A Sneak-Peak Into Next Year's Classroom: Best Practices in Reading

After reading the chapter “Best Practice in Reading” from Zemelman and Hyde’s Best Practice for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools there are many practices I can’t wait to implement next year in 3^rd grade.

·         Researchers have compiled a list of skills that all readers should be aware of and know how to use when reading: Visualize, connect, question, infer, evaluate, analyze, recall and monitor

o   I think it’s critical that students know these terms and understand exactly what they look like in reading. My thought is to use the first 8 weeks to explicitly teach and model what each of these skills look like. As I teach each one I’d like to create a visual that the students come up with to help them remember what each means. These words and visuals will become part of a bulletin board that we can then refer back to all year long.

·         Hearing books read aloud is a key to learning to read-students need to hear and see a fluent, enthusiastic reader using “think-aloud” strategies on a daily basis.

o   Although I try and read aloud to my students on a daily basis, I want to become very intentional about this next year. I chose the end of this year to read aloud the chapter book Charlotte’s Web. Our library had multiple copies so my students were able to follow along with a partner as I read.

o   While reading I would frequently stop and “think-aloud” various things:

§  why I changed my voice when I did

§  what I could do if I didn’t know a certain word

§  how our character what probably feeling in that moment

§  connections I had to the characters in different situations

o   I’d really like to make it a point to read-aloud more chapter books with my students next year as it exposes them to higher-level text, thinking and vocabulary. It also teaches my students the importance of sticking with a book, which many have a hard time doing!

·         Reading is the best practice for learning to read-in order for students to become better readers, they need time to practice the skill of reading. This can happen at home, in a guided setting and during uninterrupted independent reading.

o   While I do this on a daily basis, I don’t feel that they get ENOUGH time to “just-read.”

o   I want to be sure to find a good balance of reading for a purpose (to complete a task that connects to our lesson, etc.) and reading for pure enjoyment. I’ve always worried that I wouldn’t be able to hold my students accountable if they didn’t turn something in to “prove” they were reading. However, as adults we don’t always enjoy reading something if we know we have an assignment. Often, our more enjoyable reading occurs when we chose the book and we can read for our own purpose. After modeling this idea (as it may be foreign to some) I want to be sure to give my students a chance to cozy up and just read for FUN!

·         Choice is an integral part of literate behavior-students should be encouraged to choose texts and ways in which they demonstrate what they know about that text.

o   While this ties into the above practice, I want to include more choice in our guided reading groups as well.

o   I could see easily doing this by selecting 2-3 books within that group’s level and then allowing the students to choose which one they’d like to practice a certain skill with.

o   Instead of forming book groups based on like abilities, I could form groups based on areas of need. They could then use their own choice book and I could instead teach a strategy to apply to their book.

·         Kids need easy books-studies show “young readers need much more of what adult readers sometimes call ‘beach books’-easy, predictable, enjoyable, quick reads.”

o   Typically I group my students based on their level of reading and often provide that group with texts that are at, or slightly above, their reading level. I thought this was appropriate as it exposed them to higher-level vocabulary and I was there to help when needed.

o   Next year I would like to provide them with more “beach books” to ensure that the reading is successful and fun, versus something they come to look upon as difficult and purely instructional.

·         Kids should have daily opportunities to talk about their reading-kids needs the opportunity to share about their reading via sharing time, book clubs, writing, dialogue journal partners, etc.

o   Next year I’d like to be more intentional about building in a dialogue time to share about their reading.

o   I’d like to have a variety of ways for students to do this as some need to talk about their reading, while others would flourish through written dialogue.

§  I’m thinking about starting book review journals where students converse with each other about different topics within the journal. I’d organize this journal into different sections so as to easily find and respond to discussions.

§  I’d also like to set up a 5 minute discussion time after each independent reading session. I’d like to keep this time open to any topic of book discussion so as not to control the dialogue. This, of course, would take some initial modeling and role-playing but could be very beneficial.