Chapter+3


 * Chapter 3**

**#1** **Read Aloud Priorities** //So we know the importance of reading aloud to all age students, for multiple purposes throughout the day. We also are learning how essential it is to, at least 3 times a week, have a time when we “real aloud to help children talk and think about texts” (also called interactive read aloud). If we understand the importance of reading aloud, then our schedules and planning probably reflect such understanding. How does your daily schedule illustrate the value you put on reading aloud? How carefully do you plan (or **will** you plan if it is new to you this year) the instruction around your interactive read alouds? Is this something you’ve already started to think about for the fall? If so, what are you beginning to plan?// Respond:

We read aloud during journal writing with the students' permission of course. During our morning meeting, we read anouncements, schedules changes, and read the minutes from each meeting before we end our session. Our reading a-loud consists of 4-5 times per week using the Unique Curriculum during social skills, News-2-you, time matters, 3-way planning, recipe cards for cooking, etc... We have always had a 1/2 hour of SSR during leisure time. **"Children need at least 30 minutes a day to read books they can read, preferrably of their own choosing" (pg. 43 )** Finally, I will definitely make a concerted effort this school year to have more shared reading of poems, novels, and favorite books. M.J.

When my children arrive they are treated to something I found interesting that fit something we did the day before. I may be writing of a child, a news article, a book, etc. I found this to be a great management activity. It set the tone for what would happen for the day. My planning for this year will be to develop reading aloud and interactive read alouds will be built across the curriculum. My schedule looks much like the on pg. 47. My planning will be more deliberate. As I plan the first unit of my Reading Workshop, I will be making read aloud a priority. Margaret Fox

I am thinking of picking a book for each of my classes and reading 5-10 minutes a day out of it to start off every class. Everyone likes to be read to, regardless of age. I am also going to have my students go through newspapers or junk mail or anything else they may have laying around which they find intersting and bring it to class maybe on Fridays and share it with us. This way they can read to us and start a discussion as well. I am open to anything else as well. Tracy

I am going to attempt to schedule a read aloud for each transition during the day. **__pgs 50-51__** tell how important read alouds are to our students, so I will attempt to find text that are cross-curricular and lead into my lessons for the day. I see my largest challenge being text to relate to Math. When possible I plan to use my document camera so that my students can follow along wiht my reading. I find that by doing this my students stay focused on my reading, and I am better able to model those reading skills that I want to highlight. Additionally, while my students are focused on the read aloud I have less classroom management problems. BONUS! If any of you know of some Math friendly texts, or know of a good resource for them, please let me know. MG

I read aloud to my students everyday, often several times each day. However, I usually pick a fiction picturebook. If we are doing a social studies, math, or science unit at the time, I will read a non-fiction book, too. I was surprised to read that like MJ said (and quoted from p. 43) that students need 30 minutes a day to read books that they choose themselves. At the Kindergarten level, that seems a little tough! However, I do let them pick books to read during quiet time, which is 20 minutes each day. I also will have the students bring in their own favorite books from home so that I can take time and read aloud those books to the class, too. This will make our read aloud times even more fun. Kari

Currently, I have time built into my schedule for read aloud during our group time in the morning. This serves as source for our reading and or writing workshop later. Also, I read a chapter or two from the Magic Tree House series (or other chapter books) while the children are eating snack and sometimes at the end of the day. In the afternoon, I often read a book related to our math, science, or social studies lesson as well. There is a pocket chart that I have lyrics or verses to songs and poems on sentence strips. These songs and poems are then typed and given to students at the end of the week to put in their poetry / song binder. We add to it all year and it’s a favorite of theirs to take home in June. I often use song and poetry books to read aloud during transitions, too. I like to keep a basket by the door so as we are lining up I can read a riddle, joke, or poem. Having taken the Balanced Literacy courses at the ISD this school year, I learned to become more purposeful in planning my interactive read-alouds. I now have many books marked up with sticky notes (or plastic tabs as I learned at the Home Grown Institute) of what I want to discuss. My goal is to continue to become more prepared and thoughtful about this. I appreciate Calkins quote that “it is also necessary to have a ritual that starts the day.” (Pg 52). I want read-alouds to be the first thing of our day, the ritual that bonds us together as a community that loves literacy! Also, I’d love to wrap up our day regularly with a read-aloud. My other goal is to become better at facilitating the “accountable talk” after a read-aloud.

