Reading Series

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Home : 2003 : June : 26

Reading Series
By Tracy

Hi. I don't know how much this will help you, but our reading program is designed for full day kindergarten. I teach 1/2 day so I need to cut out a lot of the suggested material. Our program has a checklist of "IMPORTANT
SKILLS." I always cover those areas and pick and choose between the rest. Our program is great, but there is so much to cover. Our Full day class barely gets through all the materials, let alone a 1/2 day class. The areas our program considers "important" are topics like:
- prediction -beg., middle, & end of stories
-Letter sounds -summaries of stories
-sentence

structure -Capitalization & Puctuation
-left to right progression
There are many more, but these are a few skills that my kindergarteners are suppsoed to know by the time they go to 1st grade. I try to cover as much as possible, but it is impossible to get through everything with such a large program. I think it's great that another teacher is in the same position as you. You can discuss and figure out together what is important and how to choose areas that are critical to preparing kindergarten students for 1st grade. I also know it took me a year to realize what areas were important and to feel comfortable with the program. The 1st year it was very frustrating because I felt like I wasn't teaching them everything they needed to know. I soon realized that reading series are great, but you don't have to do everything they say in order to be a successful teacher. Use your judgement in deciding what they really need. If there is something you miss you will realize it and know to use it next year. I hope that helps a little. Good Luck!