About 3 years ago all the Upper Grade teachers at my school decided to adopt the Open Court Reading Program because we felt it met the needs of our students. Boy, were we in for a suprise! Don't get me wrong the program has many positive points like it's alignment with all the California Language Arts Standards. It also does a great job of correlating the stories with Social Studies & Science concepts. However, one of its weaknesses is meeting the needs & interest of the average student . Also, the Writing component in my opinion, is hard to follow. One of my challenges is getting my students to take ownership of those wonderful comprehension strategies. I mean I understand what there for but how in the heck are the kids suppose to really master the art of using them. What's really impressive and a little intimidating is my colleague whose so good at teaching that her kids actually raise their hands in the middle of a reading and say , " I have a connection to make!" or " I would like to visualize! " My administrators and Reading Coach woulld be so proud if they walked into my room and heard that but I think that some of the expectations in OCR are a little too advanced for the average student. My other challenge has been teaching Writing. Here are some of the problems I've encountered: The layout for O.C.R. Writing lessons are too confusing to follow, they don't allow enough time for your students to master the concepts, and after teaching everything else in O.C.R. I find that there is not much time for teaching it. I hope I don't sound crazy for saying that . These are problems that many of the teachers at my school have and I hope that someone can offer some suggestions.
Friday, December 28, 20079:01:28 PM
Hello Fellow Educators,
I am in my fourth year of teaching fourth grade at a public school in Lomita, California. I joined this blog to find a place to express the many thoughts I have on teaching and to gain insight from others. After finally realizing my lifelong dream to teach , I've found that I have so much to learn about my profession. I've always loved children, but I never imagined I would learn so much in my first year. I also never imagined I would go through so many changes personally . I guess working with children everyday can bring out the best & worst in a person.
Here are some of the topics of interest to me:
- Classroom Management for Upper Grades
- Making Learning Fun
- Helping Them Remember All The Important Stuff
- Making Math Tangible
- Creating a System Of Effective Writing Instruction
- Educational Politics
Well I'm gonna go now & wait anxiously for your interesting responses.
Signing- Off ,
Mrs. Mc Dee