Tracy, I like your idea of having students share some form of print that is interesting to them. I’m really tired of “show-and-tell” or as I’ve heard - and will also say - “bring-and-brag” when kids just bring in toys to talk about. I know kids want to share things that are important but I’d like to focus on something that relates to our themes, reading work, or other curricular units. So, now I’m thinking of setting aside a time to do that. Maybe I’ll have a sharing time at the end of each day. A few students each day will have something or pick something from the classroom to share. Sara Sabourin

I have our read aloud times throughout the day. We read a book earlier in the morning and return to it to "talk about what a author had done and what effect the author was hoping to create." We refer to this book as I teach the writing mini lessons. We also read aloud right after lunch and this is when we pause at "talk-worthy" spots. At the end of the day is when we read most of our nonfiction books that support our science or social science. We use the books to "support our curriculum, introduce the subject, give them some information to learn more (maybe before a field trip), or just acitvate our students minds." Ronda Chapter 3 from Bobbi Friend #1 Reading aloud to my students has always been a priority for me. I love to read to students and help them see and hear characters come to life as I bring them into the classroom. My favorite books are the Little House on the Prairie series because we can make so many connections to the curriculum as we read. In third grade, students learn about how Michigan was settled, and we compare Laura Ingalls to pioneers in Michigan. The connections are vast and the characters in the books are rich and interesting. We often will discuss what is happening in the book prior to the read-aloud session, and I will stop to “think aloud” about the thoughts and actions of the characters to model to my students how I want them to think as they read. I will continue to us reading aloud in my sixth grade classroom as well.

Ch 3

Our basal series provides connected poems to the story we care working on—that is helpful in reading short things aloud. I am always reading a chapter book—I probably should have adjusted and read a shorter piece or pieces daily—I am not sure that the connection to the book lasted thru the whole book. KDN

I did a version of interactive read aloud (what I knew at the time) every morning after our morning work was completed and corrected. I feel that this worked well and was a great way to start our day. I am going to focus on reading more nonfiction, including articles from newspapers and magazines, and poetry. I need to realize I don’t have to read an entire picture book or a couple of chapters from a chapter book all of the time. Like Mike, I did use the document camera during my read alouds so all students could follow along with the text. This helped the students stay far more engaged while I read. While I did read aloud during many science lessons and a few math lessons, I know I need to read aloud more during the day. My goal to start the year will be to read aloud at least twice daily. I will continue to move this goal forward as a get settled into the routine teaching of a split classroom. Stephanie Cooper Reading Aloud and Interactive Read Alouds were a huge focus for me this past year. Even though I made it a focus, there were times when it broke down and therefore, I need to make it even better this year. I used the manual, "Interactive Read-Alouds" by Linda Hoyt as a guide to get me started. There are stories and lesson plans and it was a great reference for me. Along with that and my Reading Workshop Seminars I felt I had a good handle on it. This year I'd like to even hone my Read Alouds even more by referring to Chapter 12 in //The Art of Teaching Reading// earlier in the year. It is a very "meaty" chapter and it will help me prepare and focus my Read Alouds to better aide my students later in the year. Right now, I read from a chapter book daily, read smaller books for reading and writing, and try to pull in more good reads for science and social studies. Another area that I fell weak in this past year is having books travel from school to home and back again. This will be another area where I will be better at this year. I always read aloud near the end of the day. It was right after that last recess when I needed to get my kiddos settled back down so we could do math. However, after reading some of the other comments on this topic, I'm thinking of switching my read aloud to first thing in the morning, so I can refer to it during reading and writing that day and get it back out if I need to. Making this switch would also challenge me to find more math related texts to read aloud after that last recess, which would be a better transition into our math time. The final challenge for myself this year will be to incorporate more poetry and songs for the students as a shared/choral reading time. It would be so easy for me to include these in my Morning Meetings. Keri Cooper

I have read through this chapter a couple of times and each time I highlight the sentence on page 51 that says, "The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children." It is followed later in the paragraph with "...throughout all the grades." I would love to hear if middle school and high school teachers read aloud to their classes. I know time is precious and they have so much material to cover but I think it would be great modeling and I think that the teachers would be a wonderful influence to the students as readers! I love to read aloud and have at least one scheduled time within the day. Whenever we are in transition I try to read aloud also, an added bonus is that the kids try to hurry so that they don't miss anything and they are quiet because even if they are finishing doning something I've asked them to do if they are quiet they can still hear the story. Many of my read alouds help to cover sciance and social studies topics but many are purely for entertainment. -- Jodee Tuttle

