Being a Balanced Reader

This term I had the opportunity to go and listen to Stephen Graham from Nelson (A Cengage Company) about Leveled Texts. After a long day at school, to be honest all I wanted to do was go home. Stephen was very passionate about what he was talking about and as soon as he opened his mouth my whole attitude about the next hour and half changed. 

The main point that I took away from Stephen Graham was "Our Children need to be balanced readers" Stephen said this a number of times during the evening. A balanced reading is a child who can decode, has fluency, phrasing and comprehension. Stephen said "Our children can read, so what?" This comment really stuck with me and thinking back now he is right. With this is mind and the resources he gave us the 'PM Story' this book breaks down the levels and helps teachers to know what they need to teach at each level in order for students to become balanced readers.

What I found challenging was that Stephen said "its not a race to move children up levels" . Through out my training I was told that it is best to keep children moving along at a reasonable pass with levels. Writing this now and from the course I now see the importance of supporting children to become a balanced reader, before moving up levels. This will allow the children to develop the comprehension, fluency and phrasing most students are lacking.      

This course will and has already had an impact on my teaching. Stephen has taught me to ensure I  know what skills and strategies  need to be teaching my children at every level. I need to be focusing on one or two skills at a time and allow the children time and thinking to process the new skills taught. Through using the PM Story and PM books its easy, it all links up with the skills and story. I know from experience that I have planned to teacher speech marks and then when I went to teach it the story only had two sets of speech marks. Children need to revisit the new learning at lest five times during the lesson. The PM Story ensues that this doesn't happen and my children are able to revisit their new learning at lest five times. 

My next steps are to ensure that in my planning I put teaching points and use the PM Story to help plan for this. I am going to keep pushing my children but also allow them the time to become balanced readers before moving them up levels. I will also use the term 'balanced reader' when talking to parents as this is a easy and positive way to explain to parents why there child hasn't gone up levels as fast as they would of liked. 

Here is the link to the Nelson A Cengage Company. There are some useful resources. 
 https://cengage.co.nz/primary