An Apple For The Teacher: reading mini lessons

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Get Kids Hooked on Books With a Book Pass

Many of my students were "book shopping" more often than they needed to be during Reader's Workshop.

I had tried all of the traditional methods suggested such as setting up specific days for book shopping, mini-lessons on picking good-fit books, etc., but nothing was working!

Every time I looked up, the same few students were in the library instead of reading their books!

I happened to stumble across this post from Teaching ELA with Joy. It was all about having a successful Book Pass in your classroom.

I decided to try it out. The idea of a Book Pass is for the teacher to provide students with a variety of compelling books. The students read each book's blurb and the first few pages, then rate the book according to their interest.

I made a few changes to the Book Pass described in Joy's post because I have a diverse level of readers in my classroom (from a level 12 DRA to a level 60 DRA).

Instead of doing the activity whole class, I placed my students in table groups according to their book level. I placed good fit books at each table so that no one would be frustrated by reading a book that was too difficult for them.

Here's the process of the Book Pass:

Student chooses one of the books in the pile on their table.

Student records the title and author of the book on their Book Pass Sheet.

Student silently reads the "blurb" on the back of the book.

Student opens the book to the first page and begins reading silently for 2 minutes.

Teacher calls time at the end of the 2 minutes. Student records interest level, then passes the book to the next person at the table.

Student receives the next book and the process is repeated until all students have finished previewing each book at their table.

I had my students put their completed Book Pass Sheets in their binders so that they will have a list of books to read next. This has saved so much time with the book shopping process! Students are able to grab the next book they need.

To grab complete instructions and the Book Pass Sheet, grab the freebie here at my Teachers pay Teachers store.

And... don't forget to check out our giveaway page to enter our current giveaway!

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The Reading Strategies Book Study - Goal 6 - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction Thinking About Characters

Welcome to my hosted chapter of the Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo. Before I jump into my post about this chapter, let me just say that I love everything written by Jennifer Serravallo, and own EVERY book she has ever written. So, it goes without saying that as soon as I heard about this book, it went on my wish list to buy as soon as it was published! Let me tell you, that this book does NOT disappoint! It is AMAZING!

I was not the only one to fall in love with this book, so I joined together with fellow fans as part of what we call #TheReadingStragegiesCrew (because everyone needs a fabulous hash tag, right?). We have each chosen a section to write about, and my section is goal 6.

This book is essentially made up of many, many strategies, so we have decided to choose 2 or 3 strategies to highlight in our posts. Let me say, that there are many, many more strategies in each section, and they cover pre-emergent readers until the end of 8th grade levels. I find this so helpful, because my class is never composed of 100% of students reading at grade level. Instead, I have a mix of below level, at level, and above level readers. These strategies allow me to differentiate for my learners to meet them where they are.

If you struggle with ideas for reading mini-lessons, this is the book for you!

Below is a list of all the strategies included in this section alone!

For each strategy, Jennifer includes an explanation, lesson language, prompts, as well as anchor charts or other teaching tips to help you implement each one. In my post I will be focusing on strategies 6.2 What's in the Bubble?, 6.11 Character Comparisons, and 6.16 The Influences on Character.

What's in the Bubble?

According to the book, this strategy is suitable for levels C-M. In this strategy, we are teachings readers to pause and think, "What's my character thinking here?" or "What might my character be saying here?"

In the book, there is a picture of these think and dialogue bubbles. I think they would be the perfect hands on item to have a student use to remind them of this strategy!

A few prompts from the book include:

"What just happened? So, what might your character be thinking?"
"What words is your character saying in his or her head?"
"Before you turn the page, pause and think about what he or she would be thinking."

Character Comparisons

This strategy is best used with levels J and above. This strategy involves a student thinking about two characters, and then comparing them using ideas such as traits, how they handle challenges, likes and dislikes, interests, change, an lessons learned.

When I conference with students, I like to have items to bring with me to demonstrate what I am looking for or as a teaching reference. One way to make this toolkit easy to carry around is by using index cards on a ring. The example picture below uses sentence stems for non-fiction comparisons, but they could easily be used for this strategy as well.

The Influences On Character

This third strategy is for your readers at level N and above. In this strategy, readers consider all the influences on the character - the problem(s) the character is facing, the other characters with whom he or she comes in contact and the setting of the story. The reader is asked to think about what effects these influences have on the character and how they act in the story.

Another tool kit that you might want to carry is mini-anchor charts on an artist sketch pad.