Whole Group Reading:

Pushing Up the Sky by Joseph Bruchac

William’s House by Ginger Howard

SMALL GROUP READING:

Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry

A small group of students are reading Misty of Chincoteague.  They’re practicing comprehension strategies including identifying character traits, finding evidence to back up their claims, settings, how characters feel, vocabulary,  finding word meaning in context, and visualizing.

*****

The Littles by John Peterson

One group is reading and making meaning from the book The Littles by John Peterson.  This group is focusing on silently reading the book, reading aloud, understanding what they’re reading, and answering questions about what was read by looking back at the text.

*****

We’ll Never Forget You, Roberto Clemente by Trudi Engel

One group is reading and making meaning from the book We’ll Never Forget You, Roberto Clemente by Trudi Engel  This group will apply the non-fiction reading strategies that we learned while reading the biography of Thomas Edison to this book.  They’ll end by making a time line of of this interesting man’s life!

George Washington’s Mother

One group is reading and making meaning from the book George Washington’s Mother by Jean Fritz.  This group is working to figure out interesting vocabulary, on improving oral reading fluency,  and to make a time line of George’s mother’s life!

Another group is reading and making meaning form Five True Dog Stories by Margaret Davidson.  This group is working on oral reading fluency and on writing summaries.

The third group is reading and making meaning from The Mysterious Copy Room, a reader’s theater piece.  They’re focusing on oral reading fluency and on vocabulary.

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.

Whole Group Reading

Thomas Edison: The Wizard of Menlo Park

The whole class is listening to, making meaning from, and learning and applying nonfiction reading strategies to Thomas Edison: The Wizard of Menlo Park by Margaret Davidson.

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).