Reading Strategies: Sabrina Age, 9

This was a student letter one of my ELL students wrote to me in 2010, she loved Reading Boot Camp! Sean

Dear Teachers/Parents,
Reading Boot camp is what everyone should do! What we do is we sing songs like  Across the Universe by The Beatles. Make flash cards from our Kung – Fu list (By the way, That’s a list of academic words), Sit with a buddy and study our National Reading Vocabulary and make kid-friendly sentences. We also practice our fluency with our Eclectic Speller. We do all of these to help us with reading, comprehension, and fluency!

Right now, We’re reading a chapter book called, Seer of Shadows. It’s about a boy named, Horace, who is a photographer and finds a frightful likeness: The image of the Von Macht’s dead daughter, Eleanora! The book is at a seven-fifty Lexile! 750! We’ve also read the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Because of Winn-Dixie, and The Story of Doctor Dolittle. It’s helps us with expression and fluency. Oh, I forgot to you the songs we sing. Across the Universe By The Beatles. What the World Needs Now by Jackie Shannon and Kung-Fu Fighting! All of these Songs we sing help us with speed and articulation. 

Something else I forgot. The fun things we do! Vocabulary Sparkle! Wait, you don’t know how to play Vocabulary Sparkle, do you? Then, I’ll tell you! All of us stand and try to guess the definition of the word Mr. Taylor gets from the Kung-Fu list. We also get rewards if we do Super Great! We Could get candy or play board games! Last Friday, Mr. Taylor made Mexican pizzas as a reward for the whole class. 

And when we’re practicing our fluency, We sit in cop cars. You know how cops talk to each other like one is facing north or east and the other south or west? Yup! That’s how we sit! Mr. Taylor calls it “buddy buzz” at times. The reason why We sit in cop cars is to listen to the reader better and see the text better. What about American Juku? Wait, What is it? It’s just a multiple – choice test we read and practice with our buddy. In Japan, It’s cram school. And by that I mean, Juku means cram. It’s helps us with reading compression. We do it because it’s multiple – choice test prep in a funway. So you see why we do Reading Boot camp? If we do Reading Boot camp, Then the whole grade should too! No, The whole school. The whole district! So please , PLEASE do it!! 

Sincerely,
Sabrina
Age, 9