3 Great Resources for Teaching Reading

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Hello to all you readers! Welcome back to my language blog! Last blog post I wrote about media literacy and now this week I am excited to share with you some thoughts on reading as it relates to the Ontario language curriculum! Without further ado, let’s get started by looking at three great resources that I believe can help you teach reading!


The first resource that I would like to talk about that teachers can draw on to help teach reading is teachingkidsnews.com. This resource posts news articles written by real journalists on trusted websites and then adds some “think and discuss” questions for students to respond to. I think that this is a really valuable resource for teachers because the Ontario curriculum states that “it is important that [students] have many opportunities to read for a variety of purposes” (p. 10). Reading news articles addresses a purpose for reading that not many students engage in on their own, so that is where this site and resource can be used to introduce them to this different “type” or “reason” for reading.

In addition, I also find the “think and discuss” questions provided with each article to be effective cues for teachers to encourage students to “analyze, synthesize, make connections, evaluate, and use other critical thinking skills to achieve a deeper understanding of the materials they read” (p. 10) which is a reading expectation in the Ontario curriculum. An example of an additional activity that a teacher can do with an article from teachingkidsnews.com is print and cut out the article in chunks, then have students rearrange the chunks back into the correct order. This activity helps them learn sequencing and key structures in a news article.
Sébastien Lapointe. A photo from an article on the website. teachingkidsnews.com. Accessed on October 31, 2019. Retrieved from https://teachingkidsnews.com/2019/10/14/inuit-adopt-new-writing-system/.



Forest of Reading is the second resource that I would like to share with you. It is a recreational reading program that features books by Canadian authors to foster a love for reading in students. I am sure that you have heard of their kids’ programs Silver Birch for grades 3-6 and Red Maple for 7-8 since they are so popular in schools! The Forest of Reading programs are relevant to teaching reading because it provides students with the ability to read for pleasure, while also providing them with Canadian content which are both outlined in the curriculum document (p.11).

The most direct way for Forest of Reading to be relevant to teaching is when students sign up for the Silver Birch or Red Maple reading programs at their school. This not only provides students with the opportunity to read something they are interested in for pleasure, but it supplements the reading that they are doing in the classroom. The only negative is that students must volunteer to register in the programs, so how can teachers use Forest of Reading to support all their students? By taking the great books selected by Forest of Reading and incorporating them into their class material!
Ontario Library Association. Red Maple Award. accessola.org. Accessed October 31, 2019. Retrieved from http://www.accessola.org/web/OLA/Forest_of_Reading/About_the_Forest/Programs_for_Kids/OLA/Forest_of_Reading/Programs_For_School_Aged_Readers.aspx



Ontario Library Association. Silver Birch Fiction Award. accessola.org. Accessed October 31, 2019. Retrieved from http://www.accessola.org/web/OLA/Forest_of_Reading/About_the_Forest/Programs_for_Kids/OLA/Forest_of_Reading/Programs_For_School_Aged_Readers.aspx





This article by Roehling, Hebert, Nelson, and Bohaty (2017) is a very useful read for educators in my opinion. As mentioned above, the Ontario curriculum requires students to read a variety of texts, one of which is expository texts, but expository texts play a very large role in other subjects as well. Almost all of the content in subjects like math, science, history, and geography are presented to students in expository texts which is why students must be able to develop strategies to understand them.

The article identifies five different text structures and provides teachers with strategies to teach their students (Roehling et al., 2017). Some of these strategies include identifying signal words like as a result or consequently for cause and effect texts, asking guiding questions like “what is the author describing?” for simple description texts, and graphic organizers such as topical nets (Roehling, 2017). I believe that explicit instruction of these strategies can be critical for students’ understanding of expository texts and their subsequent success. That is why I think that this article is such an important resource for language teachers!
Roehling et al. Graphic organizer to help understanding of expository texts. Text Structure Strategies for Improving Expository Reading Comprehension. Accessed October 31, 2019. Retrieved from https://lms.brocku.ca/access/lessonbuilder/item/47259166/group/ba85a624-8666-46e9-8403-ec9766cf9123/Week%206:%20Oct.%2015/Text%20Structure%20Strategies%20-%20Reading.pdf

 Thank you so much and see you next time!

Citations:

Ministry of Education (2006). The Ontario curriculum grades 1-8: Language. Toronto: Author.
Ontario Library Association (n.d.) Forest of Reading. Retrieved from http://www.accessola.org/web/OLA/Forest_of_Reading/OLA/Forest_of_Reading/Forest_of_Reading.aspx?hkey=e913abbb-1687-438d-bc68-64eda110aeb1

Roehling, J. V., Herbert, M., Nelson, J. R., & Bohaty, J. J. (2017). Text structures strategies for improving expository reading comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 71(1), pp. 71-82.

 Teaching Kids News.com (n.d.). Home. Retrieved from https://teachingkidsnews.com/

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