Before embarking on a mini-reading-research project, I brought my narrative-loving two year old to high school for two twenty minute visits.  I ultimately want create something unique, but of value to other educators and parents. Working as a high school reading specialist presents me with the challenge of teaching students who are reading at the primary level, alongside others who may be reading on their current grade level, but who have simply failed to excel on reading or writing sections of state standardized tests, and/ or reading and writing assignments in their other content area classes.  I decided to use inspirational non-fiction texts as the main content for the reading class.  So far we have read Ten True Tales, Heroes of 9/11 by Alan Zullo and The Code “Five Secrets of Teen Success” by Mawi Asgedom. Sometimes, even these materials, which are considered to be young-adult content written at the elementary level, prove to be too difficult for some of the students. As all public schools move from state to national standards, referred to as “Common Core State Standards” most educators are applying these ideas to their current curriculum.

The standards from the Common Core (which have been adopted by public schools in nearly all of the fifty states) such as "speak audibly, and express thoughts, feelings and ideas clearly" can be traced from K to 12th grade.  Nobody could possibly argue against these being important life skills for students of all ability levels. In order to practice proper speaking and listening skills, some students need to be presented with an alternative text. After practicing proper pronunciation and expression with a staff member and another student, some of my students also chose to read to Annie when she visited.  My students modeled appropriate oral reading behaviors for two year old Annie by using high level picture books that support our current course of study. They showed Annie how to properly open and hold the books and asked Annie about the photos in the book before reading the story.

All of these behaviors could be modeled to students in the K-3 school, which is about a fifteen-minute brisk walk away from the high school. Walking quickly for thirty minutes could burn up to four-hundred calories! Could burning calories and reading aloud to younger students help students improve their speaking and listening skills even more? Since the new standards do not yet include two year olds, I could not in my current setting secure funding for a project that involved teens and two year olds. The worst part about the “experiment” is that Annie expressed extreme distress at the fact that she was not able to remain at the school for very long, on account of our having to meet curriculum goals that she would not be able to take part in.  I calmly explained that I had gotten enough ideas from observing her with my students for my proposal, and that it was time for her to go home with grandpa. My explanation was met with a lot of crying as Annie was swiftly whisked out of the main entrance of the school. This photo was taken when Annie arrived at the school, when she was of course under the impression that she would be able to spend the day, or at least a few hours with four hundred young, vibrant teenagers.