Taylor Swift Webcast

Scholastic, Inc. produced a webcast this week that features Taylor Swift.  She is talking about reading and the influence reading has had on her life and songwriting.

The program uses the format of a talk show with Trey Morgan, national radio personality,  as the moderator.

The program was 'hip' and geared for middle school students.  Swift had some great advice for surviving middle school.

I loved their motto-RED which is the name of Taylor Swift's new CD.

In this program they say that RED stands for Read Every Day!

I think this correlates well to Read to Self.  We may rename our Read to Self to Read Every Day.

The 37 minute presentation is available for no cost at http://taylorswiftwebcast.scholastic.com/.

Daily 5 as a Reading Intervention

I received an interesting email from a teacher who is facing a new challenge.   The note said,

I have just accepted a position as a teacher for middle school reading intervention.  This is new to the school so I will be building the program from scratch.  As of right now they will not provide me with a specific intervention program to follow, but want me to incorporate curriculum from other classes while teaching specific reading methods.  I am at a bit of a loss as to where to start.


I have been in that same situation.  Three  years ago I was working as a literacy coach in a middle school.  The school was in the beginning stages of an RTI program.  AIMSWEB was used as a universal screener.  We knew how all the students were reading and which ones were above our benchmark.  But there was no intervention to help the struggling readers.

Kelly asked  

I was wondering if your use of Daily 5 and Cafe could be incorporated into a "homemade" intervention program.  I will be working specifically with at risk readers with specific difficulties in fluency, comprehension, etc.

My answer is yes, yes yes!

My story continues-I couldn't help myself-I said I wanted to design an intervention.  I did just that.  Our elementary schools were in the process of beginning a Daily 5 program.  Plus I had just read the The Book Whisperer.  It was a perfect storm and a longer story than I want to post right now.

 If you have specific questions about using Daily 5 for a reading intervention, I would be glad to answer them.  I've developed many materials that I use in class.  I'll share them too.