Practical Education Advice?

[Hermes]

Hey all,

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, wasn't sure whether it fit, strictly, into Practice or not.

Anyone have any advice for teaching grades 4/5 kids English reading/writing skills, a large number of whom are below grade-level? They're all native English speakers. I'm not a teacher, so have no control over the curriculum as such, but can do extracurricular activities/teaching/etc.

[some-loser]

Hey all,

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, wasn't sure whether it fit, strictly, into Practice or not.

Anyone have any advice for teaching grades 4/5 kids English reading/writing skills, a large number of whom are below grade-level? They're all native English speakers. I'm not a teacher, so have no control over the curriculum as such, but can do extracurricular activities/teaching/etc.

I write for a living, so I imagine I could provide some insight into helping folks get better writing skills. Is there anything you are looking for in particular? Books? Exercises? Etc.

[Hermes]

I write for a living, so I imagine I could provide some insight into helping folks get better writing skills. Is there anything you are looking for in particular? Books? Exercises? Etc.

I'm basically looking for anything you guys have to offer, so that I can at least take it into consideration/get inspiration from it.

With the caveat that they already have a dedicated ELA class, so them wanting to take on another book in their free time is pretty unlikely.

[willowtooth]

I'm basically looking for anything you guys have to offer, so that I can at least take it into consideration/get inspiration from it.

With the caveat that they already have a dedicated ELA class, so them wanting to take on another book in their free time is pretty unlikely.
Hold a poetry contest and give candy as a reward for best poem

[GiantMonkeyMan]

In general the best thing to do is to make your time with them relevant to their own lives or exciting and fun to them in some way but that sort of thing is always a toss-up between being successful or you coming across as an out-of-touch oldie lol.

[Hermes]

To what extent do you guys think writing exercises are helpful, or should one stick to mostly reading skills? They obviously have to learn to do both, but many of them struggle more, in some ways, with writing than reading.

I don't know whether that's just because what they're supposed to write is boring (it is), or because they just don't like writing, or just aren't good enough at it to do it, though.

[some-loser]

To what extent do you guys think writing exercises are helpful, or should one stick to mostly reading skills? They obviously have to learn to do both, but many of them struggle more, in some ways, with writing than reading.

I don't know whether that's just because what they're supposed to write is boring (it is), or because they just don't like writing, or just aren't good enough at it to do it, though.

They both have their place. You can't become a good writer without reading lots. You also can't become a good writer without writing lots. How much room do you have to work with here in terms of the sort of readings/writing exercises they're assigned? I believe there are ways it can be made enjoyable for kids that age, but it will probably be difficult to get them excited about it without being able to tailor the readings/writing to their interests.

[Recuperation]

Khan academy has a grammar course available at least: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar. You can also load their entire course catalogue onto a flash drive and run it off a laptop or something, if internet access is an issue.

I agree with some-loser that lots of reading is still the ultimate low-cost education tool.

[Hermes]

They both have their place. You can't become a good writer without reading lots. You also can't become a good writer without writing lots. How much room do you have to work with here in terms of the sort of readings/writing exercises they're assigned? I believe there are ways it can be made enjoyable for kids that age, but it will probably be difficult to get them excited about it without being able to tailor the readings/writing to their interests.

Within the classroom itself, not very much at all. I'm allowed to take them out of the classroom occasionally, and in those spaces I have basically freedom of choice to teach what I want, but the caveat is that they're still going to be tested on the material that was taught in class, so if I'm pulling them out of class and not teaching the curriculum, they're going to do poorly on the test (unless they do all the in-class reading at home, or something).