What it is: Over the summer I worked with a teacher at Marquette Elementary school in Gary, Indiana to supplement their reading curriculum. They used Pearson’s Scott Foresman Reading Street, but were struggling with the program. Students weren’t understanding concepts and were really struggling with even the basics. Marquette held a summer remedial reading program where they aimed to supplement the curriculum and help students to become more successful in their reading. I took a look at the Reading Street curriculum for third grade and noticed right away that a huge number of concepts are presented, but there is no depth or opportunity for students to really learn and understand the concepts. My goal was to take the curriculum (in this case Unit 6 for third grade) and supplement it with technology. My goal was to add some richness to what was presented. I aimed to give students the chance to learn, practice, and create with the material presented. Because we were working in a summer program, we were able to spend more time with the material and work with fewer students. Below you will find my curriculum guide for 3rd Grade Reading Street Unit 6. Even if you don’t use Reading Street, or teach at a different grade level, I encourage you to take a look at what I did with the curriculum. I hope that you will find some ideas that you could use to supplement the curriculum you are using in your classroom. I created a website for Unit 6, called Reaching for Our Goals, so that students had one place to access all of the websites and resource they needed. (If you study suffixes, parts of speech, commas, compound words, punctuation, MLK, Space, the Wright Brothers, or Jim Thorpe there are some great links.) I also created a wiki (this is an example) where they could collaborate and show off their finished projects. On the wiki, you will find example thinking pages, VoiceThread projects, and Animoto projects.
You are amazing Kelly. Your students are very fortunate to have a teacher of your calibre and passion. Another excellent job!
I’m pretty sure this is from the fourth grade Reading Street. It’s a wonderful resource. Thank you for your efforts!
I loved the website you made for them. Partly because I love iWeb anyway! But also, it was great to see how you had added more depth and interest to what sounds a pretty shallow curriculum. Great stuff, Kelly!
Learn, practice and create. That sums it up in a nutshell. What a great example. Thanks for sharing.
This is great, Kelly! We do use Reading Street at our school, but I think these ideas and resources can be used in any curriculum. Fantastic job and thanks for sharing!
Wow, that was all very cool. That must have been cool to go out there and help those kids. How did you get involved with something like that. Kudos! 🙂
Thanks! I am a big fan of iWeb too, easy to use with impressive results!
Really? Told the link to book I was using with 3rd grade. Can anyone confirm the grade/unit so that it is labeled correctly? Thanks Margaret!
You are making me blush. Thank you!
Thanks Tamara, I think you are right, the skills are taught in all curricula.
I actually never visited in person, if you can believe it the entire thing came together via Skype, email, wikis, and drop boxes! It was a great experience that I got to be a part of thanks to @lawsummers.
If you go to this PDF, on page 6 you will find the story titles for the 4th grade. I’m sorry I don’t know how to do a link properly.
http://teachersites.schooldesk.net/content/2/3/5232/my%20files/Fourth%20Grade%20Reading%20Curriculum%20Map.pdf
Thank you Margaret!
This is fabulous! Our district uses Reading Street. I’m going to send this out to our 3rd grade teachers!
Thanks Amber, hope they enjoy it!