Today I want to share with you a little something that I have done in different forms for YEARS.  Do you take “status of the class”?  It’s so much more than tracking student reading.  Taking reading status is literally one of my favorite times of the day.  I call it…

THE POWER OF CONNECTIONS!

One of my favorite (and most valuable) times of my school day begins after lunch when my students come in from lunch recess.  They finish chatting with their friends, and find their way back at their desks to get settled in for read aloud time–and then their own independent reading.  First, I read to my students for 15-20 minutes and do a minilesson. After that, it’s time for my students to begin their 30 -45 minutes of independent reading time.  To make sure I have my finger on the pulse of what they are doing, I take “status of the class” every (almost) day.  The entire process could take just a few minutes, but I stretch it out to about 10 minutes.  Why?

Taking Reading Status

Those ten minutes are what I consider a “guaranteed connection” time with my students.  During that 10 minutes, I know that EVERY single day I can have a meaningful (even if it’ 20 seconds!) connection with each student.  Whether it be simply asking how they are liking their book, or noticing that they MUST have read a ton at home the night before, or to mention another book they may enjoy–this is my time to get in touch with them as readers and as people.  

Each of them gets my full attention for their “status check”–and even though 20-30 seconds doesn’t seem like a lot, think about your day.  How many other times in a day can you make a focused effort to balance your attention to every student?  You know that some students demand your attention way more than some others…and this levels the playing field at least for a little while!

Books are Contagious!

As you can imagine, there are other perks as well!  I learn about my students’ reading behaviors–about how their reading habits at home…about their taste in book…about how often they abandon and complete books…about their thoughts and opinions about books…and more.  Not only that, but the other students get to reap the benefit as well by hearing about all the great books others are reading.  And all of this  is shared in this little “mini conferences”.  Books are contagious. “The Lemonade War” series made its way around my class this year because students heard about it during status time.  We had to keep a list of who got each book next!

How do I do it?

I have taken status in different ways for many years.  Finally, I have a system that is my “go to” every year now.  I always considered status time to be a “data collection” time and a way for me to hold students accountable.  What I find instead is that once we start–the STUDENTS notice if I skip a day!  It becomes very clear that taking status isn’t just for me; my students really appreciate the information shared during that time.  Students use this time to make book recommendations. They brag about how much they read the night before. Sometimes they even to ASK for recommendations for others.  What a great way to build a reading community!

A few years ago I had posted about this very topic on my blog and was bombarded with questions from teachers asking how I keep track of everything, so I put all the information together in a resource so people can see it in action.  Lots of people gave it a try and found it to be super helpful.  When I made my system, I also made the plan to update it yearly so people can always go back year after year to redownload the update.  Here are a few super blurry pictures to give you an idea of how taking reading status works in my classroom.

Using the calendar pages to record what book they read…what page…and any anecdotal notes.

A place to add goals

I note “A” for abandoned books and “F” for finished books

I use the back of the page to do word work with students during their conferences

Notes that I want to remember

Click HERE or the image below if you want to learn more!  Remember, it’s available with both print AND digital calendars for ultimate flexibility!

The post Taking Reading Status with Independent Reading appeared first on The Teacher Studio.

• Historical fiction is a new genre for many elementary students, so they get super excited!
• There are SO many great comprehension strategies to teach as you read.
• Fortunately, there are TONS of amazing books to share with students–from picture books to chapter books.
• I love being able to weave informational reading (building background) into narrative reading.
• Historical fiction is AMAZING for teaching about character and setting.

I thought I’d share how I kick off my historical fiction unit by going through a quick overview of the first two lessons.

Historical Fiction Lesson Idea 1

Consider starting this unit with an overview of the genre of historical fiction.  Depending on your students’ background knowledge, this may be a brief review, or it may include more in-depth studies.  Some of these could be done before reading, others as you work through the text, and others after a text is finished.

I create a slide show with background information about the genre.  I want students to understand that historical fiction is a TYPE of fiction so it has all the characteristics of fiction.  There are characters, settings, key events, problems, solutions, themes, and more.  What makes it different than other forms of fiction is the focus on setting.  This forms one key part of our historical fiction studies.

