Dear Reading Specialists,

Life is overwhelming for me (my grandmas sick, I had a baby,

planning a wedding, .) Can you help me with some tips,
strategies and ideas to solve my reading concerns? I know you
have a lot of expertise in teaching reading and will choose best
practice researched strategies as we are all worried about Iowa
Chapter 62 and our non-readers being required to have MORE
reading interventions. Please share your answers on our padlet
or in an email to me.
Yours truly,
A general classroom teacher
Step One: read through the real life concerns. (really real in my
life experience)
Step Two: Pick 3 to address today in class as a group.
Step Three: discuss and send me your solutions
1. Spelling- explain the pro/cons of spelling tests in 5 th grade. I personally find
spelling in 5th grade with gifted kids a waste of time, they memorize the
words for the test, but cant spell correctly enough for spell check to even
know the word! So do I have to teach it? Is so how do you recommend it?
a. Word lists- what words should be on the list
b. What phonics skills would be good?
c. What are the reasons to have spelling tests? Why not?

2. ELL learners- how do you teach a Kindergartner who isnt fluent in English,
and didnt learn to read in his native language? What supports would you
suggest? I have a student who is from Taiwan, hes been home just over a
year, hes almost 7 and hes repeating Kindergarten, and he has limited
English, and didnt learn to read in his native tongue, did I mention hes
terminally ill and so he misses a lot of school, hes in my lowest reading
group, cute and fun, goes to ELL daily but still has guided reading with me, is
it even fair to try to make him read our intensive leveled books?

3. How will you include a non-reading 2nd grader in your guided reading groups
for Lead21? Im at Bryant elementary and I have this boy who just hasnt
gotten reading yet, he is NOT a reader, but hes not got a full IEP for

instruction in special education, how do I include him without humiliation,

but my intensive group is way beyond him in reading.

4. How will you motivate upper elementary boy readers? Im teaching in an

inner city school, lots of minorities and my classroom boys are ALL African
American, and they aint got time for this reading stuffjust give them some
cash, a gun, and let them survive what do I do to engage them in reading
and make it fun and cool?

5. Explain how you will integrate awards programs like Rebecca Caudill (or Iowa
Childrens Choice) into your upper grade classroom? My principal wants ALL
our kids in intermediate grades to read at least 5 childrens choice award
books and vote on their favorite, (about 20 books on the list nominated by
kids for kids). But this years books at least 5 deal with death, two include
suicide, and Im not sure my intense and sensitive kids will handle these
books well, but many of the other books are about dogs or sports and arent
a wide appeal book either. So Im having a moral and motivational dilemma,
but love the idea of these books that should be quality and enjoyable for my
students.

6. Im at a loss, Im supposed to have a research based strategy for reading any

type of material, but I think that my kids have missed the forest in the trees,
and so have our parents and church leaderscan you help me identify.
What strategies, skills, and graphic organizers might you need to help
students learn to read:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.

A blog
Newspaper
Magazine
Advertisements
Fact sheet (property listing, bank statement, credit card statement,
Bible (what features should be taught, what else is special about this
book that we take for granted and a non-church goer might feel dumb
about).

7. I have this new curriculum and it pairs fiction and non-fiction, even in the
primary grades, and it includes classic and modern literature, but it seems so
rote, so core driven that it lacks all the fun we learned about in childrens
literature, how do I bring in the joy of knowing the author (cause as a reader,
authors are my real life friends and mentors). Author study- argue when
author studies should be included in your routine? What should be included?
Why?

8. My principal is so curriculum driven, hes saying NO time for a daily read

aloud, unless you can prove that your choices fit several curricular needs-What books will you choose for a read aloud to your ___ class? Why? What are
your criteria?