Readicide 5th grade Blog Hop Week 1

*Squee* Welcome to my first official blog hop and first 5th grade collaboration book study!  I've joined up with a few other fabulous fifth grade teachers to evaluate Kelly Gallagher's, Readicide, a book that explains the slow death of reading instruction through the concept of "teaching to the test".

Quite a few things stood out to me in this first chapter.  First of all, I was thrilled that I agreed with all of the author's viewpoints. I kept hearing my inner voice say "yes, exactly!" while I read the book.  The heart of my reading curriculum in 5th grade is focusing my instruction around high quality novels with my students which seem to correlate to the Gallagher's point of view in this first chapter.

Here's my favorite quote from Chapter 1:

"We graduate students who do not develop an interest in any content area.  Authentic interest is only given when students are given a chance to study deeply into an interesting idea"

My response:  Yes YES and more YESES!!!   I've heard a few times that fifth grade curriculum covers more content than any other school year from K-12.  I know a lot of my fellow coworkers have moved to other grades or special ed because of this.. and others have begged to "team teach", so they only have to teach a few of the subjects at a time.  Whether this 5th grade content volcano is true or not, I would predict that the common core will push us in the direction of "depth" over "breadth" eventually.  It's going to take some time. I try to focus on cross-curricular projects to cover more areas at once.  A 6 week project on the 13 colonies can cover dozens of standards in social students, reading, writing, and even science!

Here's something I already know that I'm doing right:

Teachers are information dispensers... instead of cultivators of knowledge. In my classroom, I teach the students how to use tools to make themselves more resourceful.  I remind the students that I am not a tool or an "answer machine"  I try to point them in the right direction without ever giving them the right answer.

Here are two ideas that I hope to apply more in my classroom this year:

1. Think of a final exam test question before the unit begins and give the students this essay question before the unit even starts.  Think of the one question you want them to answer at the end of each lesson.  This takes quite a bit of planning, but I think I can do better with it- especially in the areas of reading and writing.

and

2.  Active and engaged citizens must be creatively flexible...critical thinkers are able to respond to rapid changes of the world today.  This quote made me consider planning for a critical thinking corner during lit block.  I even found some critical thinking "puzzles" to start out with.  I'll let you know how it all goes.


Lastly, I'd like to leave you with this quote before you hop to the next blog~!

The single most important skill we can hope for our students is the ability to read.    I think this could be the greatest gift than any human being could give to another.  Just think as teachers, we get to help in this process all the time!

Stay tuned next week for my thoughts on Chapter 2!!

Now, hop over to my fellow blogger:

Click Here to Read The Research Based Classroom's blog!