Historical Fiction Lesson Idea 2

To build off of this, I work with the class or small groups to sort picture books into realistic fiction, historical fiction, information texts, and fantasy texts.  We work together to generate anchor charts that list characteristics of each.  What are the “telling features” of each?  I keep the “historical fiction” chart accessible throughout the unit and add to it if needed.

It’s interesting to watch students discuss the different books as we skim and scan them.  It’s a great time to clear up misconceptions such as:

• Informational books don’t ALWAYS have photos and text features.
• Some fictional texts DO have photos, not just illustrations.
• Many students struggle with the difference between fantasy (“made up”} and realistic fiction and informational.  For example, in a novel where the character “seems” real–many students fail to recognize that it’s a made-up story, even though the character seems real.  It seems easier for them to identify “fiction” when there are animals that talk or magical things.  This is important to help students see.

What happens next?

As the unit unfolds, we get into more and more depth about the genre.  Here are a few more of the lessons we do!

• We study different “eras” to help build background information.
• I create a challenge where we try to read as many historical fiction books as possible.  We create a paper chain of titles as we read them.  Our goal every year is 100 books–picture books and novels.  We accomplish it every year!

• We read a variety of different books together and study narrative features such as characters and setting.
• I plan a round of book clubs/literature circles where students are reading and discussing historical fiction texts that are a “just right” level for them.
• We write about historical fiction books in different ways. (See THIS BLOG POST for more!)
• Discussions about theme happen all the time.  It’s a key part of the unit.
• We practice tracking our thinking about books so that we are ready to discuss and write about texts.
• I even give students who are looking for more a differentiated menu board with additional challenges.

Students learn SO much about genre, about history, and about comprehension through this unit and they absolutely LOVE it.  Not only that, but students feel very “grown up” as they read these books.  It’s also a GREAT chance to talk about perseverance and overcoming obstacles as we read and learn about the challenges people have faced in different times in history.

If you need help teaching historical fiction, I’ve put all my plans for the minilessons I teach and the book club planning I do together in a resource.  Everything is in one place and it saves so much planning time.  Whether you want to use the printed copies or use the digital access, I hope it can help some of you learn to love historical fiction as much as I do! Just CLICK HERE or the image below to learn more!

The post Teaching a Historical Fiction Unit: Getting Started appeared first on The Teacher Studio.

Why I love “I Survived” books

There are so many reasons why using the “I Survived” series is such a great way to engage readers.  I’m going to try to showcase a few of them here!  Let me start with the obvious–there are SO MANY to choose from!  Whether you are a history buff or prefer action stories from more recent times, there is something for everyone!

Speaking of history, let’s be honest.  These books are perfect to incorporate into a historical fiction unit.  I love to incorporate informational text reading to show the importance of building background knowledge and understanding of setting.  (Want more historical fiction help?  CLICK HERE to see more!)  I love to do research with my students to help them identify the key vocabulary, setting details, and other elements of the “era”.  Students LOVE it when they begin reading the books and find the details they had researched!  So powerful!

The “I Survived” books are also fantastic for teaching other literary features such as “flashback”.  In fact, identifying the time changes in these books is a great way for students to recognize that different books use flashbacks, dreams, and other devices to tell the story.  Many students struggle to recognize these time changes, so explicitly teaching them with these books can unlock this for students and help them identify it in other books.

Another great feature of the “I Survived” series is that they have JUST enough “peril” to captivate students. This is particularly important when trying to engage reluctant readers.

Encouraging Reluctant Readers

As you know, the more a student reads, the better they will read.  Unfortunately, we always have a population of readers who are “reluctant”, to say the least!  Whether reading is a challenge for them or they just haven’t found that “something special” yet, helping pair readers with books they love is so important.  This series can be perfect.  Why?

