May 28, 2014
I fell in love with Reading A-Z materials this year. When I received my class’scumulative folders in August, I was
taken aback by the fact that two-thirds of my class were below grade level, and
out of that two-thirds, half were significantly below grade level. The first thought that popped into my mind
was, “I don’t have nearly enough leveled texts that are sixes, eights, tens, or
twelves.” I downloaded as many free texts from the website as I could until it
denied me further access. Anyone who
knows anything about this profession understands that teachers cannot just sign
up and pay for membership to every educator website out there, or we’d really
have diminished funds! So, I contacted my principal and he informed me that we had
access as a school through our reading consultant’s log-in. From that day on, my grade-level partner and
I emailed our lists of desired leveled texts to be printed, and how many of
each, to a friend in the administrative office (once again, we couldn’t afford
to print them using our own ink, what with the cost of ink these days…). Having
access to these materials made my teaching life much easier this school year as
I planned my guided reading lessons for groups of students reading at and below
level 14. I also borrowed many text sets
from our “reading room” and a few from the first grade teachers. However, it was definitely the Reading A-Z
texts and the variety from which to choose that helped me teach engaging small
group lessons and fill my students’ reading bins with texts they could actually
read with ease.
I too found and fell in love with downloading books off of Reading A to Z. This site is fantastic! What I ended up doing was printing the books and then I spent last summer sorting them into levels and binding them with duct tape that coordinated with the different levels. This way I could easily tell what level they were and students were unaware. :)
ReplyDeleteJess, can you make sure everyone in our class knows about this wonderful resource.
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