Active readers interact with the text by underlining, highlighting, and making notes in the margin. My students are ready to become active readers, but a shortage of paper is getting in the way.
My students are in an urban school with high levels of poverty.
They have worked extremely hard to be accepted into this public magnet school. They are bright, talented, tenacious, and they crack me up. I have no doubt that with their ambition and drive, these kids are going somewhere. For example, our Big Goal this year is:
"Our Classroom Poets will become Global Citizens by June, 2011.
"Global citizens are leaders. They have strong reading, writing, geography, and technology skills. They think critically and articulate their ideas clearly. Global citizens use their mastery of history to inform their understanding of the present, and to make informed decisions about the future."
My 9th graders are on track to make 1.5 years of reading growth by June, and they are working on maintaining at least an 80% average on all tests and quizzes. Many individual students have chosen more rigorous goals, such as 2.5 years of reading growth and an average of 98% on tests and quizzes.
My Project
My students are more than capable of making at least 1.5 years of academic progress this year, but they need the tools to support them. Our high school has a shortage of paper. Teachers are asked to make a class set of copies, and have students write notes on a separate sheet of paper. This works fine for some activities, but makes it very difficult for students to interact with text. In this US History classroom, we use many primary sources. My students have every right to be able to read historical documents, and they are cognitively ready. In historical documents many words and sentence structures are unfamiliar, so writing directly on the page using a color-coded highlighting system , underlining unfamiliar words, and writing notes in the margins is vital to deepening students understanding and increasing retainment of the information- after all, that is how I read challenging historical documents.
By having access to more paper, my students will have the ability to learn the active reading strategies that students in wealthier districts are able to learn.
Yes, these reading strategies are vital to increasing reading levels, but just as important, this is a skill the students can use throughout their lives. They will master certain active reading strategies in 9th grade, and be able to build upon them to increase their academic achievement throughout their high school and college careers.
Nearly all students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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