Cultivating Cultures within a Global Sphere

Reading Cultures in the 21st Century

As a child I hated reading. It was challenging, I struggled with phonetics and had no joy when I was instructed to read. It was not until the seventh grade that a teacher introduced me to a book that captivated my attention, "The Giver." It is the passion, dedication and dive of teachers that help foster a positive reading culture. It is important to continue to still have parent involvement to encourage a positive reading culture. This can be challenging due to the fact that the majority of our families do not speak english at home or read in english. So providing diversity support for families to help promote literacy at home is something that can get more parent involvement.

(Retrieved from Youtube)

Fostering reading cultures starts at a young age, even before children enter into the school system. The moment children enter this world they are exposed to the literature rich world through speech, music, books and store signs to name a few. It is the responsibility of parents to expose and foster their children's reading culture before they enter the school system. I work in the Province of Alberta and our three year education plan has a focus on literacy strategy. Fostering children's love for reading is the number focus to help promote successful global citizen.

                                     Table 1.1

(Retrieved from Calgary Board of Education)

Within my classroom I promote a reading culture through classroom discussions, guided reading groups, buddy reading, hands on acitivities and independent silent reading.

Some of the tools I use to entice and enhance the joy of reading is through an online program called Raz-kids (www.razkids.com). This is a program that is leveled reading for kids to reading ebooks. They can reocrd their reading for teachers to view for assessment and obersation purposes. Children gain points per books they read and correct answers to comprehension questions. Parents also have the opportunity to register and see their childs progress. This tool is used for children at school during computer lab time or free time as well as suggested for our home reading homework program.

Every Monday morning my class praticiaptes in a Talking Circle. A talking circle is the foundation approach of the First Nations to model, educate and encourage dialogue, respect, social discourse and the co-creation of learning of content. My school has a high ELL population so this strategy helps encourage student through oral dialogue and building confidence.

Guided reading groups are a chance for students to read the same book in small groups, to have open digalogue about the text and help support their peers. I perfer to run these groups leveled so each student is at the same reading ability, giving the teacher the ability to work with one group at a time provideing reading strategies. With that said it could be affective to group children with varieying abilities.

Today we had a staff meeting on the merit of Fontas and Pinnell reading program compared to our program of studies. They did not line up, Fontas and Pinnell having more ridged expectations compared to the CBE program of studies expectations. I believe it is important to be able to determine if a child is reading at grade level or not. A question posed to us today is and I pose it to you, would you be able to determine if a child is reading at grade level if you did not have a reading program like Fontas and Pinnell to guide you?

(Retrieved from google)

One of the early intervention strategies my schools employs is through our music program. Our music teacher is able to observe if a child will struggle or excel with reading in kindergarten by seeing if they can keep a beat. Through music and movement activities students engage in positive strategies to a rich reading culture.

As for supporting a school-wide reading program my current school is undergoing a literacy support program. It is in the development stages in seeing what are the needs of our students and what support teachers think will work for them. Some possible suggestions have been 2 hour LA block where literacy support teacher will be repsonsible for teahcing, assessing and reporting on childrens progress for our below grade level children. Another option was 30mins small group pull out groups twice a week for letter, sound and reading support and precision reading for the older students. I pose to any other suggestions on how to use literacy support for students not yet at grade level with reading and writing?

Resources

Fontas and Pinnell. Retrieved Oct 3 2017 from http://www.fountasandpinnell.com/textlevelgradient/

Greene,K. 4 tips for Guided reading. Retrieved Oct 3 2017 from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/4-tips-guided-reading-success/

First Nations Pedagogy Online. Retrieved Oct 3 2017 from

http://firstnationspedagogy.ca/circletalks.html