**#2** **Nonfiction** //Nell Duke’s research reveals that the average adult reads upward of 90% non-fiction on a daily basis. She proposes that we have equal quantities of fiction and informational texts in schools. Also, consider the types of reading and thinking our graduates will be required to do on a daily basis to compete in this new global marketplace. With the new Common Core State Standards, we will all be working toward a better balance between "literature" (fiction) and "informational" texts and instruction, as named in CCSS vocabulary.//

//So there are many things we could discuss about this important topic. Here are a few offerings for you to choose from as you read this section and think about nonfiction reading instruction:// Response:
 * //How is your classroom library balanced between fiction and informational texts?//
 * //If there isn't a balance for you yet, you aren't alone - most classrooms aren't balanced yet. If that is your case, what might you be able to do to address this in your own practice, either with the balance of resources you utilize or the balance of instruction?//
 * //How often to you utilize informational texts for read alouds? Where might you be able to insert more info. texts, if needed?//
 * //Which of the bullets on pages 55 and 56 are examples of things you already do and what do you think you’ll do more of this year?//

I have fiction and informational texts. What I will be doing is organizing the material. This will help me to choose the material I need for minilessons and also give the children focus. Informational texts as a read aloud are used daily, but I need to use more than just the text book. By organizing what I have I can cross reference the other material when instructing. I use read aloud nonfiction that support our student's and hobbies as well as our curriculum. I do introduce a subject with simple, accessible read alouds. I'm famous for "previews". Children need to have a "peek" at what is coming up. I want to get them excited. I compare it to a movie that is coming soon. I model our learning process. I need to give them the opportunity to talk to partners. I really enjoy reading headlines from newspapers and magazines or a paragragh from an article to engage the students into conversation. Margaret Fox

I would say I mostly have fiction text with a few non-fiction sprinkled in. I am going to start searching for some relevant non-fiction for my students which I can incorportate into my classroom library. I think my students would be interested in parenting, finanical, career type books. These are issues which would relate to them the most. I think I would start out with those and then try to add other areas of non-fiction later. This one will be more hard for me to pay attention to, because I mostly read fiction so that is what I tend to look for. I have to remember to take myself out of the picture as the reader and find things which will be of interest to others. Tracy

I probably have more non-fiction than fiction. My readers are pretty low, so to support their reading we use software that allows them to highlight an article about the weather, favorite artist, movie, author etc...and then the program (Premier Accessability software) reads the highlighted words slow enough for the students to also read aloud. I take advantage of a read-aloud when a particular social skills lesson needs to be addressed. I might say, (reading the MAT's bus schedule and filling out the bus form individually or as a whole group) I'm thinking, that I am always trying to find ways to incorporporate reading into our daily lives and I love reminding our students just how important reading is in their daily routines. M.J.
 * We (staff) are going to do a roll-play this morning. We haven't memorized all of the words so we will read some of it from our papers. (Our Unique Curriculum also has some good social lessons)
 * I observed something this week and while we are roll-playing, I would like to see if you can recognize what that might be?
 * Things to watch for might be our body language, the words we use, and the tone of our voice.
 * Sometimes I include students in these roll-plays.
 * The best part is the lively discussion (s) we have afterwards
 * What would you do differently?
 * Why?

The majority of my classroom library is fiction. Since I am moving up to 5th grade from 3rd I may have more non-fiction books that I can utilize. My main concern is finding books that are of high interest and follow our State guidelines. I am thinking of dividing up my library into 2 sections so I can better inventory the fiction vs non-fiction sections and use that inventory to work towards acheiving a closer balance. Since research shows that often "our lower readers have less opportunity for extended reading"**__p.35__**, I am going to try to make as many "levels" of non-fiction available for my lower readers also. I would think that lower opportunity probably equates even more to lower non-fiction opportunities at their levels. MG

My classroom library is mostly fiction, as well. I will have to keep working on building up the non-fiction section. I know that kids always gravitate towards the new books, too, so when I do get "bonus points" to spend from Scholastic, I try to spend them on non-fiction books. I also make a big deal of all the new books we get. I hold them up, talk a little bit about them, and then line them up on the white board tray, so that the kids can see them easily. This year I am going to ask the kids what they want to hear books about (or read themselves, if they are beginning readers). I will use their ideas to hopefully add to our classroom library. Kari

