Once a year, my current school has a family learning night. Parents are invited to come and try out activities they can use to support students at home in different subject areas. This year, I created a resource to support parents in talking about texts with their children.
We talk a lot about the importance of reading for enjoyment in my class. Reading self-selected texts is academically beneficial and it is important. We also want students to consider and question what they are reading. They might be able to talk about what is happening in the story, but hesitate to say what it means, or offer a judgment, or generate a question about it. Beyond these claims, students may also struggle to offer supporting evidence - how do you know this character is dishonorable? Why do you think the writing doesn't seem natural in this scene? Many adult readers already do these things without realizing what they are doing, so it can be hard to break it down and ask their children questions. Longer texts can be packed with meaning, but they take a while for students to access and process. The pictures in the presentation below offer practice with analysis with a "text" that is immediately accessible. They also create some fun imaginative exercises! I hope families can use the questions to transfer the analytical practice to books students read this year. Talking About Texts with Photos - link to presentation created with Adobe Spark
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Natural breaks in the school year prompt reflection, and my students examined their independent reading habits and progress so far. This month, I asked students to create infographics to tell the story of their independent reading for the first semester. This was our first attempt to examine and create infographics, and we found it challenging to distill pieces of information into a clear visual format, but the challenge required us to think carefully about what was true and what we want to be true.
I just finished a round of book clubs with my students for the first time this year. I tried a new system and I wanted to share in case anyone else out there is looking for something similar. The Why I like the concept of literature circles, in that students are having discussions about the book and they have roles and responsibilities, but some of the roles in the traditional model seem unnecessary to me. I don’t think we need students to create original illustrations of a scene from the book to understand the book, for example. I avoided book clubs for the past two years because of two universal truths: some students aren’t prepared with their reading in time for meetings, and some students read ahead and inevitably spoil (or incessantly talk about how they can’t talk for fear of spoiling) plot points during the discussion. It’s also true that I lean heavily on choice for reading time, and it’s hard to pick a winning book (or six) for every student in a given class. I have all kinds of love for Donalyn Miller and her Status of the Class idea, as well as her 40-Book Challenge idea, which are both presented in The Book Whisperer, and if you haven’t read that yet, you should go do that now. All good? Didn’t you love it? Me, too. I also love Goodreads, and I wish they had a young readers feature so my fifth graders could use their reading recommendations and statistics, but I’m still waiting on that. These tools all help readers keep track of what they’re reading. The 40-Book Challenge asks students to read 40 books during the school year. In ten months of school, that’s about a book a week.
The Goodreads challenge goes during the calendar year, allowing you to set a goal for how many books you want to complete, and showing a progress bar as you get closer to your target. It also shows you interesting stats, like your most-read authors, average book ratings, and number of pages read. Status of the Class involves a collection of data over time to see what students are reading – today I’m on this page of this book, last Thursday I was on this page of this book, last Tuesday I was on this page of this book, and so on. All of these give readers a pattern to observe about their reading habits and choices, which can help them use their reading time more constructively. Plus, the tracking is highly motivating for many students, especially if the writing piece is not too cumbersome. So how do we track our reading during the school year without Goodreads? I’m not sure how many middle grade and YA books I own. I’m sort of afraid to count. I’ve sorted them in lots of ways over the years, for my personal use and for my classroom. I've tried book-scanning apps, rainbow-fication, and assorted shelving configurations. Here’s the system that has worked best for me for the past several years: The short version – I classify my books into (mostly) genre-based tubs, code the book spines with patterned washi tape, and match the tub label card with the same washi tape pattern. I teach my students what types of books they can find in each category, and how to take care of the books as they search and return them. The long version, below, may help address details if you want to try this system. |
Jamie Wright
I've had the privilege of working with hundreds of students and families in IA, CT, NC, MO, TX, and Canada. I love being a teacher-librarian! Categories
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