Posted by Marie on 11/07/08

I work with 4th and 5th grade students who are one or more
years below grade level in reading in a small group,
pull-out situation. The program that I am to use this year
is SOAR TO SUCCESS, which is based on the reciprocal
teaching idea (specifically clarifying, predicting,
summarizing, and questioning). After a brief preview, the
students read a portion of their text silently. Afterward,
the group is to discuss the reading. Basically, the students
are asked where they were able to utilize one of the
strategies and to model or explain how they did this. Some
of the students used SOAR last year. I also taught each
strategy directly through the gradual release approach with
think aloud, modeling, guided practice, etc. The students do
know the strategies. They've demonstrated this when we've
worked on each one separately. My problem is that some of my
students simply are pretending to read the pages silently
and others are continuing to merely read the words with no
attempt to think or utilize strategies. They're not carrying
over the strategies into their independent work. A number of
students who are thinking and employing strategies just
don't care to discuss. Some lose their focus during
discussion time. The same few students are discussing and
explaining how they utilized strategies. I do have students
use post-its and mark their thinking on text copied onto
paper at times. I also occasionally have them write
responses or "say somethings" down on paper. However, there
are still students who claim they've read, but have nothing
to write about or to discuss. I only have 25-30 minutes
with my groups. I'd like to be able to have good discussions
with everyone contributing and showing that they've applied
their strategies. I've tried "participation points" for
discussions or required everyone to add 1 or 2 things to the
conversation and even these don't work well with a number of
my students. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

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