I have a good mix of both fiction and non-fiction in my classroom. I often will use a Scholastic News magazine (the big teacher copy) for our shared reading. I like to laminate them and use them year after year, especially when funding is low and I can’t afford to order a class set for the year. I also read non-fiction related to our science, social studies, and math in the afternoon. During snack and our interactive read-aloud times, I read fiction. As for the bulleted items on pages 55-56, I want to better interject snippets of non-fiction during transitions, like lining up. I already read jokes and riddles during those times. I’m thinking of have a Q & A book that offers short, informative texts I can read quickly. Margaret, I like your idea of introducing some texts to give students a preview of what’s to come - like a movie J. What a great way to better introduce a topic of study. Like Kari, I want to ask kids what they want to learn more about and then find books to support their interests. Sara Sabourin

When I taught second grade we were very heavy nonfiction. We had to make an effort to build up our fiction. Most of the nonfiction was at a higher level so we didn't always read the entire text and displayed the books after reading them aloud to the class on a table for the students to read, refer to and look at when they had time. Now that I am teaching first grade it is a little stronger on the fiction side. We are busy trying to find nonfiction books that support our curriculum. I agree that "working together around the whole-class read-aloud text is a much better way to achieve goals." p. 57 First graders come at so many different reading levels that it would not be fair to ask a stuggling reader to try to get through a book that wasn't at their level and to have them understand it. Ronda Chapter 3 from Bobbi Friend #2 My classroom library is not balanced at this time. I have very little non-fiction and a great deal of fiction. I have, however, been working on the balance between the two. My read alouds have often included books such as the Magic Tree House series and Magic School Bus. These are not non-fiction, but have strong aspects of non-fiction. When children enjoy reading, and can learn information from the books, it gives them a hook. We read several books by Gail Gibbons in my classroom, and her books are non-fiction. Students need to love non-fiction so they do not see it as simply “textbook” reading. I am hoping that students that I taught in third grade who will be in my sixth grade class this year will be interested in non-fiction. Lucy says on page 35 that, “Giving children more information early on so they are in a better position to learn more: it helps to watch the movie or make the field trip or hear the overview of a subject before reading a non-fiction text on that topic.” I think that is so true. I teach about Native Americans in social studies, and towards the end of the unit we have a non-fiction reading study on the Native Americans in Michigan. They are able to use their prior knowledge to make connections as they read.

I am luck to have a lot of info reads related to science and some to social studies. On my wish list is children’s magazines and cookbooks and how to books—increasing my minilessons here so comprehension, vocabulary and higher level thinking skills could be elaborated. KDN

While I know I have more fiction books in my classroom, I am closing that gap. I began working hard last year to secure nonfiction reading materials for my low level readers. I have two suggestions for anyone trying to do the same. The Capstone Press Pebble Plus books found in the Scholastic book orders are great nonfiction texts. They have a few lines of large print on a page and rich illustrations and diagrams. I also have access to readingatoz.com and print many of their nonfiction books at the A through G levels. I try to print the color covers for these and bind them neatly to get students to pick them up, since they are a homemade type book. I chose nonfiction texts often for science (I team taught so I didn’t teach social studies.), occasionally for math read alouds. I also concentrated on this genre leading up to and during our nonfiction focus in readers workshop. I am going to work hard to do more nonfiction reading during regular read aloud and interactive read aloud. I’m thinking I will alternate between fiction and nonfiction for these. This will be especially easy for Magic Tree House as I can read the companion text. I like the idea several people have mentioned of reading a newspaper or magazine article for a read aloud. This is an area where I have not given enough focus and will work on this year. Even first grade students can gain information from these nonfiction sources. My nonfiction read alouds do a nice job of supporting my science curriculum, but I rarely take into account students’ interests. I want to do a better job of that this year. The impact on partner conversations would be great if I were reading material that speaks to my students. I also work hard to introduce new subjects with simple texts before moving on to more challenging ones. I will often read a simple book on plants, or whatever our unit of science study, and display other plant texts on the whiteboard ledge to peak students interest. My other goal from pages 55-56 will be to show the unitedstreaming movie before reading the book. I did this a few times last year, but will be more conscience of doing so this year. Stephanie Cooper My fiction titles definitley out-weigh the non-fiction titles in my classroom library, but not to a huge extreme! I feel lucky to have an array of informational pieces in my classroom for my students to read. However, most of them are about animals. So, the variety of informational texts is definitely lacking! My goal in the area of Informational Reading is to do more modeling of it, and to do more of the "talk to your partner about what you just learned" more often. There were some great examples given at the first and second bullets on page 56. I highlighted them so I would remember to make that a focus this year! Keri Cooper

