Virtual Teaching Expo Question and Answer

Welcome! If you're visiting because you attended the Everything's Primary Virtual Teaching Expo, I hope you enjoyed the presentations. If you didn't get a chance to register early for the expo, you can still register and view the presentations (even after the launch date).

The topic of my presentation was helping struggling readers. If you watched my presentation, you may have noticed that I was lookin' a bit like Mr. Ed (he's a talking horse in case you are too young to know him). Ha! I'm normally not so serious, but helping struggling readers is a serious passion of mine. I could talk about it for hours with whoever will listen discuss it with me. A big theme in my presentation (and in my classroom) is repetition. I believe that many of our struggling kids would not be "struggling" for nearly as long if our instruction provided more repetition.

I'll admit that I'm guilty of thinking, "well, we have to move on" or feeling like I might poke my eyeballs out if I have to cover short /a/ word families with a certain child for one more week. Although we all feel pressured by standards, teacher evaluations and things that seem developmentally inappropriate for some of our young learners, the bottom line is that our instruction has to meet each learner where they are in order for them to be successful. That is not an easy task. A friend who teaches foreign language once told me that she has tremendous respect for elementary teachers "because all of the students in her French 3 class are at that level and she never has to figure out how to provide instruction for a French 1 level student in her French 3 class". Finally, someone outside of my world of leveled books, recess boots and matching bins understands a little of what we face each day in the classroom.

For many of our struggling students to have a chance to be successful, the answer is simple (in my opinion)...repetition, repetition and a little more repetition. I think we (including me) often give up something and try something different before we know if the student really just needs more repetition in order to succeed. There are obviously some students who need different instruction or additional services/support, but without trying additional repetition first I think it's hard to know if they really need something different or just more of the same than their peers.

Last summer, I did a couple posts about helping struggling readers. You can read those posts here
and here.  I also hosted a linky party about helping struggling readers this past summer.  You can view the submissions to that linky party here.

Let's get this discussion started...

1. How do you use repetition to support your struggling readers?


2. Do you use volunteers to help you provide repetition for struggling students?

I can't wait to hear about how you use repetition to support your struggling readers!  I'd be happy to answer questions and would be thrilled to have feedback from you. Thanks for visiting today!