BC students out-perform most students in the world in reading? According to the recent PIRLS study of grade 4's, students in BC have better comprehension tahn their peers in many other English and non-English speaking countries.  See for yourself at

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/assessment/pirls_2011_bc_sum.pdf

This month at Ecole Squamish, we are spending a lot of time thinking about the art and science of teaching reading.  Our school goal is in reading and the SPC is presenting to the Trustees and District Education Staff this week as part of the yearly review of our Learning Plan.

One of the strategies we use at our school is screening and assessing primary students' readiness and reading skills with a tool called the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Literacy Skills.  Despite it's long name (we call it DIBELS for short)  it involves a short session with a child, having them identify letters and sounds, combinations of letters and nonsense words.  This helps us figure out what skills they are missing and what to teach and help them practice.



Alivia (grade3) reads the morning messages.

Teachers use a variety of approaches to further support and encourage reading in the classroom.  A number of our teachers are implementing an approach called The Daily Five, which promotes independence, self-regulation, improved stamina for reading and writing, and positive peer interaction.  The teacher is able to conference with individuals and small groups while students read to themselves, read to a classmate, listen to reading, write about something that matters to them, and work on words.  These are teachers of primary and intermediate students - it is not just for beginning readers.

In intermediate classrooms, teachers tend to focus on the skills that we know good readers have:  the ability to make mental images and connections when we read, to use a variety of strategies to figure out new words, to draw inferences and determine the main idea of a piece of wrting, to reflect upon and respond to what we have read.  Some teachers follow the approaches laid out in Reading 44, Reading Power,  or other frameworks.  But they all know that six things are true about reading:  students need to, on a daily basis, read something he/she has chosen, that it at the "just right" level so they can read with accuracy, write something personally meaningful, talk with their peers about reading and writing with their peers, and listen to a fluent adult read aloud (Allington & Gabriel, 2012).

Here are some photos of "reading in action" at our school.


Ms. Gibson working with one of her grade 1's

Writing about reading in grade 6/7

Silent Reading Time in Ms. Miller & Ms. Robichaud's class.

Thomas and Rafi enjoying their reading.
Mark's reading a mountain bike magazine.

Hannah practices yoga while she's reading.
As it is National Family Literacy Week, we want to let you know how proud we are of all of our students, and thankful for the support they get at home.

If you have questions about your child's reading progress, please contact your child's teacher, myself of Mrs. Reed.