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This is such an important piece--thank you. I only recently became acquainted with Bookworms when I heard Sharon Walpole interviewed on a literacy podcast. And I was definitely intrigued! I will need to explore the program more fully, but I wanted to comment on this:

"In addition, she thinks choral reading helps all students engage, regardless of their ability to read text independently. A student who is still learning to decipher words might not be able to do much of that on the first try but then read more words on the second round. Sticking with the same text over a period of days can also help, as students get used to an author’s style and vocabulary."

The concept of "partner reading/paragraph shrinking" that has been gaining popularity recently is generally used with leveled material at the weaker reader's "instructional level". However, I use it with grade level text and see great promise for exactly the reasons described above.

I have just published a (nonprofit) book, From Sound to Summary: Braiding the Reading Rope to Make Words Make Sense, and I discuss partner reading/paragraph shrinking in chapter 6, Making Sense of Words We Analyze.

Thanks again!

Harriett

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=from+sound+to+summary&i=stripbooks&crid=JM322BHJ9DH6&sprefix=from+sound+to+summary%2Cstripbooks%2C142&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

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Ms. Wexler,

Thank you for sharing information regarding the Bookworm Literacy Curriculum. It is much appreciated. That being said, your post focused solely on improved reading achievement-- could you say more about the curriculum's impact on writing achievement? Given that there is "writing" in the title of the curriculum, I would like to hear more about how effective the resource is in this arena. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Patrick Whipple

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The studies of Bookworms don't seem to have looked at writing achievement, which isn't surprising. Studies almost always look at effects on reading rather than writing.

So I only have the anecdotal evidence that teachers who have used the curriculum have said their students' writing has improved. I suspect that's partly because (1) students are basically writing about the content they're learning, which probably boosts writing quality (as well as learning); and (2) from the limited experience I had observing the curriculum, it appears that it pays more attention than usual to sentence construction, which is also likely to boost writing quality (as well as reading comprehension, partly because it familiarizes students with the complex syntax of written language).

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