👋Hello everyone, my name is Mr. Malcolm and I have been working with students for nearly 7 years now. I have primarily focused my time and efforts on helping students improve their reading abilities by creating reading assessments, evaluations and specialized reading passages that are targeted towards helping students improve their reading comprehension and fluency.

Learning how to read and comprehend different passages doesn't always come easily for students. Sometimes they may struggle with making an inference at a subtle clue that the author might be sharing, or maybe one of the metaphors goes straight over their head! Whatever it might be, there is always a way to take these difficult and sometimes frustrating concepts and turn them into an enjoyable learning experience!

In this Ongoing class, students will have the opportunity to read through a diverse selection of reading materials 📖 while also learning and implementing different strategies to help improve their overall reading comprehension/fluency. The strategies and stories are rather diverse and were designed and chosen specifically to help students from the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. This will be done by implementing a mixture of the different reading materials while also incorporating the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Below are the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) that may be taught during the lessons.
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.1, 4.1, 5.1)
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.2, 4.2, 5.2)
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.3, 4.3, 5.3)
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.4, 4.4, 5.4)
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.5, 4.5, 5.5)
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.6, 4.6, 5.6)
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.7, 4.7, 5.7)
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.9, 4.9, 5.9)

During each of the lessons, students will be encouraged to read out loud, ask questions, share their ideas and engage in thought-provoking discussions. They will also be asked targeted retention and discussion-based questions throughout the lesson to help guide the students to a better and more in-depth understanding of what is being read.

While students are reading the passages they will also be able to work on their overall reading fluency. During each of the lessons, I am planning to guide and assist the students to help them improve their pronunciation, speed and expression. I also desire to utilize those situations as instructional opportunities to help the students work together to identify the meaning of an unknown word, consider the intentions of the author or see if there are any parts of the story that some of the students may not understand.

Class Structure:
(Topics and themes will be student led as they will be allowed to browse the reading material and choose a story they would like to read as a group).

1. The students will then begin reading the story together. We may have different fluency strategies implemented into the lessons such as paired, grouped and silent reading, while also focusing on their speed, accuracy and expression. Students who do not desire to read aloud are not forced to: but are encouraged to do so. 

2. We will then pause between certain passages and answer different comprehensive and discussion-based questions. These questions can be focused on a multitude of things including, Main ideas, summarizing, inferences, figurative language, character analysis, context clues, supporting details, point of view, themes, etc.

3. While reading the passages, students may come across an unknown word. We can work together to use different clues, root words and even definitions to find the meaning of the words and how they are used in the story.

4. Students may also be tasked with different group-related activities such as, one student  identifying the figurative language used. Another student finding the supporting details and a third student may be tasked with summarizing the main parts of the story.

5. The lesson may end with some discussion and group-led conversation about the passages.

All of the passages and stories used in this course have either been written or selected by the teacher. And permission has been granted for the passages to be used. :)

Lord willing, I am looking forward to teaching your student soon!