One Great Text: Sleep Tight!

TIME For Kids is a weekly news magazine available in both print and on-line. The magazine covers issues from a wide range of real-world topics across content areas and grade level. Also, TFK meets standards across the curriculum, including language arts, social studies, science, math and geography which are clearly listed in the teacher’s edition to guide instruction. I think that the articles available in site are great resources to get students motivated and engaged in reading and learning about new topics.

I chose the article entitled “Sleep Tight! More sleep helps children do better at school” as a One Great text to share with a fifth grader. The article talks about how in a new study students with less sleep were actually more cranky, frustrated and distracted. When I showed this article to my student her reaction was very positive. She seemed to be very interested in the topic since she immediately agreed and mentioned “sometimes I feel like that like when I stay up late watching T.V. I feel tired and don’t want to wake up in the morning.” She was able to relate to the article and talked about how she sometimes feels like she can’t pay attention in class because she gets sleepy. Overall, her attitude toward the text was very positive and she was very interested in learning about this topic particularly because it was something she could relate to.

Here is the website address to the article:

http://www.timeforkids.com/news/sleep-tight/54321

3 thoughts on “One Great Text: Sleep Tight!”

  1. I think you picked a great text. I liked how you chose a very interesting text that could definitely relate to all students. I find that students like reading text that relates to them or that they can make connections too. This text is definitely one of them. I really enjoyed how you didn’t choice a text that related to a specific content area. What I mean is you didn’t choose to focus on poetry or fractions. You picked something that you could connect to a content area but it seems as though you were able to have a conversation where they didn’t know they were “learning”.

    Brittany R.

  2. What a great resource you have shared here! I was just wondering where to find a good feature article for a lesson I am planning and now that I know about TIME for Kids, I think I will be set. The article is wonderful too. It is always positive to find something the students connect to and can respond to in a beneficial way.
    I think this article would be a good introduction into doing a class survey and research how much sleep the students get.

  3. I think this is a terrific text for kids. It gets them to really think about sleep as something positive and not something they need to dread every night. After reading this I actually printed it out and showed it to the girls I babysat and they thought it was interesting as well. Most students think that their bed time is just something parents enforce and they are missing out on valuable playing time but when you put something into prospective or teach them just a little bit more they seem to really get it. It is important to bring these kinds of texts in the classroom because students need to learn more than just subjects like math they also need to learn about life.

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