• Engaging topics (volcanoes? earthquakes? shark attacks?  explosions?)
• “Doable” length.  So many books just seem overwhelming when they have hundreds and hundreds of pages
• Seems “grown up” (the last thing many struggling readers want is to look like they are reading a “baby” book)
• They follow a similar format.  Once you teach the format (see below), it helps readers “decode” the series.
• There are SO many options!  There are literally dozens and dozens of titles in the series.

Accessing the Books

Another wonderful reason to use “I Survived” books is how accessible they are!  From Scholastic Book Clubs to used book stores to libraries, there are tons of ways to access these books.  But what makes them especially powerful and useful is that the books all follow a set format–so even if you wanted to use them as a whole class or in a small group, you can actually teach powerful lessons with students reading DIFFERENT books!  That’s right!  This completely eliminates the need to have many copies of a single title!

When I realized this, I designed a series of lessons that can be used with ANY “I Survived” book…and they have made my life so much easier!  An entire book’s worth of mini lessons planned ahead of time? Yes, please!

Want More Help Teaching with “I Survived” Books?

So what I’ve learned is that there is a group of students who struggle to “decode” reading chapter books.  What I mean is that they have struggled to make the transition from books that can be read in one sitting to books that need to be read (and retained!) over a number of days–or even longer.

I wanted to create a series of lessons to help students learn to do that–and especially help my struggling and reluctant readers be strategic in how they tackle chapter books.  Here’s what I mean:

• Some students need to be explicitly taught about how chapters in a text are organized.  When students understand the importance of the first chapter in terms of preparing them for the rest of the story, we’ve given them a huge gift.  Although it’s especially important to orient students to the setting in historical fiction, this focus on the first chapter will impact students as they read ANY text.
• Understanding that each chapter is a “story within a story” helps students retain the storyline.
• Learning to summarize and identify the beginning, middle, and end of each chapter also improves retention.
• Keeping track of primary and secondary characters is an essential part of tracking the story.
• Making predictions and adjusting them is a great way for students to begin thinking deeply.
• Learning to write about texts and learning about expectations (with a crystal clear writing rubric) helps students 
• Tying historical fiction to researching the era helps build understanding.

Getting It All Organized!

To help me make sure I am all set, I prepared a bunch of “helps”!  To start, I want my students to be able to self-assess their own work to make sure they are working to constantly improve their responses.  By SHOWING them what expectations are, they are so much more likely to reach them!  This rubric can be used for grading OR self asssesment or both!  In fact, I’ve had students use a highlighter to mark what THEY think they earned and then I mark my scores in ink.

I also wanted my mini-lessons to be crystal clear, short, and visible.  I decided to actually WRITE the learning/lesson plan on the top of each page so my plans would be set–and students could look back at them.  So handy!

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I also wanted to make sure I had a ton of options because each group of students is different!  I made a ton of “extra” sheets–from getting creative with new chapter names to studying character dialogue to illustrating key scenes–a ton of ways to take the learning deeper!

I also want to really build excitement for the series.  Sometimes I have an “I Survived Challenge” in my room where I hang up a big poster where students can sign an award cutout with the book title and add to the “hall of fame”.  It is SO motivating for students, and it really capitalizes on students who need a little something extrinsic to motivate them!  I also like to let students track their own reading so they can celebrate how many books they finish!

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(Oh yeah…and I needed it to be both print AND digital!)

Interested in doing some of these same things?  Check it out RIGHT HERE or by clicking the image below.  I hope it helps!

The post Teaching with “I Survived” Books: Encouraging Reluctant Readers appeared first on The Teacher Studio.

1.  Share YOUR love of reading.

Whether you are in a “grown up” book club of your own or can simply model your love with HOW you read, how MUCH you read, or your excitement about new books–make sure your students know that you value reading and you are excited to help THEM find the books that will captivate them.  I talk to my students about trying to get into the reading “zone” where you are so into your book that you lose track of time and the world around you.  When that happens IN our class, we totally celebrate it!  It’s a great way to help students reflect on their focus and their engagement.

