Choice #2: Choice in What You Read

This week we are continuing to practice our Read to Self Choice, and making great strides! My hope is for students to have comfortably mastered this choice before I introduce the next choice, Read to Someone. While students have mastered many of the I-Chart expectations of Read to Self one of my additional concerns has been what they are choosing to read.  I truly believe that it is important to give students choice in what they read, while also making sure that what they are reading is appropriate for their age and reading level. In our classroom we still use our basal textbook, focusing on a different story each week, and while this story is deemed “at their level” it doesn’t fit all the levels of readers in my classroom, and it definitely does not always spark their interest. However, the basal is not something that I can give up, it is something that I am expected to use in my classroom, and therefore I am placing great focus on the choices students do have in what they read, trying to enable to choose good independent reading book that truly fit them.

I have worked to help students make good choices in what they read through two different focus lessons, both of which compare choosing a book to shopping of some sort! One lesson focused on finding a “just right” book versus one that is “easy” or “challenging”. I first read a picture book entitled Goldilocks and the Three Hares and then used that to compare books that are too easy, too challenging, or just right. We continued by making a chart that listed different qualities of each of these types of books, and ended with a shopping comparison. Using Wild hockey jerseys I had one that was too small (a Build-A-Bear shirt), one that was too big (an adult jersey), and one that was just right (a youth jersey). I had students try on these jerseys and as they modeled we compared the fit of these different size jerseys to the fit of a good “just right” book.

Shopping for "Just Right" Books

 Easy - Challenging - Just Right

A few days later I expanded on the idea of choosing a “just right” book to picking  the right “just right” book to fit all your needs. For this lesson I used the I PICK strategy, as introduced by “the sisters” in the Daily 5. In the strategy the acronym stands for I= I chose a book P= Purpose, what is my purpose in reading this book? I = Interest – Why am I interested in this book? C= Comprehend – Do I understand what I am reading? And K= Know – do I know most of the words I am reading. As an introduction to this strategy I used a comparison of shoes. I started by reading a picture book called Shoe-La-La and the brought a bag of shoes I had collected from around my house. We first looked at the purpose of each shoe and what interests it did and did not express about me. We then compared this to books, I would not wear my sandals when I play kickball just like how I would not read a comic book if my purpose was to research for a paper. We noted that I did not have any golf shoes in my bag, but I did have soccer cleats, that showed my interest. This is similar to choosing a book that interests you, you don’t want to read something that is not interesting to just like you would not own golf shoes if golf was not interesting you.

We continued the conversation to Comprehend and Know by looking at one of my husband’s shoes that was in the bag. When I put it on and tired to walk around in it I had difficulty walking, similar to a book I don’t understand or can not read most of the words in. We continued to make connections to shoes as we talked about how picking the best “just right” book was going to be different for everyone. I then had two students with very different size tennis shoes on attempt to switch shoes, the shoes showed similar purpose and interest, but clearly would affect the students ability to perform, similar to how choose a book that you do not understnad or know most of the words in can affect your reading.The following day students were given a copy of the I PICK strategy along with an assignment that required them to go through all four steps of the I PICK strategy in picking out a book within the next week. I am eager to read their responses and see what “just right” books they have chosen to read.

Teaching the I PICK Lesson

Today in class we began to discuss the next Reading Workshop Choice: Read to Someone. This is the one that I am most nervous about because it requires students to work well with one another and stay focused on their reading. This is one that we will practice a lot! The students lit up with excitement at the mention of being able to choose to read to someone else during reading time! We first talked about and modeled how to sit EEKK (elbow, elbow, knee, knee) with the person you are reading with and then brainstormed our ideas for the I-Chart, and they seemed to get it. There ideas for the chart showed me that they realized this is not about hanging out with a friend, this is about reading!  Their ideas led right to the conclusion I was hoping for, that reading to someone will help us get better at reading out loud and make us better readers! I am looking forward to seeing how the introduction of this newest choice goes and hoping they continue to use the power of choice to choose good “just right” books!