Reading Trends

We are in the midst of conferences. Kids are out early, and we are there into the early evening (often). The Scholastic Book Fair is also here, which is great. Personally I don't purchase much there, if for no other reason than I prefer used books. While Book Fair gives our school a small percentage of the sales, I find that I spend more than my fair share over the course of the year. I tend to purchase books every other week or so, usually stopping by Ravenna's Third Place books to check their used selection (and taking advantage of my teacher discount).

What are kids reading? Let's find out (in light of said book fair)...

• The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan (I'm reading it too... 100 pages in, love it)
• The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan (I have 2 copies of each title in the series, all are checked out... the Lightning Thief is on my 20 Book Challenge)
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins- I have my reservations about it, and intend to read it. I worry about the lack of schema, even if you can decode it!
• Simon Bloom the Gravity Keeper by Reisman- purchased via Amazon, on my list of "need to read soon"... this is a Battle of the Books title.
• Series of Unfortunate Events- oddly enough, the Lemony Snicket books that were wildly popular in the early half of the 2000's are all over the place in our 5th grade. Weird!
• Guardians of Ga'hoole- The Guardians series took off partially because of the movie that is out (or is coming out, and I don't follow movies much). There is another series by Kathryn Lasky that I put on my Book Fair wish list, and I am excited to check those out too (The Wolves of Beyond).

It is excited to see the multitude of books being read, and the reading culture that is building in our cohort. Very very excited!

Teaching It Twice

There are positives and negatives to our fifth grade system. The most obvious negative is that I don't get to teach every subject. I love math, but it isn't my primary content area. I also don't have as much time for literacy as I'd probably like, but I've grown to enjoy using our rotation blocks as mini-lesson times. Instead of 90 minutes of reading instruction, with some writing built in, I've got 60 minutes to do a short mini-lesson and have kids practicing it. For those that have used the Units of Study materials for writing, I'm essentially doing that in reading.

Probably the best part of rotations is teaching a lesson multiple times. Lessons don't always work out. You assume that kids have some background knowledge that they don't, or you don't phrase something particularly well, or any number of other missteps occur in your teaching. Aha! You teach it again, 20 minutes later and have the opportunity to get it right.

That was the case on Tuesday. We were trying to use questions to be strategic in our reading of non-fiction (plans changed from fiction to non-fiction on Sunday night). We were then going to use those questions to help us mine information from the text, and put it into a table. I made the assumption that they had all used a table before. Yep, each row is for a cultural group and the information going across coordinates with the column up top. Wait, what?! Columns, rows, cultural groups?! I was able to make some adjustments within the lesson to make it work, and kids were successful. But the next time I taught it, I knew where the misstep had occurred, and was far more deliberate in teaching what went into each box... and how we would use the questions to guide us to that information. Ah! Re-teaching because you can, and not because you have to repair meaning for someone. So great!

Reading Challenge

This week I am going to kick off our 20 Book Challenge. I found it via the Readingzone, and couldn't help but be excited. I have some kids who are voracious readers, as well as quite a few who are more than slightly ambivalent. The 20 Book Challenge will look something like this...

By the end of the school year, you are challenged to read 20 different books. Of those 20 books, 5 books will need to come from a predetermined list (1/4 of the books). There will be a list of approximately 40 books for the kids to chose from, with the list coming from National Book Award winners, ALA Notable Books, Newberry Winners and those nominated, Sasquatch Award books, Battle of the Books, and Global Reading Challenge books. They can read other books, they need to get those cleared through me.

Why am I doing this? Kids need to develop a love of reading, and reading often isn't their first choice of spare time activities. Additionally, many of the kids I have taught in my two years struggle to find a book that they like independently. That being said, I have had tremendous success with kids once I have steered them to a book, author, or series. Beyond my work in novel study, I want kids to have read a variety of books with a myriad of characters and storylines.

The math behind this looks something like this...

• 20 books at an average of 300 pages per book= 6,000 pages
• We have 34 weeks between now and the end of the school year, including school breaks but excluding the last half week in June... 6,000/34= 176 pages per week.
• You should be reading everyday of the week, so 176/7= 25 pages per night.
• Say you take one day off, and only read 6 days of the week... 176/6= 29 pages per day.
• 2 Comprehension Projects (one by the end of January, one by end of May)- book reviews, book jacket, book talk presentation, etc.

