Reading Matters
We micro-plan lessons & writing instruction, but...STIR?
Giving Time to Reading - Turn and Talk about these questions
- What is the mini-lesson or purpose?
- Who are we conferencing with today and the rest of the week so we can get to every student? What are we conferencing about with each student?
- Based on our assessments, what are our teachable moments with each student?
- Are we setting goals? What are the goals? What is each student reading and how much are they reading daily?
- How are we keeping track of their reading and our conferences?
As teachers, we know reading matters. But do our students?
Click here for the student version of this PD. :)
Make them accountable
Make students aware that after reading, they will be sharing with a partner/group. You could also use a die and make each number correlate to something different they've learned (foreshadow/prediction, characterization/traits, inference, etc).
Make sure they are set for success
Make it a "reasonably" silent by offering partnerships
Stations, like Elementary
You would need to add one each week or so to model the behavior expectations for each. Give these as options, as reading gains momentum in your classroom, and as you extend the reading time. Make sure that even if students occasionally turn to writing (about their book, if they get inspired) or word work, that you maintain the minimum 20 minutes of daily reading (and of course encourage them to read at home, too!)
Audio Books
You can also occasionally play short podcasts that relate to students genre of reading. NPR has great 6 min stories. Check out "You Had One Job." Have students create a visual brainweb as they listen. (Like anything, model the behavior expectations and what a brainweb of pictures and words might look like first.)
Also, you can and should often read aloud to students short, engaging text and model thinking aloud - when do you re-read, visualize, question, predict, etc.
Making reading more engaging
For really struggling readers, it's okay if they are reading things that you think are too easy. Reading for pleasure is the best way to get them to eventually push to read more. Build a culture of challenging oneself and that reading matters first. The rest will come over time.
Try this to wrap up reading and further encourage the reading atmostphere in your room:
- Golden Lines - every student share a line from their book in their group. Have the best one from the group share with the class (and put it on a post-it to go in the reading center with the title it came from).
- Write/Talk - have students write before talking or vice versa. Allow them to talk with a partner or in groups. Have them walk around the room and find a new person to talk to about what they read.
- Popcorn one-liners: Have students all stand up and ask them a question about their book after reading (Favorite or least favorite character, one character trait, # of pages they read today, etc.) One by one they can answer and then sit down.
Will they remember what they've been taught?
This means that yes, if you do mini-lessons about reading strategies or confer with students and offer specific strategies, they will make use of them again on their own over time. Help your students by having them take note of those strategies in their interactive or reading notebook and/or post the strategies on your wall.
You also need to keep track of who you've met with, what you've observed, how much they are reading daily, what strategies you've offered, and what mini-lessons you've given individually, in workshop, or whole class. Here's one freebie from TpT that you could use to model your own needs for your classroom.
A Reading Teachers Checklist
- Daily book talks (then moving to the students doing them as they finish their books)
- Advertising books in your room and making waiting lists for them
- Have a reading strategy wall so students who are struggling know how to figure out challenging words/text
- Allowing students to partner up (especially the ones who are struggling most)
- Keeping track of pages/time read per class so classes can compete with each other and have competitions within their own class as well
- Doing a specific reading matters mini-lesson with students about real world needs/expectations - jobs, class rank, etc.
- Establishing good rapport - don't underestimate it! Conferences help you get to know your students and develop relationships but you can also do circles with the whole class to help the classroom climate (favorite thing you read, something you are struggling with at school, at home, etc.) Get to know them. Taking that 10-15 minutes/week to build rapport will make them work that much harder in class.
- Setting daily or weekly goals for each student and celebrating students who achieve those goals on a daily basis (this can be done right after STIR time)
- Reviewed behavior expectations with students so they know what they can/can't do during STIR and how to behave specifically when you are conferencing with others; reminding DAILY before STIR until students have gotten their reading habit going strong
- Using soft classical music like Vitamin String Quartet in the background
- Offering daily "grades" for students - for some of my most challenging classes, I started the year giving a "daily grade" - I would start everyone at 100 and then deduct 10 points every time I heard them talking with one warning just by saying their name. If I heard a small group, I would say "Some people are about to lose 10 points. That would be a shame for such an easy grade as just reading their book..." I typically only really deducted if it was a repeat offender. Also, it was never an actual daily grade. I would keep the grade going for a few weeks so their STIR grade would be recorded only 2-3 times for the whole six weeks. Students who wanted to make up their grade had to come to tutorials and read quietly. This way, even if students got down to a 30, they had the chance to make it up. These tutorials offered an opportunity for me to talk more about why it is important for them to be quiet/still during STIR so that others can read. The more time we spent, the better the relationship got, and the less they wanted to talk out of turn.
- As a last resort: Moving from group to rows for STIR (with a timer to "beat" other classes if they are moving slowly) and the back to groups again after STIR
- The expectation of taking away phones is important (unless they are using them for an audio book)
#aisdreads
ELA Curriculum & Instruction Specialist
AISD Teaching & Learning Community
M. Ed
Email: erika.sanmiguel@austinisd.org
Website: teachermaterials.weebly.com
Location: 1111 W 6th St, Austin, TX, United States
Phone: 5125548687