A 9th grade language arts teacher explains how her school helped struggling readers by placing them in an Academic Literacy class that gave them time to read books for pleasure and helped them develop strategies for choosing books, eliminating distractions, and monitoring their thinking as they read.
In addition to core studies in English, math, science, history,
languages, and the fine
arts, students take a required sequence in religion and philosophy: 6th -
grade students study the Apostles» Creed and the saints; in the 7th
grade, they focus on the Church and the Ten Commandments; 8th graders conduct an overview of the Bible and the Sacraments;
9th -
grade students study the Old Testament, the Apologetics, and C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity; the 10th -
grade focus is the New Testament and Church history; 11th
grade introduces metaphysics and ethics; and the 12th -
grade course features the philosophy and social teachings of the Catholic Church.
The teachers» questions indicated that, on the standardized reading assessment, they wanted
9th grade vocabulary and comprehension subskill results disaggregated for each of the 10th
grade English
language arts course sections so teachers would have a profile of students» reading ability in their current classes.
She currently teaches
9th grade English at Carl Hayden Community High School in the Phoenix Union High School District, and she spent the previous eight years teaching middle school
language arts at Mountain View School in the Washington Elementary School District.