Reading Update

This week, we began readers’ workshop. This is such a wonderful time in our classroom. We have enjoyed reading some great stories together and we have started building the foundation of our independent reading time. Readers get better at reading by practicing, so we focused this week on building their independence for reading by themselves (read to self time). We are working together to figure out the best routines that will help us be successful during this time. So far we have the following:

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The kids have learned how to pick books that interest them and are  “Just Right” for them. We use the five finger approach. The students pick a book and then open to any page. They read one page and every time they come to a word they don’t know, they would put one of their five fingers up. If they were left with 4 or 5 fingers up at the end of that one page, then the book is too tricky.  If they have 3 or less fingers up, then the book is “Just Right”! It has been fun to see their confidence and enthusiasm build with their independent reading time as we practice picking out and reading books each day.

As we added more ‘just right’ books to our book boxes each day, we also worked on picking a good spot in the room to read that wasn’t going to be too distracting. The kids have been working hard to find spots that aren’t too close to other first graders where they can get right to work.

We want to help them read the whole time, so we will give them a sticker for the side of their book box to be their reminder. The sticker tells them that they should: FIRST, empty out their book box. SECOND, warm up to read a book. THIRD, read the words of that book.  Once they finish a book, they put the book back into their book box, so that they could keep track of which books they had read.