2.  Make sure students have access to books.

Whether you have a vital and evolving classroom library or need to beg, borrow, or steal visit the library  (school or public), make sure you have plenty of books.  It’s super important to have materials at a variety of levels with tons of different interest levels.  Exploring discount stores, Scholastic, rummage sales, resale shops, and other places are great starting points for adding to your collection.  If you are a newer teacher or changing grades, consider asking students and other teachers what is “trending” in their room before you invest too much!  Think about organizing them in a simple, easy-to-use system to make everyone’s life easier!  CLICK HERE for a post about how I organize my ridiculously large book collection!

3.  Teach students about what a “just right” book is

This is a key part of helping my students transition back to school–and then I revisit it several times throughout the year. I want students to recognize all the factors that go into finding that “just right” book–including personal interests, level, genre, length, and more.  We talk about abandoning books–and how it can be okay ONCE IN AWHILE, but if we become good book “pickers”, we won’t need to abandon many at all.  I make sure to explicitly model all the ways we can preview books to see if they are good fits.  At the beginning of the year, this is the number one thing I confer with students about.  I really want them to know that it is NO FUN to read a book that isn’t a good fit.

4.  Expose your class to different genres

Whether it be through full instructional units where you explicitly teach different genres, or are mindful of read aloud selections, or simply do a variety of book talks or other “focus” lessons on different genres, we can really SELL students on different types of books.  We always have some students who are genre picky (think “I only read Harry Potter-like books), but with a little convincing, we can often open students up to amazing books they never would have picked on their own.  Depending on your curriculum, you may even want to have the students graph their reading and track their trends.  We even do a “historical fiction challenge” where I make a “code” on the wall (ex. red for books set during the Civil War, yellow for the Great Depression, and so on).  Every time students finish a book of that time “era”, they make a paper link and add to our chain.  Last year we had 132 historical fiction books read in February!

5. Want to build a culture for reading? Give them choices!

Sometimes we need to give students choices.  Choices about WHAT materials they read.  Choices about WHERE they read.  Even choices about whether they read alone or with a buddy.  Sometimes I’ll even take a class vote on what our next read aloud will be!  We need to work to create a climate of readers where we are all celebrating books together.  There is nothing better than listening to students “buzzing” about books when they come in from recess or are getting ready for lunch.

6.  Get them talking about books

Whether we put sentence starters up on the wall, do fishbowl activities where we watch groups have discussions, or even find example videos online to “study”, teaching students how to talk about books is so important–so they can participate in whole class discussions AND small group book clubs. Want to read a post more about getting students talking in their book clubs?  Check this one out!  Again, some students do this naturally, but others need some coaching and encouraging.

7.  Give them TIME to read self-selected books

Do I need to say more?  I’m not talking about time to read “assigned” reading.  Time. To. Read.  Teach students how to develop their stamina and minimize distractions and work toward reading for extending periods of time.  Let them get in that “reading zone”!  After all, the way we get better at reading is TO READ!  Have them keep lists of books they want to read and consider doing some self-assessments to monitor their own reading.  Building habits take time.   (Click the image for more)

8.  Help students understand that reading is more than word calling

One thing that I have noticed about students who move to our school from other schools is that they often have a different view of what a “reader” is.  They talk about reading “fast” and “thick books”.  We work hard to help students see that reading is complicated!  It’s about deep and rich understanding.  Reading involves talking about ideas about books.  It’s about seeing “movies” in our minds.  It’s about rereading when things don’t make sense.  Early in the year, I work with my students to understand how complicated reading is–and that we can set goals in all of these different areas to get better at reading.  (Click the image to learn more about reading learning targets!)

9.  Select interesting read alouds with a purpose

I think it’s so important to read aloud a variety of materials to our students…articles…poems…picture books…novels.  The beauty of the read aloud is that we can decide WHY we want to read it.  Is it to teach our students something?   Purely for enjoyment?  To introduce or reinforce a skill such as theme or setting?  To study a character and how they change?  The sky is the limit–but we should always KNOW our purpose and how our choices can impact our culture for reading.

