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Mrs. Connors' Classroom Edit display name

  • Mustang High School
  • Mustang, OK
  • Half of students from low‑income households Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more

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We know that the best course of action to reach all types of learners in reading is with a direct, explicit, systematic approach. The balanced literacy approach, which many of my students had in their early educational years, reaches some learners but not all. The result I see in my classroom today is a group of very bright kids who have learned to compensate somewhat for their lack of reading skills but who are also very stressed underneath their smiles. Because most students read silently after first or second grade, most teachers and even their parents, may be unaware that they have extreme difficulty in sounding out unknown words with multiple syllables. You can imagine the hardship this creates for these students who are encountering multiple new words each week in their content area texts. Fluency becomes impaired and comprehension is lost. Even if a student gains the expected knowledge through a teacher's lecture, he or she is often unable to demonstrate that knowledge because of the readability level of the test. Both Megawords and the Phonics and Spelling through Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping books use a direct, explicit, systematic approach to teach specific rules to help students become more accurate decoders instead of just guessing at words or skipping over them entirely. As a student becomes more proficient at decoding, fluency and comprehension will also increase. The ability to read has a direct impact on students' self-confidence. I have also requested some high interest/low level books as well as some self-help books for my classroom library. Kids are resilient, and it is never too late to learn. It is my hope to use all of these tools to assist my students in reaching their maximum potential.

About my class

We know that the best course of action to reach all types of learners in reading is with a direct, explicit, systematic approach. The balanced literacy approach, which many of my students had in their early educational years, reaches some learners but not all. The result I see in my classroom today is a group of very bright kids who have learned to compensate somewhat for their lack of reading skills but who are also very stressed underneath their smiles. Because most students read silently after first or second grade, most teachers and even their parents, may be unaware that they have extreme difficulty in sounding out unknown words with multiple syllables. You can imagine the hardship this creates for these students who are encountering multiple new words each week in their content area texts. Fluency becomes impaired and comprehension is lost. Even if a student gains the expected knowledge through a teacher's lecture, he or she is often unable to demonstrate that knowledge because of the readability level of the test. Both Megawords and the Phonics and Spelling through Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping books use a direct, explicit, systematic approach to teach specific rules to help students become more accurate decoders instead of just guessing at words or skipping over them entirely. As a student becomes more proficient at decoding, fluency and comprehension will also increase. The ability to read has a direct impact on students' self-confidence. I have also requested some high interest/low level books as well as some self-help books for my classroom library. Kids are resilient, and it is never too late to learn. It is my hope to use all of these tools to assist my students in reaching their maximum potential.

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About my class

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