Read, Read, Read!

Sticky Notes With Second Graders

So I've been gradually introducing sticky notes to my second graders.  All my students are currently working on individual goals set by their interest and me guiding them to what I think they need to work on.

They are keeping track of their thinking and then sharing with me.  What have I seen as a result? Excellent retellings of their text!!!!

I am so excited because this is an area that they are expected to master by the end of second grade!!

Sticky away!!!

Reader's Workshop

Establishing routines within your reading workshop is just as important. My reading time is divided between specials/lunch.  I teach my mini-lesson within my chapter book and do guided practice with the chapter book and then I allow the students time to practice independently when they return from lunch.  This saves me time and gives the students purpose during their independent reading time.

Our current focus is visualization.  Not just drawing the picture, but also writing in a few sentences what they are seeing as we are reading.  We are reading Charlotte's Web.  Today's was about the warm manure pile...lots of great pics!! However, we are still working on getting the details in our writing and sketches. 

Read, read, read!

Reading: Digging Deeper

In February, I saw Debbie Miller and Lucy Calkins and they discussed the importance of going deeper in reading.  It isn't just teaching reading strategy. It is about applying the strategy and using it on the age appropriate level or standard of the classroom.  My students have loved the Among the Hidden series.  We've read the first two books and I knew that I wanted to really teach going deeper in reading responses the last 5 weeks of school.  So I decided to use the third book in the series.  We began the book last week and I had the kids write a response with no extra instruction.  Then today I used their responses to show exemplary work at what making good connections should look like and sound like, what a good question should look like, and what an meaningful inference looks like and sounds like. Then we read three more chapters of the book and wrote responses again.  During their silent reading time I graded their responses. The difference was AMAZING!!   As I was reading them I began to star the pieces that were exemplary and we had a sharing circle.  As they shared our question to the circle was, "Explain how this response is well thought out."  The answer:  It makes me think more about the text!

BINGO!  

We really truly  have thinkers in our classrooms, however, it is up to us to raise the standard and expectation.

Grand Conversations

As we begin the new school year and our routines, I encourage you to make sure that you participate in what Lucy Calkins calls Grand Conversations. A time for the community to come together and discuss their reading. Today we had our first grand conversation. Right now it is teacher directed, but I know as time goes on students will gradually take control, but today I witnessed pockets of student driven conversation as they discussed the possibility that Lynsey and Dave from No Talking are taking the boy/girl cootie battle a little too far. What I like most about grand conversation is it student owned and teacher facilitated.

Reading Is Thinking

Reading is no longer a passive activity in my room. This week I have been reviewing the comprehension strategies. According to the pre-assessment I gave earlier in the week. Only a handful of students needed a review on visualization and making connections. I will continue to briefly review the remaining strategies this week, but my first areas of focus will be asking questions as we read and inferring.

I have been making charts for the class as we review.

Chart 1:
Lists all the strategies with a phrase to help them remember the purpose

Chart 2:
I see the movie in my mind because I know to visualize.

Chart 3:
Making connections to reading
Use schema
schema=background knowledge=the things I already know
text to self t>s connecting what I am reading to my life
text to text t>t connecting what I am reading to another text I've read
text to world t>w connecting what I am reading to world (ie movies, what's in the news, famous leaders)

Chart 4:
Asking Questions
I wonder...
Ask questions BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER reading

Thin questions: can be answered within the text...usually one word answers
Thick questions: can't be answered easily

Chart 5:
Inferring
background knowledge + evidence from the text=inference

Chart 6:
Summarize
The main idea of book.

Chart 7:
Synthesize
Creating new meaning from the text

Goldilocks Reading

My requirement for my fifth graders is they must have 2 books checked out from the library.  One of them must be a just right reading book and the other I allow them to be a book of their choice. Many of my students love the Guiness books or drawing book and those are great, but a little difficult to write reading responses on.

Just right reading books are the perfect reading level for the individual reader.  I teach this by relating it to the fairytale-Goldilocks and the three bears. I inform my 5th graders that really the story has changed through the years and the original was all about finding the perfect book. I retell the story about ol' Goldilocks going into the bears' home. She went straight to the library upstairs across from baby bear's bedroom. She is astonished by all the books she sees on the shelves. Fiction, non-fiction, biography...wow. The books are everywhere. On the table in the middle of the room are three books.  The first book had all these big words she couldn't pronounce. It was way too hard to read.  The second book on the table was her favorite Dr. Seuss book. In fact, she knew it by memory. It is an easy book, but fun to read. The next book was a chapter book. How Goldilocks loved chapter books. She picked it up and began to read.  Never stumbling over difficult words.  She was able to see the movie in her mind as she read. She loved this book.  She had found her just right book.

Now, I don't stop there. Students have to see me in the library before they check out and we look at the book together. They essentially have to prove to me why it is their perfect book.  I meet with students regularly and check on the books they are reading independently.

Reader's Workshop

After reading Ellin Keene's book To Understand, I changed the name of my Language Arts class to literacy workshop.  My day is designed with 1 1/2-2 hours of literacy and 30-45 minutes of direct instruction for social studies. Often times my social studies reading is embedded within my literacy block. My students write every day and have mini-lessons in reading and writing. My first novel of the year is Frindle by Andrew Clements. I will draw upon the First 20 Days from Fountas and Pinnell's Guided Reading and Writing and review the comprehension strategies and really stress to my students that reading is not a passive activity, but one that is full of thinking and engagement. 

I am very lucky to have a district that puts thinking first and my students have been working on reading comprehension strategies for many years. Usually, I preassess each strategy prior to teaching it then begin my  the strategy lessons.  This year I plan to assess before I even begin my quick overview of the strategies.I haven't finalized my pre-assessment, but I know it will have some of these questions.

1. What does it mean when you are asked to visualize while you read?
2. What are the ways you make connections to the text?
3. What do you do when you don't understand what you are reading?
4. What is an inference?
5. Why is it important to ask questions as you read?
6. What does it mean to think while you read?
7. How do you feel about yourself as a reader when you read?

Some mini-lessons that I plan on teaching the first week of school are

• Just Right Books: How to use the Goldilocks Method
• How to Keep a Reading Log
• Fix Up Strategies when I Lose My Way
• Silent Reading Expectations

Synthesis and Summarizing

One of my classes is working on understanding a nonfiction text and leaving tracks of their thinking. We used a great book about Jackie Robinson--Teammates. We practiced as class for the first half of the book. For the second half the students tried it on their own and then shared with the class. The next day we tried reading about Paul Revere and the first battle of the Revolution. Much to my amazement I heard this, "This is the coolest way to learn ever!!" Love it!! Learning can be fun!!