I thought it was interesting, because before I even started reading about Book Club Plus! I assumed that it was going to be completely different than the literacy instruction I see in my classroom. My CT uses a variety of programs and combines them together to form her own personalized program that works best in her classroom. As she has told me, the programs work for her, she does not work for the programs. As I began reading Book Club Plus!, however, I realized that there are several similarities between the book and how literacy instruction is planned in my class.
One aspect that the book really stressed was the need to have time for students to read at appropriate age-level as well as instructional-level. I see this happening everyday in my classroom. “Listen to reading” time is dedicated for that age-level literacy that is too difficult for students to decode, but perfect for their comprehension. “Read to self” time is dedicated for the instructional-level literacy to help students with their decoding strategies. “Read to someone” is another time for literacy in my classroom that not only works on decoding strategies, but also comprehension. Book Club Plus! states that “Comprehension instruction should be explicit” (30). My CT agrees with this and uses “beanie baby strategies” to help explicitly instruct students how to both decode and comprehend what they are reading.
One aspect of Book Club Plus! that I have not seen in my classroom much is discussion. It is important to help students create and develop a meaning for a text by themselves. I wonder if because we are still in the launching phase of our literacy program this year if I will see more discussion as the year continues?
I have had the opportunity to test students on various aspects of literacy, but this Thursday will be the first time I get to actually teach a lesson to my students. I am so excited! I went to South Africa over the summer so I am setting up a pen-pal system with my students. This is going to be perfect because in social studies my students are learning about communities. We are going to read books about both places and use our pen-pal letters to do a comparison of the two communities. Therefore, I get to incorporate literacy into social studies and social studies into literacy!
Emily,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the lack of discussion about literacy - I have not seen a lot of it in my class, either. Usually my mentor has the students sit in a circle where she will ask questions and the students will answer to her, but it is never a full on discussion. However, I do think that it is because it's the beginning of the year. I remember last year, when I went and visited her classroom, I watched the "share" portion of a Reader's Workshop. During this time, students would share and if another child had something to add, he/she would not have to raise their hand. Instead, he/she would announce that they were "jumping on ______'s shoulders" and continue the discussion. It seemed to work really well! The students were interacting with each other in a respectful way, and the teacher was there to guide the discussion if/when it went off subject. Also, I absolutely love your idea to incorporate literacy and social studies by writing to your class in South Africa. We are also discussing communities too, and I think that is such an awesome idea to motivate children to write! I definitely would like to do this one day (whether it be this year, or in my future classroom), so let us know how it goes!