**#3** **Touchtone Conversations** //Page 59 put a name to those conversations that happen in a learning community that are really significant. ”Touchstone Conversations” are the types of discussions that are remembered often over the course of a year and referenced repeatedly to add new layers of thought onto common understandings. Share an example of a “Touchstone Conversation” that once took up residence in your classroom community.//

"Touchtone Conversations", this was new to me. I know I have referenced repeatedly throughout the year to add layers of thought onto common understanding. I do it without thinking. I may refer to a book or article that I used during instruction. It has been a part of my teaching. One I remember was on "Hurricanes". We were studying weather in our reading texts, and our science unit was about weather. I had brought in an article about Hurricanes to read to the class. I was able to say, "Remember when we read about Hurricanes." "Isn't interesting how the information from the story fits what we are about to study in science." Connections really help our children become interative when what they have heard can be applied to their understanding of the real world.

Margaret Fox

I total agree with Marg. Connection hook kids. Help them expand there learning. Help us make a frame work for learner or see hole where learning did not stick. KDN

**#4** **Barnes' Research... still the case?** //The 1993 research by Douglas Barnes on p. 61 is pretty striking, isn’t it? I couldn’t help but wonder, if the study was duplicated now, 18 years later, would he find similar results? Have the average American teachers evolved as questioners? Are we assuming the roles of facilitators or do we remain dictators? What are your thoughts on this? Offer some anecdotal evidence to support your opinion if possible.//

I am a facilitator. I want my children to be independent thinkers. I don't know all the answers, and I let my students know that they can teach me so much. I give the children time to share their experiences about curricular lessons. I ask what can I do to take away the "stress" of daily lessons. I have found that they like to talk, think and write about what is to be learned. I use this during Math. I will read a story about "Time". We discuss how they use their time. We move on to how do you tell time. Then they share their issues with a partner. This helps me. I listen, then I share with them what I heard. We, including me, write about time. I can then create a minilesson to help them. Margaret Fox

I love to be the facilitator but I have guilt that I am not teaching. It is so much easier to facilitate than teach those that may or may not want to learn—most like to be guided through there own learning adventure--KDN

**#5** **Interactive Read Aloud** //Even though the chapter didn’t specifically use the term “Interactive Read Aloud”, this type of conversation & thinking soaked collective experience around a text is exactly what we read about. (The book was probably written before Teachers College started calling it Interactive Read Aloud). How do you predict this type of fully engaged cognitive experience, woven often throughout your week, will bleed into other areas of classroom life for your students? What do you anticipate this year’s students to know and be able to do differently than previous groups as a result of this instruction if it will be something new for you? Even if it won’t be totally new for you, will it possibly be a new level of engagement and hold a higher importance for you now that we know Interactive Read Aloud as the “heart of our reading instruction time”?//

This will be a new level of engagement and hold a higher importance. This "heart", "Interactive Read Aloud" will pump new life into my reading program. The read alouds will be focused to give my students the opportunity to think, talk and write on text that will support their reading experiences across the curriculum. This interative read aloud will be practiced daily until it is routine. "Don't you ever want kids to just lie back and let the words flow over them..." Yes I do! This is instruction time in which the brain is synapsing. The fact that I am facilitating a strategy that will be interactive is of great importance to our children being not just better readers, but readers who are sharing their thoughts not regurgitating my thoughts.

Margaret Fox I hope to model exciting Read aloud. That one get teacher excited to read aloud and make connections. Second, I hop my read aloud intro books to students that make them want to read. A new series, new author or just read more. P 63 I want to pump the full attention lever since when I was a student read alouds where a dreamy time—it is so easy to drift back to the familiar. KDN

// **In addition to the questions and thoughts above, here is a place to post other ideas and burning questions from chapter three, if any...** //