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!

Not too hard, not too easy

I did a mini-lesson on just-right books today. I talked about how I thought of them while I was at the bookstore over break, and how I wondered how they would go about finding their own book. So I played the part of 1st grader, and they played the part of private eye. Their job was to watch what I was doing while I looked for a just right book, and then share that with their shoulder partner. My plan was for them to share their partners idea out to the group, and then practice at their tables with bins that I had constructed for them.

Overall, I was pleased. They really haven't been taught how to do think-pair-share together, but have done it (to varying degrees) over the course of the year. Partnering is always a gamble, which is problematic for me as I want kids to work in partnerships as often as possible. But they were able to find my key points (you: looked through the book, looked at the title to see if I might be interested, tried to read some it, tried to sound out words too, compared to things I had read before). Practicing... they were great too. Some great moments of kids saying "this is not just right for me, the words are too hard," and others saying "I have read this before, so I know it is just right."

The biggest issue I run into is the combination of pacing and re-teaching. Partnering and just right books are new for them, and most lessons have tended to be small group through anthologies... so this is all very new! Overall though, I'll take it. Score one for just right books!