GHS Raissing

Hi,
Just wanted you to know that the sessions at GHS did a lot to jog my memory and renew my passion for teaching. In my classroom, the focus may be slightly different from most regular ed. classes. I actually am teaching the students reading. We have used some of the ideas and need to experiment with more.
One thing that I do is to conference with students about their reading. I take notes when they read and answer comprehension questions. Each student has a folder in my notebook with anecdotal information about their literacy. It doesn't take long to see where the needs lie.
Making learning 'fun and interesting' is key. I liked the review games you all mentioned and used a template for jeopardy and Millionaire for whole class review. It worked. There are also a lot of United Streaming videos that correlate to SC and my functional academics standards. I don't know if that is exactly literacy, but it gets the content across. I usually stop the video and emphasize this point or that and they usually have some sort of practice sheet to go along with the video. Often the makers of the video provide a short quiz in related materials.
The problem I have with all of these good ideas and strategies is that there are not enough hours in the day to prepare properly and use them. I have done read alouds and have found that they need to be super interesting to hold the class' attention. I still go over textbook structure and probably will for the rest of the school year. I am seeing some independence in the students' answering questions without constant one on one help as they know to use the text structure to help them find the word or answer to a question.