For example, I start the year by reading a ton of picture books to model my thinking and other strategies and I read “Fish in a Tree” as a novel to really talk about characters, the setting of “school”, and how students treat each other.  We have a lot of power and there are SO many amazing books. Choosing is so hard!  The beauty of the read aloud is that we can expose students to texts that they may not have access to without us; we can “teach” more rigorous reading through our read alouds.

10. Remember to slow down and enjoy!

In our current climate of pushing standards and assessments and units and more, sometimes we need to just stop and savor what we are doing with our students.  When my students are independently reading, and I am moving quietly among them conferring, sometimes I just stop and look around and the 25 little bodies who are in the process of becoming life-long readers.  Pretty powerful!

Interested in some of the forms and lesson ideas I use at the beginning of the year to build this culture for reading?  Check this out!

The post 10 Ways to Create a Culture for Reading appeared first on The Teacher Studio.

How did we start thinking deeply about texts?

• I wonder
• I predict
• A connection I had
• I noticed
• It was confusing when
• I felt

You get the picture.  This is a great way to scaffold for students and helps avoid them sitting there with a blank page.  Try it!

Thinking Deeply and Showing It Off!

Where did I go wrong?

Interested in some of my resources to help teach narratives?  Check these out!

The post Responding to Literature: Thinking Deeply appeared first on The Teacher Studio.

What is it?

Novel in a Day is a way to take a chapter book, divide it into sections, assign a section (typically a chapter) to a student, partnership, or small group—and then have the class work together to make the story unfold!

Why would we ever take a novel or chapter book and only have students read part of it?  Lots of reasons!  Check these out—and you can probably think of even more.

• Working on a project as a class (or small group) can build excitement about reading and books.
• By working together on a task where groups rely on each other, it can help to build classroom community.
• Showing how each chapter of a book is actually a “story within a story” helps students build comprehension and an understanding of how chapter books work.
• By giving students exposure to a common text, you can use it as an anchor to refer to throughout the year.
• This project allows you to do strategic partnering to help support readers who may need additional support.
• This allows you to work on reading comprehension in a number of different ways, including summarizing.
• Using a Novel in a Day allows you to help teach about prediction and sequencing—two essential comprehension skills.

So how do you get started?

1.  Select a book to use.  Consider finding a book that is accessible to your students—and consider how to do partnerships or small groups to support readers who need it. Use a book that you have multiple copies of or—and kids love this—buy a copy (even used is great!) and literally cut it into sections.  This TOTALLY  builds engagement to have a chunk of a book (and it keeps students from looking back or looking ahead!)

2. Form your partnerships or groups based on how many chapters or sections you plan on dividing your text into.

3. Explain to students WHY you are reading a novel in a day!  (Forget why?  See above!)

The teaching begins…

4. Explain to students how chapter books are organized…that chapter 1 often gives a TON of information (I usually read chapter 1 to the entire class to set the stage for the book.  You may choose to have a group do it as a part of the project, but by giving everyone chapter one they will have met the characters and so on which can really help. Students also need to understand that each chapter of a book is a little “mini-story” with a beginning, middle, and end.  Although this is obvious to many students, it is NOT obvious to all students!  You can also start to track key information and model exactly how they can do the same for their chapter or chapters.

5. Show the students the note-taking page they will fill out as they work.  Make sure they understand that they need to really understand their section so they can share it with the entire group.  They should be thinking about what might have happened BEFORE their section and what might happen AFTER.  Remind them that this is what readers do when reading their own book as well!

6. Give students work time!  They can read together, work on notes, and do whatever components of the project you have selected for them!

The coaching continues…

7. Circulate and coach.  Help students think deeply and make inferences and give hints when needed.  Help monitor partnerships to make sure they are capturing the key elements of their section so that the entire story will make sense!

8. Help students prepare to present.  You need to decide how you want this to happen.  What are your options?

• Each group writes a 2-3 sentence summary and presents to the class in chapter order.
• Students make a visual illustrated summary to share and display.
• Student groups share their chapters while the class works to write a one-sentence summary that gets recorded on a large story mountain.

9. After sharing, have a class discussion about the book!  Use the discussion questions included or make up your own!  These can also become writing prompts for students after the entire novel is shared.

