Teaching Reading at UPCS
At the University Park Campus School, the faculty believe that the best way to teach students to read is top first help them fall in love with literature. Students who love literature will be more likely to pursue reading independently.
 Teaching Students to Read with Books, Not Programs: The first priority in teaching reading at UPCS is to help students develop a love for literature. Students learn to read best when they connect with and enjoy the literature that they are reading. Teachers at UPCS deliberately select literature to excite and engage their students. For incoming seventh graders, this typically means selecting books that have an upper-elementary reading level which is accessible for most UPCS students, but content that engages adolescents. Teachers at UPCS are expert at matching books with the interests and personalities of their students. (Click here to see a list of books often used in UPCS middle school English classes.)
The honors-level high school program is modeled after a prep school course of study, and the literature used is selected primarily from the standard canon of English literature. In English class, students typically read 5-10 major works each year which are supplemented by smaller pieces and independent reading interspersed throughout the curriculum. Teachers occasionally use classtime for free-reading sessions, where students select a book from the classroom library with only the following direction: “you have to like the book you are reading.” This program enables students to graduate from high school familiar with the standard canon, the skills to read challenging literature, and a love for reading independently.
Extra Support for Students who Struggle to Decode: Some incoming students coming to UPCS struggle to decode and read English at the most basic levels. These students are given extra support from an elementary-level reading specialist or special-education teacher in addition to their regular English classes. All English teachers are trained in strategies to help older readers gain these basic skills. Teachers read to students, modeling good reading and demonstrating their passion for literature. Teachers use picture books or other low-level reading materials to teach high-level literary concepts such as personification, genre, and tone. In this way, students learn to critically analyze literature even while they are still developing the skills to read grade-level texts.
Deliberate Strategies to Read for Meaning: Instruction at UPCS is designed to help students develop effective strategies to comprehend challenging texts in all genres. To make sense of difficult language, students must read critical passages multiple times and construct additional meaning on each pass through. Structured text-based activities such as literature circles, reciprocal reading, double entry journals, and other writing to learn activities are used nearly every day.
Reading in the Content Areas: All teachers at UPCS are teachers of reading, teaching to students to read the styles of writing particular to their discipline. The same reading strategies that are used in English class are transformed to help student learn to read primary source documents in history, research articles in science, and dense textbooks in math.
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