After reading about this approach, I began combining my science and writing lessons. This enabled students to see how the two were connected, and it gave them experience with finding evidence in their sources to support their thinking. The more often I combined curriculum, the more confident students became in their writing. The more students practiced, the more sources we would incorporate, in order to increase students' skills with integrating more than one source into their writing (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). As the school year came to a close, I began to focus on correctly citing sources and acknowledging when students used words or phrases that were not their own.
Conclusion
While it can be a struggle to enrich students who are reading above grade level, there are many useful strategies to keep them engaged and making progress. As I researched how to best provide enrichment for my high-level readers, I discovered a variety of activities I had already been implementing in my classroom. Some of these activities included partner reading and literature circles. These activities simply needed to be modified to accommodate my high-level readers. It is important to provide students with a lot of choice and a variety of texts that require them to think beyond "plot summaries and fact questions" (Halsted, 1990, para. 9). Encouraging students to take control of their own learning is a way to foster student independence. According to Fountas and Pinnell (2001), as teachers, we want to provide students with the tools to take responsibility for their own learning and be able to use those strategies and tools as they complete tasks. As we allow these high-level readers to take control of their own learning, we are creating lifelong learners who have a desire for knowledge. The strategies discussed in this article can be easily adapted to reflect your own teaching style, and I encourage you to try some of them for the benefit of the high-level readers in your own classroom.
REFERENCES
Auger, T. (2003). Student-centered reading: A
review on the research on literature circles. Educator's Publishing Service. Retrieved from http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/downloads/articles/Literature_Circles.pdf
Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. S. (2001). Guiding
readers and writers: Teaching comprehension, genre, and content literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Halsted, J. (1990). Guiding the gifted reader.
Retrieved from ERIC database. (ED321486)
Iaquinta, A. (2006). Guided reading: A
research-based response to the challenges of early reading instruction. Early Childhood Education Journal, 33(6), 413-418. doi:10.1007/s10643-006-0074-2
Meynell, E. (n.d.). SEM-R and talented reader.
Retrieved from http://www.gifted.uconn. edu/semr/about/talented-readers.html
Routman, R. (2003). Reading essentials: The
specifics you need to teach reading well. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
"The more often I combined curriculum, the more confident students became in their writing."
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