We are just starting a brand new unit in Reading Workshop, "Series Book Clubs". This unit is designed to encourage the reading of series books. It helps facilitate reading comprehension for children to encounter familiar characters and places, book after book, throughout a series. In this unit, children also work within their book clubs to study author's craft. They study the craft moves (such as word choice, figurative language, punctuation, etc)that authors use to create their series, and to evoke feelings in their readers.
We have so many exciting new series books in our classroom, all taken out of the Dalton Library. While these books need to remain in the classroom, I do have several other series books that can be sent home in individual book bags. If your child is not bringing home something to read every night, please let me know.
We are reaching a critical point in the school year with our reading skills. Many children are beginning to transition to books with more text than pictures, and actual chapters. These books are exciting to read, and they are challenging. It's so very important that you encourage your child to read every single day, for at least 20 minutes, from a book that is a "good fit" for him or her. Reading out loud to you is a great way to work on fluency.
This work at home will support our work in the classroom, and it is what will help them to reach the end of the school year benchmark of reading level M.
November 6, 2017
Our second unit for the year is "Becoming Experts in Reading Nonfiction".
In second grade, we don't just read nonfiction books.... we pay attention to how writers put together their nonfiction texts... we notice the important details contained within the books we choose, and we pay close attention to what we think the author wants us to learn. We also use all of our skills as word detectives, figuring out the tricky parts and putting the pieces together.
As nonfiction readers, we also focus on growing our vocabulary along with our knowledge. We mine for these sparkly words among the commonplace, we notice them and we celebrate them!
To help keep our interests piqued, I did a quick survey of topic areas that we wanted to learn more about as readers. We now have a large selection of nonfiction books from the Dalton Library to choose from... books on dogs and cats, soccer and basketball, gemstones and constellations, manatees and machines. Students were interested and engaged in the books they chose!
We will also begin keeping track of our reading, and our thinking about our reading, by beginning our readers notebooks this quarter.
There is so much to be excited about!
September 18, 2017
We begin the school year by launching the Reader's Workshop Unit, "Second Grade Growth Spurt." A particular favorite of many students, this unit focuses on bridging the differences between first grade and second grade readers. In first grade, the focus of learning was largely on learning HOW to read. Now, while accuracy and fluency continue to be important, children begin to develop their abilities to think deeply about the books they read, and the connections they make as readers.
Much of this unit focuses on building good habits as readers. We talk about building our "reading muscles" by increasing our stamina, by sticking with the good fit books we choose and reading through them. We talk about finding books that look interesting to us, books that catch our interest when we take a "sneak peek". Children can independently determine if a book is a good fit because they are able to recognize MOST of the words on a page.
Reading assessment data has been gathered and analyzed. As a result, children should be coming home with book baggies packed with "just right" books, books that are at or slightly below their instructional level. This is to ensure that they do not become frustrated during independent reading time, and can devote an entire 20 minutes to a half hour of reading with somebody at home.
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