You might ask, what happens if they don't finish? My response is: We are going to read 20 books. There isn't anything punitive. But I don't want to lower the bar at all, because lowering the bar will give all my kids an escape route to not finish.

Non-Fiction to Fiction

The first 4 weeks of our rotations have been great so far. We've practiced using different reading strategies in our non-fiction text. We've gotten an understanding of non-fiction features, main ideas (and supporting details), questioning strategies, and making inferences. It is just the start of this whole process, so we aren't looking at proficiency across the board. Our kiddos are doing great work though, and the feedback they are receiving is being used to make their work better.

The current events homework that I have for them every week is a great example of this feedback loop. I don't enter current events into our online grading system. I have a good idea of what those scores would be, but I don't score it because I don't know who is doing the homework. Is that a student's work done independently, or is it work done with a parent helping guide them along? I give them written feedback, and put it in their returned work folder. Some will inevitably make mistakes week after week, which will prompt some small group instruction. Others will read it, and use it the following week. The change from week 1 to week 2, and then into week 3 has been dramatic. Topic sentences without article titles, and only loosely hitting main ideas have become more specific. Details fit well with the topic, and use transitions effectively. Conclusions that were missing were now being employed, and were quite creative. Why was that happening?

Part of it is getting used to a new teacher (last year to now having me). I also think it connected with some in-class work, and intentional instruction around putting main ideas and supporting details into an effective summary.

Looking ahead, we are going to kick it into gear with some fiction this week. We'll use our basal reader to get us started, as well as kicking off the 30 Week Challenge (30 books in 30 weeks, some choice, more directed). I'll post more about the 30 week challenge tomorrow. I'm excited about the transition. Here we go!

All Weeks Aren't Equal

Of all of the weeks that we've had this year, this one seemed to be the longest. I know, how can that be? Each one is 5 days, and has the same amount of instructional time, so what gives? I seemed to have an abundance of things on my plate this week.

We kicked it off with our grading system going live to parents on Monday. Our district is using a system where you enter events (i.e. Chp 1 Main Idea Assessment; Current Events #1) under particular academic areas so that parents can progress monitor along with you. In the end, this makes report cards easier because the information that you kept in Excel (at least that is/was me) goes directly into the grading sheet. I like it, for the most part. The downside is when a parent who is accustomed to seeing a 3 (at standard) or 4 (exceeding standard), seeing a variance in the scoring. The information going to parents at conferences, and other times, is that getting a 2, 3, or 4, doesn't necessarily equate to their grade for the semester. It is one instance, a snapshot if you will.

Beyond that, I had two observations this week. I hosted some administrators from the district on a learning walk on Tuesday, and then had my formal observation later in the week. In each instance I felt pretty good, but had a little case of nerves. Kids are one thing, adults who are evaluating your teaching (even though Tuesday wasn't truly an eval, it still felt like it) is another. So there was that!

Lastly, kids know what is happening when principals and other adults are in the room. Often there is a tendency to try to be perfect, or something like it. The focus required in those cases can be difficult to maintain, and it felt a little like they exhaled soon thereafter... and got a little wiggly. Alas, today's reading check-in assessment (main ideas, supporting details, summary) worked out well and it appears (from a casual glance) that we're turning the corner.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

I have not been nearly as prolific in my reading since school started. Getting through kids books is going to be more difficult, if for no other reason than the amount of time that needs to be invested (intermediate chapter books compared to primary are two different stories). But this morning I happened to finish Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains.

Chains was a book of historical fiction about a slave seeking her freedom. It is set in New England, beginning with a scene where the main character Isabel finds out that her previous owner did not complete the documents to set her (and her sister) free. What makes this story more dynamic is that it is set at the start of the American Revolution. Being sold to a loyalist family sets the tone for what is to come.

This book weaves through the time period, keeping one eye on the greater story and another on the interpersonal relationships of Isabel and her owners (the Locktons). Anderson's ability to weave in the stories of patriots and loyalists was wonderful, creating a feeling of being in New York as the war was raging. I certainly enjoyed it, and am excited to read the second book "Forge." I'm considering reading it as a read aloud to each of my rotations when we move into the American Revolution, but I am also considering Fever 1793 (also by Anderson). We'll see. While I enjoyed it, the 300 page story might be difficult to get through with my groups (length has to be a consideration!). Again, we'll see.