CSI Literacy

Well I have had a couple of days to think about the session on Thursday about CSI literacy. It raised some interesting questions for myself and my beliefs about Comprehension instruction. Kylie did a fabulous job talking about how she implements the program.

The whole class verses group teaching debate was raised again for me. I had thought that this had been long put to sleep and group teaching was the way to do things. The argument that CSI could be a year long program with whole class teaching being enough is a little far fetched. What I do believe though is...

FINALLY! software/texts that focus on the reading strategies! What an excellent resource to support a varied reading program.

It has really made me think about the role of shared reading in my classroom. Shared reading depends on two things to me.
1) The teachers ability to model effectively reading strategies.
2) Resources that can be read by the whole class.

Shared books are clearly an effective tool in the junior classrooms in the modeling of effective decoding strategies so why would it be any different in the senior classroom when decoding meaning?
Big books in the senior classroom are really a joke. Not because of the the kids don't dig reading them but because there is lack of a variety suited to strategy instruction and senior students. Using online reading material is so much more work than it is worth, finding material appropriate for the students reading level, strategy focus, and content appropriateness. The only other method of shared reading would be in the group (with individual texts) or occasionally photocopying a text for the class. How often do we do this?

With digital projectors there is clearly value in having digital texts. CSI is one of the few resources for teachers I believe that has catered for the modeling of strategy instruction in the classroom.