10. Students self-assess!  You can assess as little or as much as you want.

11. CELEBRATE!

So…if you are interested in trying this, go for it!  If you want some ready-made forms–I have put some all together with these directions in the resource listed below.  Just click the cover!

The post Novel in a Day? A Collaborative Reading Comprehension Lesson appeared first on The Teacher Studio.

As you know, the purpose of a graphic organizer is to help students (or adults!) make sense of information and organize it into a visible, usable fashion. Sometimes using an organizer is all we need from students—a way for them to represent the information we are asking for. Sometimes, however, we want students to organize information for other reasons…like to do a piece of writing. I wanted a way for my students to be able to track their thinking about the texts they read, but also for them to be able to use those notes to complete a short piece of writing to show me their thinking and depth of understanding about a text.

All year long I share novels, picture books…students read during independent reading, book clubs–you get the drill. There is never enough time to confer with everyone and get as much information as needed to see how deeply students are thinking so, part of the time, I do rely on some written work to check for that depth of understanding.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be able to be able to quickly consider what skill or learning target I wanted to focus on, and then have a low ink (or digital) way to get students thinking—and then writing about texts. I have books and books of examples, but could I find the exact graphic organizer I was looking for?


Nope! There are countless resources out there filled with different graphic organizers–none of which were going to do what I needed them to do. I decided to create my own for a number of reasons.

Graphic Organizers That Help Teach Reading

•The organizers have teaching tips/mini lessons worked right into them! (see the image above!)
•This resource has the print AND digital versions of these organizers so you can use them either way.

•This set also has a written component so students can use the organizer to jot down their thinking. Students then can “write long’ about them to deepen their thinking and work on their writing skills in a meaningful way.

•These organizers are meant to dig deeply into rigorous standards and get students really thinking deeply about texts, not just fill in the blanks.

Assessing Student Thinking with Graphic Organizers

When I ask students to write about texts, I am looking for a few things:

•Are they able to find examples in the text?
•Can they explain clearly?
•Can they write coherently?
•What is their “depth” of understanding?
•How reflective are they as they read?
•How much scaffolding or “coaching” do they need to make sense of the text?
•Does their written work seem to match their reading level?
•What instruction needs to happen to support them as readers and writers?
•Do the texts they are reading seem to be a good fit for them?

When Do I Use Graphic Organizers?

The sky is the limit—but here are some ideas for you!

•Use these to model your own thinking about texts you share with the class…read aloud novels or picture books. Show how you track your thinking on the graphic organizer AND how you take that information and turn it into a piece of writing.

•Use this as “ready to go” work for book clubs where students can read, reflect, write, and then discuss!

•Use this as an assessment…either have students use a graphic organizer to show their thinking about a book you have shared with them or their own reading.

•Have students work in partners to get them talking about books and finding those essential ideas and text evidence.

•Work to fill out the organizer as a class (or as a part of a small group) and then have students work independently to do the reflective writing.

•Use this as a way to get more writing instruction into your day. Teach about paragraphing. Show them how to use transition words to connect ideas. Model how to write topic sentences and supporting details. Show them how to cite evidence from the text.

So if you think you might be interested in trying something like this…just click the link here to see my fiction graphic organizers or click the image below.

Want to see how I use a graphic organizer in my narrative writing unit?  Check out THIS POST.  Or, rather pin THIS post for later?

The post More Than a Graphic Organizer! Written responses to reading appeared first on The Teacher Studio.

Writing about characters as we read

One of the topics we cover throughout the year involves studying “character”.  This is a part of the Common Core and other state standards…and it’s such a great way to kick off the year because we can find SO many texts where characters are relatable.  Picture books with strong characters, amazing read alouds, book groups where books are chosen because of their strong characters…all are super easy ways to get the discussions going.

I spend a HUGE amount of time modeling my thinking about characters. This includes introducing character traits, tracing our thinking on anchor charts, and–eventually–modeling writing about characters.  I think by doing all this legwork ahead of time makes it so much easier for students to understand what “deep thinking” really looks like. It helps push them beyond those “just right” ideas.  It’s also a great way to model that “evidence from the text” that is such an important part of helping students write about characters.

