Amelia Earhart is someone whom I have often wondered about. I always knew she was a pilot whose plane went down over the ocean and was never found, but that was the extent of my knowledge. This book gave me alot of insight not only into her death but, into her amazing life as well.
I listened to this book on tape and it was extremely well done. The version I listened to was by Scholastic as part of their Read XL program for middle school students reading below grade level. Our school bought and began using this program this year. The tapes that come with the read aloud series model cognitive strategies during the reading. The narrator also stops when there is a word that the student may not know and not only tells the reader what it means but, while doing so talks about how to figure the word out. An example was Altimeter, the narrator said something like "I wonder what that word means? Well, I know that a meter is a tool for measuring something (like a thermometer, or a speedometer) and I think Alti- sounds like the beginning of Altitude which is that word we discussed earlier that means height in the air, so I think an Altimeter must be a gauge for measuring how high in the area the plane is." You might think that all this talk would interfere with the flow of the book but, it really didn't. In fact I think that it was important especially with this book because there were quite a few technical aviation terms. Alot of struggling readers don't have the skills to stop and think about words they don't understand as they read and this was a great model. I think it will help me too, it was like being able to sit and listen to a great teacher's lesson. Modeling is good for teachers AND their students.
As I said this is an excellent book. It is written on a sixth grade level. Some of the terms may be difficulty without some class discussions or the audio. Otherwise, I highly recommend this biography of a Great American Woman.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Lost Star: The Story of Amelia Earhart By: Patricia Lauber
Amelia Earhart is someone whom I have often wondered about. I always knew she was a pilot whose plane went down over the ocean and was never found, but that was the extent of my knowledge. This book gave me alot of insight not only into her death but, into her amazing life as well.
I listened to this book on tape and it was extremely well done. The version I listened to was by Scholastic as part of their Read XL program for middle school students reading below grade level. Our school bought and began using this program this year. The tapes that come with the read aloud series model cognitive strategies during the reading. The narrator also stops when there is a word that the student may not know and not only tells the reader what it means but, while doing so talks about how to figure the word out. An example was Altimeter, the narrator said something like "I wonder what that word means? Well, I know that a meter is a tool for measuring something (like a thermometer, or a speedometer) and I think Alti- sounds like the beginning of Altitude which is that word we discussed earlier that means height in the air, so I think an Altimeter must be a gauge for measuring how high in the area the plane is." You might think that all this talk would interfere with the flow of the book but, it really didn't. In fact I think that it was important especially with this book because there were quite a few technical aviation terms. Alot of struggling readers don't have the skills to stop and think about words they don't understand as they read and this was a great model. I think it will help me too, it was like being able to sit and listen to a great teacher's lesson. Modeling is good for teachers AND their students.
As I said this is an excellent book. It is written on a sixth grade level. Some of the terms may be difficulty without some class discussions or the audio. Otherwise, I highly recommend this biography of a Great American Woman.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment