 Once upon a time in the city of Cranbrook a grade five class based their biggest challenge yet they chose to band together and Let's find out more We're here at Gordon Terrace elementary school in Cranbrook, BC Celebrating the fact that we are into seven months of a very creative project that two Innovative hard-working dedicated teachers took on to support some struggling readers in grade five since September When we put our daily schedule up on the board the kids groaned when they saw reading Seven months ago. I didn't like reading. I thought it was boring There was no reading going on at all and it didn't It looked like behavior and it wasn't behavior We started looking around the room and we started seeing Fake reading they didn't understand, you know why they couldn't read and They felt alone, but in in this class we all Tackled this whole subject as a class and we were all in it together and these teachers got on board started doing a lot of research and Decided that there was something that they needed to do to help these kids so that they could become Successful and confident in their reading abilities. The first thing that we knew we had to do was to get a lot of books at their reading level Because they were boring books in the library that weren't really suitable for them We needed something now and we needed it to be based in research not a canned program and then we needed Money and time and a team. We couldn't do it alone. No, we needed Help so we did not buy into any program. We just used our own teaching abilities And we referred to the research The biggest thing was Realizing that we all have different strategies We changed our classroom library because we noticed right away That books that are lined up on a shelf are not appealing and really difficult to find And so we went to bins and categorized books We are always assessing the kids to see where they're at because we need to know that they're moving We need to know that what we're doing is either working or not working It's really really important that we stress the conferencing Can't just have kids sitting in a classroom reading without that conferencing piece. My teacher usually um Sits me at a table and we read she she asked me what strategies I use and She tells me if I've improved on my reading or I need to work on it some more One of the things we do in class is a book talk. It's good because you've ever Kitchener class can see what the books like and they can try it out for themselves Well, we decided that um for some of the struggling readers that it would be helpful if um We could have an authentic context for them to oral read because they're not comfortable to read out loud Children have to read lots and they need books that are interesting to them. They need to be able to choose I think part of the struggle was she wasn't finding the right books to read Now we're trying to figure out what it is. She's interested in and it seems to keep her involved Now seven months later We have a culture of readers in seven months. My child has gone from reading picture books to chapter books I love to read. I read like An hour and a half at home. I'm supposed to read like I'm not supposed to be But it's usually at least half an hour And then I usually read like two hours because I'm caught the book And I think one of the biggest things is there is a sense of safety In the classroom. It's okay to be reading all different novels at all different levels that at different times The other day we had a presentation And we missed our reading time when I was going to put it in the afternoon And they said well, we got enough time to read before recess. Can we read now? We prefer to read now. So they're making decisions As a result of this I would hope that we've been able to share this innovative practice with All our schools and hopefully that they could have a look at this and adapt Some of the things they're doing to the the needs of of their kids in their school We believe all kids can read they have the ability to learn to grow. We just have to figure out How to reach each individual child with their reading and what works for them Because with every child there's something different that's going to turn them on to reading That's going to be the way to get them to read and whether it's reading one on one and going through word strategies Or it's reading out loud to them to hook them into that perfect book But every child can learn to read