And We Start...

Last Friday was the first day for my students to share their book commercials. They had watched as I modeled several over the past week, and were so excited to start their commercials. The first observation I had from this was that it was so easy to differentiate this assignment. Each student is able to share a book that is at their reading level, where previously they had all been required to share a chapter book. Each student is also able to tell about the book from memory, or choose to write what they will say.

At the last minute I decided to add an extra component to the book commercials. Last week I had read about students holding a book auction as a way to get excited about the books they were reading. The teacher that had done this used it in conjunction with an incentive program she was using. The students earned beads for things they had done well during the week and then could use their beads to bid on books they wanted to read. Then those children could keep the beads they earned from the auction to bid on other books themselves.

Because my students don't earn such an incentive, I decided to twist on the idea a little. When my students are finished sharing their book commercial they are able to ask who wants to read the book next. They are then creating a waiting list for who wants to read the books. It has been a huge motivator!

He read my mind!

I was pleasantly surprised this morning when a student came to our Morning Meeting with a great book he was in the middle of reading. It was his sharing day today, and decided he wanted to share the book. He is reading the third Percy Jackson book, The Titan's Curse. He told a little about the plot and what he liked about the story. I was so excited that he was choosing to do this on his own without it being an assignment. I can see by this that he and probably some of my other students will thrive doing book talks. I wonder if making book talks a required assignment would take away from the motivation. What would happen if initially I tried assigning it as an option? I want to make sure that this project doesn't turn into something that takes away from the enjoyment of reading for my students. I said yesterday that I wanted to implement book talks as a part of my Friday Mornings. After today, I think that Morning Meeting might be a better place for this implementation. Tomorrow I will start modeling. Wish me luck!

Book Talks

I recently finished reading Donalyn Miller's book The Book Whisperer. While I enjoyed reading the book immensely, many of the situations and results she presented seemed 'too good to be true'. I think that maybe if I was only a reading teacher as she is, I would have an easier time believing that I could achieve similar results. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on which way you look at it), I teach all curriculum areas, and so I have to give the same amount of energy to reading that I do to math, science, social studies, and writing.

Chapter 6 has especially stuck out in my memory because it is in this chapter that Miller talks about 'Cutting the Teacher Strings'. She lays out the traditional methods teachers use to check for understanding, such as, Whole-Class Novels, Comprehension Tests, Book Reports, Reading Logs, Round-Robin or Popcorn Reading, and Incentive Programs. She goes on to tell how each of these things undermines our goal of having students become readers. As I was reading this chapter I kept thinking about how I had implemented just about all of these traditional practices as a way to check if my students were understanding their reading as well as to help them become a reader where they would actually start to read for fun! Miller then describes alternatives to each of these practices that do actually work toward our students becoming readers.

My students come into third grade on the first day asking when they get to do their first book report. As a rule I have never been a fan of book reports. However pressure from administration, parents, and students has led me to implement book reports during the past couple of years. I have never had them on a set schedule where I know exactly what kind of book report is required for each month of the school year, nor have I had students do a book report every month. Because of this dislike of book reports (but still keeping in mind that I am expected to assign them) I really like the alternative suggestion of having students do book commercials or book talks.

I always know when it is time to assign another book report, because I start to have students asking me when they are going to get their next one. I think that this time around I might implement book commercials for the remainder of the school year. I won't make a requirement about how often students must do a book commercial, but will instead set a number of recommended book commercials to do by the end of the school year. I think a good goal would be 3 book commercials knowing that several of my motivated readers will be able to do many more than 3 and knowing that some of my struggling readers will have a hard time completing 3.

I will start by modeling several different book commercials prior to giving the assignment to my students. One of the things that Miller did was have a time set aside on Fridays for students to give their book commercials. This seems like it would be a good time for me to implement this project because I have already adjusted my Friday schedule in order to accommodate reflection and goal setting.

Passions

I have many passions when it comes to education. Many of which I hope to address in this blog. Just a few of these passions include:

• Responsive Classroom
• Technology
• Choice, Choice, Choice
• Love and Logic
• Hands on, hearts on, minds on learning
• Constructivism
• Assessment
• Reading Comprehension
• Writing
• Teacher Language
• Differentiation
• Multiple Intelligences
  

There are many more. I am sure I will add to this list in the coming months.

Welcome!!

I'm a third grade teacher at a Catholic School near the Twin Cities. My plan for this blog is to share some research that I am using in my classroom. It will include my reactions and my students reactions to the ideas and activities that I implement in my classroom. Some of the things I hope to explore are ways to incorporate more technology into my lessons, ways to implement more movement into my classroom, and new and different ways to teach reading to my students.