My Story
I kind of fell into "reading" as my specialty. I have an alternative certification and my plan was to teach Kindergarten. Well, the only job available was "the" Middle School Reading Teacher in a small town. I had no one to collaborate with and the best part no one to tell me what to do.
I was GREEN. That year I cut my teeth using just the TEKS to direct my teaching. My basal and an unlimited supply of magazines in the school library were what I used to teach. I had never heard the word/s "data", "best practices" or "data wall". Still, to this day I am unsure how 80+% of my students passed the TAKS test!
The school I'm at now teaches strictly from the Texas Treasures Reading Series. We're lucky because Treasures does have an excellent program - as far as basals go. Last year in my Reading classroom, I would bring in supplemental resources. But, my students still thought it was a treat when I would do a quick read aloud. When I taught 2nd Grade a few years ago, I fell in love with fractured fairy tales. Of course, the first one I ever read was The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.
I was GREEN. That year I cut my teeth using just the TEKS to direct my teaching. My basal and an unlimited supply of magazines in the school library were what I used to teach. I had never heard the word/s "data", "best practices" or "data wall". Still, to this day I am unsure how 80+% of my students passed the TAKS test!
The school I'm at now teaches strictly from the Texas Treasures Reading Series. We're lucky because Treasures does have an excellent program - as far as basals go. Last year in my Reading classroom, I would bring in supplemental resources. But, my students still thought it was a treat when I would do a quick read aloud. When I taught 2nd Grade a few years ago, I fell in love with fractured fairy tales. Of course, the first one I ever read was The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.
I bought the book from Scholastic and within a month it was taped up and falling apart because the kids couldn't get enough of it! What? A book kids love. AWESOME. So, the next time I ordered from Scholastic, I bought Believe Me, Goldilocks Rocks! (by Trisha Speed Shaskam) it was flat out hilarious and oh so engaging!
Fractured fairy tales are great resources to teach Point of View. It makes point of view pretty easy for young kids to see and hear. The introductions also lend themselves to teaching "introductory hooks" for writing.
Now, if the girls in your class enjoy fractured fairy tales, then I GAR-RON-TEE they will like Whatever After, a new series by Sarah Mlynowski. It is based on the popular Disney Princess Movies they watched as young girls. Last year I couldn't keep these books in my class library! My girls would BEG to borrow them. What reading teacher would deny a child a book??
Want to watch Fractured Fairy Tales? Check this out!
This Little Piggy just loves the Princess covers - what do you think?
