ABSTRACT
Renuka: In September I had my 28 second-grade students involved in a space unit. Many of them had been with me when I taught them in first grade, but I had new students as well. As students were engaged in their own solar-system research projects, I was aware that their literacy abilities were quite diverse-ranging from those who were emergent readers to those who were reading at a third-grade level. However, although some were unable to read conventionally the various books we used, they were all able to share the knowledge they had learned about space. This unit led me to be concerned with finding ways to provide instructional
activities where student knowledge (no matter what level) was recognized and shared while still being able to address my students’ very different instructional needs. In my inquiry, I wanted to figure out how I could still have reading experiences in a collaborative way-because I believed that it was important that children interact with their peers and me to construct knowledge together-and also to combine the goal of providing one-toone instruction for students.
