As our school continues to grow and we expand on the Literacy California Common Core standards we need to add to our leveled reading books. Students read with their teacher on a daily basis at their level, read to self (part of Daily 5, which is district wide) as well as take home books to read at home. We need updated and a greater quantity of fiction and nonfiction books that are leveled to meet the diverse needs of our students. In addition, as TTUSD moves forward with the California Common Core Standards we are implementing a more integrated model of literacy in which we need fiction and nonfiction to integrate literacy with our science, math, and social studies content. While we have been working on this as a school site for quite some time, Sage Johnson is a new teacher and her classroom needs more leveled readers. She took over for a longtime teacher who retired, and a lot of the materials in the class were personal and not passed on. This is the nature of starting a new classroom.
The objective of this program is for students to continue to develop foundational reading skills, and become independent readers as required by the end of the second grade. Students will have access to appropriately leveled books and therefore access to sight words, engaging age appropriate texts, expanding vocabulary, develop independence and motivation, increase fluency and overall continue toward becoming lifelong readers. Additionally, providing leveled readers that are content based allows readers to access content areas such as math, social studies and science.
Achievement and success will be measured through continuous growth in individual reading levels as determined by the district's literacy assessment program Fountas & Pinnell. Moreover, daily informal observations will measure success as students build a love for reading including learning how to read to learn. The teacher will also be able to feel successful implementing the district literacy initiative Daily 5 because this entire approach is based on having leveled books.
The implementation of this program works through three methods. First, each student will work/read in a small group setting with their teacher during Daily 5 (Read with Someone). Second, each student will take home books on a weekly basis to read at home and have good fit books at their level in their classroom book boxes to read during Daily 5 (Read to Self). Finally, All students will be assessed continuously using our district adopted assessment Fountas and Pinnell to monitor and improve foundational reading skills.
The second grade team meets weekly to discuss and analyze student progress, with a major focus on grade-level reading scores. Students are shared between teachers during intervention, and therefore all students access the materials available in all classes.