INDEPENDENT READING:

Students will be reading “just right” books that they choose themselves.  These books should be interesting to them and at an appropriate reading level.  They’ll check in frequently and be encouraged to use comprehension strategies that we are working on.

FIRST STORY FROM OUR ANTHOLOGY:

The first story that we’ll be reading from out anthology is Boom Town by Sonia Levitin.  This story is a great example of historical fiction, with a strong and interesting main character and an interesting setting.  We’ll read and discuss this story, work on reading comprehension strategies including predicting (and sharing our reasoning), summarizing, finding the problem and solution in the text, identifying character traits (and backing up our claims with evidence from the text), and identifying the theme of  this piece. We will also use this text as a mentor text for our first “big” writing project.

SHARED READING:

We began our rear reading Judy Moody by Megan McDonald.  We discussed and identified character traits and found evidence from the text to support our claims.  We also discussed many other literary techniques used in the book and made meaning from the text.  We ended by discussing how the character changed.  Judy is quite a ridiculous and fun character to think about!

The second chapter book that we will work on this year is Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White.  We discuss and work on comprehension strategies including predicting (and sharing our reasoning) , summarizing, finding the problem in the text, identifying character traits (and backing up our claims with evidence from the text), and identifying the theme of the book.  We will also use this text as a mentor text for our first “big” writing project.

TESTING:

We also have a bit of testing to complete at this time of the year.  Students will be taking two AIMSWEB reading tests: one on oral reading fluency (Curriculum Based Measure) and the other to measure reading speed and comprehension (MAZE).