Giving Time for Authentic Reading

The level of engagement of my students is one of the biggest factors in their success.  For some of my students, attending and focusing comes naturally.  They don't have to work extremely hard.  Typically, those students do well.  However, the students that have difficulty with self-control and focusing are more likely to struggle academically.  (And it seems every year, this problem becomes more prevalent).  These students-especially-require lessons that will engage them.  They do well when they are actively involved in constructing meaning through authentic learning opportunities.  And as their teacher, I know I am more motivated and effective when I'm leading them in this type of learning.  (You can read more about my plea to not standardize teaching here).  Reading is such an important skill to ensure that we are making it meaningful and authentic for our students.

All year long we have been working on Reciprocal Teaching's comprehension strategies in my class.  We directly teach the strategies.  We model them.  We provide opportunities to apply them.  The goal is for our students to use these strategies independently when they are reading.  We teach and model them explicitly so that eventually it (hopefully) becomes second nature to the students.

I think sometimes, it can be easy to neglect the need for these tasks to be authentic for the students.  I strive to provide these opportunities consistently to my students.  I don't think there ever could be enough.

As the school year is coming to a close, I wanted to choose a theme that would make us think of summer vacation.  Throughout the year, when I ask individual students what they enjoy reading about or what they would like to learn more about, so many answer with sharks.  I think Shark Week has done wonders with their fascination.  So, sharks it is!

I came prepared with a bag full of nonfiction books (to start) about sharks.  We began with the trusted KWL chart.  Yes, it's been around forever.  Yes, if used incorrectly, it might not do much to improve student comprehension.  But I still find it to be a powerful tool in my classroom.

We started by charting a list of things we THINK we know about sharks.  (Darn, I forgot to take a picture of that slide.)

And naturally through our discussion, students started to ask questions.  Then I reminded them that they are doing great things when they are asking questions.  Good readers ask questions before reading (and during and after as well).  Then they get all proud of themselves, and come up with LOTS of questions.  I jotted some of them down.  

Then we talked about what types of books will help us find the answer.  Fiction or Nonfiction.  We discussed the author's purpose for both.  We reviewed the nonfiction text features.

Then I pull out the pile of nonfiction books.  This is when I know it's working.  They begin to gradually creep over toward the edge of the carpet where the books are waiting for them.  I have to hold them off from grabbing the books.  They literally can't wait.  I explain their task of summarizing as they read and clarifying unknown words.  (They were provided with a graphic organizer to write at least 3 important facts and an index card to write unknown words).  Then they are off.  My easily distracted students are more focused than ever.  They are excited to read and learn about a topic that is important to them.  I walk around to observe and provide support where it is needed.  I love when I feel like I'm more of a facilitator of learning.  It just feels right when my students are the ones doing the "work" and most of the lesson doesn't involve ME talking, modeling, reading, etc.  If I want them to improve their reading skills and use of comprehension strategies, then it makes sense that a lot of time in the classroom should be given for them to do just that.

We came back together as a whole group to share some of the words that needed clarification.  Without me even prompting them, students started looking in their glossaries or finding the sentence in the book to help give us some context clues.  We discussed the importance of knowing when we don't understand something (metacognition).

We also shared some of the important facts they found when summarizing during their reading.

Could all of this have been done with a selection from our language arts series or a Scholastic News article?  Absolutely.  There is nothing wrong with either of those.  However, I do think the fact that they were reading on a topic of their choice in a book of their choice makes it much more of an authentic learning experience for them.  And in  my experience authentic=engaging=learning.

I'm working on plans to carry this over into our last week of school.  Maybe a beach theme on the last day?  I already checked out some fiction books that have a shark as a main character.  We will see what the Dollar Store and Amazon Prime can offer-hoping for some deals on an inflatable pool, beach towels & maybe some rafts for cozy reading spots.  Stay tuned!