Comments 4 Teachers #1

The first blog I read and commented on is by Mathew Needleman titled Creating Lifelong Learners. Mathew's recent blog is called "More Comprehension Resources" and it is an overview of various reading resources he has been experimenting with on his students. He is a teacher in Los Angeles and is attempting to raise the low test scores in his school. In his blog he lists a variety of strategies he has tried to complete this task and what his opinion is on each strategy. He explains that he has a group of 2-12 students anywhere from 20-60 minutes. That being said, he describes the reason various activities were ineffective for him due to lack of time. In what he calls "plan B", he explains how he has begun to use EnglishForEveryone.org for free comprehension passages. Mathew seems to find these worksheets easy to use because they are just one page, which allows him time to work out problems with the students and then to allow them to try problems on their own. He's primary using these worksheets for lower level learning. He says that for higher level thinking he has found the Mind Benders books effective. These are logic and puzzle books that are read aloud to students and allow them to think through and solve verbal passages. I commented to Mathew that I appreciated him sharing his successes and failures on what he's using in his classroom. I also said that I look forward to trying the techniques he's used in "plan B" when I have my own students who need help with reading. When I have my own classroom I think it will be very beneficially to use blogs of fellow teachers to learn different ways to help my students learn.

The second post that I read by Mathew is titled "Increase Reading Fluency with Fluency Timer". As I stated earlier, Mathew is a teacher in California that is helping diagnosed students reading problems and work to increase their test scores. In the most recent blog Mathew shares with us that he has created a software for a fluency timer. This software is used to record students reading into a computer, time it, then allow the students to play back the recording in order to hear their mistakes. Mathew has found that his students will generally hear themselves and then have a desire to repeat this process in order to fix passages they may have made mistakes on. Mathew states that this software has "made reading fluency into a game so that it’s no longer tedious to practice". He has created a website in order to share this program with other teachers. It is an app that is available from iTunes for $6.99 and seems like a great investment!
I let Mathew know through my comment that I thought his idea was incredible! I told him it is a very interesting concept and that I'm sure several teachers are going to benefit from his idea. I plan to read his blog in the future and try out some of the ways he's made reading fun for his students.