Too easy....Too Hard......Just Right

Happy Sunday everybody! I hope that my East Coast buddies are staying safe with Sandy looming. Thinking of you all! We are enjoying a lazy fall morning out here in California. I wanted to take a minute to share what's been going on during reading time in 5th grade.

So it's no secret that my kiddos were having some issues during read to self. We were not exactly reading during our school wide reading time...even though we all had our books out. A lot of my kids were just hanging out with an open book...not so productive. It was seriously driving me CRAZY!

 I felt like I was loosing precious minutes of instructional time while my kids did their best to fake read. It was turning into a huge problem for me and it turned out to have a two part solution.

First,  I taught my kiddos the difference between fake readers and real readers. I blogged about that part of the solution HERE.

The other part of the solution was reteaching picking the right book. I had gone over the idea at the beginning of the year but had never really taught a lesson on the whole concept so I decided to start from scratch.

I scoured blogland and pintrest...my usual first line of defense...and came up with this lesson:

I started by telling them I picked out a brand new book for read aloud and that I was really excited about it. I pulled out The Life of Benjamin Banneker  from my bag and started reading aloud with my usual enthusiasm  Then I said, "Turn to your neighbor and predict what will happen next". *Crickets* A couple of kids tried to come up with something but most just looked at me like I was crazy. Which was exactly what I wanted!

I said, "You all are supposed to be making predictions. What seems  to be the problem?" One of my superstars replied, "Well I really tried to listen but some of the words were really hard and I really couldn't understand the plot. I think that's a high school book or something."

Too which I quickly replied, "Okay, so your telling me this book is too difficult because the words are too hard and you didn't quite understand what was going on. That's okay because I picked up a couple of other books while I was at the bookstore."

Then I pulled out Don't, Danny, Don't! I read three pages and then asked them to predict. They laughed and said "Of course we know what is going to happen. That's a baby book!"

Just before I pulled out the final book I heard one of my students tell her neighbor, "This is just like Goldie Locks and the Three Bears. We Can't find the right book." That's when I knew the lesson was going in the right direction. :)

Finally a pulled out James and the Giant Peach. I read 3 pages in my best read aloud voice. My kiddos were hooked! I asked them to predict with their neighbor. There were insightful murmurs all over the room.

I was smiling. My kids were smiling. All was right in the world.

Then we had a quick discussion on why James and the Giant Peach was an appropriate book and why the others were too easy or too difficult for us.

We used that info and created this anchor chart:

(Sorry it's so out of focus!) 

I was so happy that they were able to help me fill out the chart...we even ran out of room on the chart because they had SO many ideas.

At the end of the period, the kids took turns book shopping in the classroom library. We placed the anchor chart in the library so that they were able to refer to it as they shopped. Overall, I feel like the lesson went very well and they really understood and applied the information. I just love when that happens! :)

What lessons went well for you this week? I'd love to hear about them! Leave me a comment below. :)

Real Readers

Our entire school begins the day with read to self. It can be powerful to have the whole school reading...it can also be a huge waste of time if the kiddos aren't really reading. My students started off the year doing a great job with read to self but slowly their attention started to drift. My classroom looked like it was full of readers but if you looked closely with teacher eyes, you could see a whole lotta fakers, too!

I was trying to figure out what to do to combat this when I came across these amazing pins....

<Click on the images to go to the original site> 

Love this chart from Ginger over at Ginger Snaps. 

I taught a quick lesson on the difference between real readers and fake readers. Then we barinstormed as a class and came up with a chart (Opps! I forgot to take a picture of the chart that we came up with)

Next, I printed out some Real Reader tickets. Of course I forgot to take pictures of those and the the doc is on my computer at school but they weren't anything fancy. I did fancy them up a bit by printing the Real Reader tickets on my favorite astrobrights paper.
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When I saw my kiddos practicing the traits of Real Readers, I rewarded them with a little ticket. We put the tickets in a basket and did a drawing at the end of the week. I picked 5 tickets and the winners were able to choose a brand new book.

Since we all want to walk away with a little somethin' somethin', I also created these cute little bookmarks as door prizes for ALL of the students who had earned a Real Reader ticket during the week. Hopefully these little bookmarks will also serve as a little reminder to the kiddos, too!    
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We used this system for two weeks. This is our first week without using the tickets and I still see improved reading habits! Here's to hoping these real readers are here to stay!

What do you do to teach/improve reading habits?