Am I Crazy because I Love Teaching Middle Grades?
I love my middle school kiddos! Middle grades is the absolute BEST grade-level to teach. Some may need to re-read that first sentence to make sure it was read correctly, but it’s true! I love seeing my kiddos grow and transition from a scared I-want-to-go-back-to-elementary-school 6th grader to a confident, matured ready-to-take-on-the-world (a.k.a. high school) 8th grader! I have also taught elementary and high school, but I have to say that middle school is my number one love!
The Terrible Toos
With each passing year I am amazed at the changes my students undergo by the end of their 8th grade year. They grow up so fast; time is certainly not standing still! I have also quickly learned that it is imperative that the approach to reading instruction change along with kids. Most of my students have declared their disdain for reading. Every year I hear: “It’s too boring.” “This is too hard to understand.” “The words are too long.”
My response to my middle grade cherubs:
TOO boring –
- “how can you NOT like reading??”
- “Find a topic of interest and read more about that!”
TOO hard to understand–
- “Ok! Let’s learn some strategies to chunk those long passages into easier-to-understand portions.”
- “Let’s summarize those paras one at a time!”
TOO long – the thoughts that are swirling through my head (my “aha” moment):
- “It’s not about the length of the words.”
- “Why put forth the effort to read grade-level text (and text even slightly above their instructional level), if they cannot decode the words…can’t really blame them…”
- “This is not an excuse to be lazy…they’re trying to tell me something.”
Identity Crisis
I had to do some reflecting and re-align my mindset. Some kids may need more than a ‘read aloud’ accommodation to address their reading deficit(s). Maybe we need to extend phonics instruction to middle school…just a little bit at least.
But…we don’t do phonics in middle school. Plus, it’s not part of my state’s middle grades curriculum standards. After some time of internally battling the oxymoron of “phonics” and “middle school” being in the same sentence, I humbled myself and came to the conclusion that if my kids’ reading levels are not quite where I want them to be, I need to take advantage of the opportunity to get them to decode those “long” words while I have them for these three short years. Because once they hit high school – it’s ‘every man for himself’ as we prepare them to become more and more independent.
Now I do want to emphasize that our elementary schools do a jam-up, fantastic job of prepping our kiddos for success once they hit middle school! I appreciate them soooo much! Shout out to my early childhood peeps! But, sometimes despite the high-quality instruction, a few kids simply need another year or two for certain foundational skills (be it phonics, math computation, etc.) to “stick” before they are able to fully apply and generalize them across other subject areas.
Why another year or two?
- maybe a developmental readiness factor?
- or maybe they need additional practice to close a gap or two?
- or maybe even the kids simply did not take advantage of reading more books, so their gap widened a bit?
Who knows?? In the grand scheme of things does it matter? I want them reading – especially those multisyllabic “long” words!
Let’s Tackle Them Long Words (hey…I know that’s grammatically incorrect…I’m from the South…we laid back like that!)
I use a super amazing phonics intervention program with my kiddos! Love it, love it, love it! The scope and sequence of each lesson is structured (my kids and I thrive on structure!) in such a way that my students can act as my co-teacher in crime!
As much as I believe in this program and as much as I LOVE it, the practice words and some of the resources/reproducibles (like many phonics programs on the market) were more relatable to our younger learners. But you know what? I was ecstatic that my kiddos were reading beyond words such as “little,” “puddle,” and “mantle.” Super ecstatic!
This phonics program sets the stage for me! I need the guidance of this program. I need to know which skill to teach next and in what sequence. As wonderful as this program is, I discovered that my kids needed an extension of this program – something that I can only provide and create for them. So what did I do? As all teachers do, we create our own resources from scratch to fit the needs of our kids. My kids needed practice attacking more challenging, “middle school” words, so I created vocabulary and word attack foldables, flash cards, and independent practice worksheets (you have to check out my text message worksheet!) that are more age-appropriate! JACKPOT!
My kiddos were up.for.the.challenge.com! Their syllabication skills improved. These “longer” words provided more opportunity for us to practice applying previously reviewed letter and vowel teams to multi-syllable words. My resources gave them ample opportunity to spiral review these concepts! The vocabulary piece encouraged them to use these “long” words in its proper context! My kids were especially partial to the text message ‘consonant –le’ resource!
Phonics in the Middle (School….)
Check out my very first Phonics in the Middle resource pack on teacherspayteachers.com. Click here to go to my store. The ‘consonant –le’ letter teams resources are currently uploaded. Other letter team resources will be created and uploaded soon!
What’s do you use in your toolbox when teaching phonics in the middle?