Patricia Campbell, a Special Day Teacher at the Herbert Slater Middle School in Santa Rosa, CA shared this story with us...called the Tom Sawyer Effect. So clever!
Hasn’t every teacher yearned for their students to get excited about reading and learning? Do your students readily ask about reading material? Are they excited about comprehension scores? After teaching for over a decade, I have found these tasks can still be difficult when teaching students with LD.
These days, however, I personally witness students in my special day classroom responding to the curriculum with excitement, accuracy and retention. What's the secret to this success and how does Tom Sawyer fit in?
The Start-to Finish computer books have made reading enjoyable for my students. Each day they ask... “Are we going to read today?” Although we read many types of text, I know they are referring to Start-to-Finish. Why, because the human narration and easily written text keeps them interested and engaged.
We read, discuss and answer chapter questions huddled together on the rug. Students lean forward to listen to the audio. They read with no invitation from me. The computer books capture the attention of 'hard-to-reach' students. When we finish the
reading comprehension instruction with a democratically attained 90-100%, there are high-fives all around and I am so proud.
Much like when Tom Sawyer coerces his friends to complete his chore of painting the fence, these books coerce my students to participate in their learning. Even struggling readers jump at the
Much like when Tom Sawyer coerces his friends to complete his chore of painting the fence, these books coerce my students to participate in their learning. Even struggling readers jump at the
Even struggling readers jump at the chance to sit in my chair and mimic a narrative voice heard from the story, like Treasure Island and the Pirate accent. Ahoy Matey!
Today, I use Co-Writer, Read-Out-Loud and Write-Out-Loud, in conjunction with the Start-to-Finish ebooks. Students are able to build sentences, paragraphs and essays using word prediction software that ties vocabulary together from the novels they read to their own writing. Students with disgraphia are better writers now. They write in minutes what it took them previously to write in an hour.
Call me Tom Sawyer if you like, I have bamboozled my students into learning with these clever and engaging computer books. And you can too!
Sincerely Successful,
Patricia Campbell
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