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Highlands Today

Teachers Seeing Results From Reading Strategies

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By MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: March 16, 2009

SEBRING - With a dictionary in hand, Avon Park Middle School reading/language arts teacher Tia Folsom moves about her sixth-grade classroom, assigning a vocabulary word to groups of four or five students.

The students make a poster, including their word's definition, and write down some of their word's synonyms and antonyms. The students also draw an illustration of its meaning and use the word in a sentence.

Assigned the word "flaunt," Summer Gillis points out a synonym - "brag" to Folsom as she moves from group to group checking their progress.

"They like to basically work in their groups and do things and not have me constantly just talking at them," Folsom said. The regular curriculum tends to be a little boring for them.

Folsom was among about 200 teachers who attended a week-long summer training session at Hill-Gustat Middle School to implement the Florida Reading Initiative this school year at seven district schools.

Along with Avon Park Middle, the research-based, school-wide effort is being used at Avon, Memorial, Park and Sun 'N Lake elementary schools, Hill-Gustat Middle School and Avon Park High School.

The goal is to give every teacher in the school the same skills and strategies to provide continuity in instruction as students go from class to class and teacher to teacher.

Many of the strategies involve vocabulary and comprehension, which can be used when students tackle a new piece of text or a new project, district reading specialist Kim Ervin said.

For example, with the reciprocal teaching strategies, students look at a chapter or book and predict what it will be about, she said. When they come to unfamiliar words or something they don't understand, they look for clarification.

At the end of the chapter, they summarize, so the teacher can determine if they have comprehended what they have read.
Avon Park Middle School reading teacher Sandra York has been teaching for many years so a lot of the training provided her with helpful reminders along with some new strategies.

As she watched her students Wednesday take the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, York noted that they were using the skills she taught them.

Ervin said, with the initiative, she is hoping classroom instruction will improve, leading to not only improved reading test scores, but also student achievement gains in all subjects.

Highlands Today reporter Marc Valero can be reached at 386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com

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