In our school in reading there might be a whole group instruction on say a topic...baseball integration/Jackie Robinson that includes setting, vocabulary, etc. then the reading kit includes say 5 copies of readers for each of 5 different groups...below, on, above, English language learners, (and one other low group not sure what it is called)...each reader is on Jackie Robinson but specifically for that group. Problem is that unless my son's reader was a book from the library written at a high school or above level...he can be in the highest group and not get challenged. You can give him the vocabulary test for the high group before they even work on it and he will get 100. He might learn about Jackie Robinson and baseball and if he wants to read more about it at a higher level from a real book...but the actual reader is a waste of time as far as his reading growth goes.
This system works for those slightly above, slightly below, on, and those in that 5th group below slightly below, and ELL/esol. But not so much for the advanced outlier. Even if the reading program listed appropriate related titles that the outlier could look for in the library it would help.
Last edited by Sweetie; 11/25/13 08:12 AM.