In a nutshell:

• I model thinking and writing about books with picture books and read alouds.
• Students write about these shared texts as well–before they write about their own texts.
• I have students share their writing with each other and practice giving feedback.
• The “gradual release” is critical so students see what to do, how to do it, and the level of depth I expect in their reflections.
• I keep writing samples from earlier in the year for students to look back at later to check for improvement.
• We “study” samples of student writing to get better at our own.
• I collect samples as part of our assessment process.
• As the year goes on, students start to write about characters for the books they are reading in book clubs or independently.
• We look at all elements of “character”…from traits, to how they change, to their quotations, and more.
• Sometimes we write in our notebooks and sometimes on separate sheets that I can keep to use as data points.

If you are interested in seeing some of the prompts I use, just CLICK BELOW!

I use the same type of prompts as we study theme, events, and informational text as well.  Here is a link to the prompts I use to help with that!

The post Responding to Reading – Writing About Characters: Gradual Release Model appeared first on The Teacher Studio.

Getting Students Talking About Books

This is exactly what I have been going through with one of my students.  She is “at grade level” in reading as measured in a number of ways, but I’ve noticed all year that she does the absolute minimum.  Also, she doesn’t read at home despite her parents badgering her.  She loses focus at school as she reads and abandons books often. She CAN read–she just DOESN’T read.

Because I think it’s vital that we are creating readers, not just “test passers”, I am not willing to accept that she is holding her own–because she is being held back by her reading behaviors and habits.  If I want her to reach her potential, I need to step in.

Here’s what I do with reluctant, capable readers like her!

I first ask some questions…

Do you know what you like?  Do you know what you don’t?

Where do you like to read?  Where don’t you?

Which books that I have read TO you have you enjoyed?  Why?

Finding Just Right Books

And then we begin.  We move to my classroom library and we sit together.  I start pulling books off my shelf and heaping them in front of her.  Her job?  To sort them into three piles…

(Let me tell you…if you don’t have a classroom library, start.  If you don’t know your collection, start.  The success of “matching students to books” depends on it!)

Finding “Just Right” Books for Independent Reading

As she sorted, I started a list for her on the computer.  When she finished (I had given her about thirty books to preview), I asked her to take her “definitely” books and put them in the order she wanted to read them.  She did, and I handed her the first two books to keep in her desk and get started.  Within the first two days, she had read the same number of pages she had read in the previous two weeks–and was grinning ear to ear!  Was it worth the half hour of my time?  I believe so…

Setting Independent Reading Goals with Students

The post An Independent Reading Intervention: Helping Students Fall In Love With Books appeared first on The Teacher Studio.

What makes reading chapter books challenging?

I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on all the different components of reading–and all the barriers that can interfere with student success (more on THAT another day!), and today I wanted to focus on one that I think really holds back a lot of struggling readers.

It goes without saying that when students begin to become readers, we present them with texts that have only a few characters and settings and tend to have one, clear storyline.  This can be found in “readers” and even in some short chapter books.  Students can usually read these texts in one or two sittings and the story is relatively easy to follow.  I have noticed that there isn’t much of a “bridge” between this type of text and chapter books–and that many of my most struggling readers had a hard time making the jump.  I have noticed the following stumbling blocks (among many others, of course!)

• Longer sentences in different formats
• More inferential language (figures of speech, and so on)
• More dialogue where important information is conveyed
• More characters who are integral to the story
• Setting changes (both time and place)
• Often more than one storyline
• More words per page–and more embedded vocabulary that cannot be deciphered through context
• More pages which require readers to retain story information over multiple days
• More descriptive language that makes visualization important
• Failure to understand “how chapter books work”

Reading interventions for struggling readers

 As a part of this, I really wanted to stress that whole “text evidence” piece, so we kept our books handy and looked back to PROVE our ideas.

Gradual Release of Responsibility

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