Book Club Plus

One aspect of literacy that I haven’t seen much in my classroom is book discussions. We have time for whole group read aloud, individual reading, partner reading, writing, and spelling. However, students are never given a chance to discuss what they read. Occasionally after the whole group read aloud, the class will be asked a few questions about how the book related to something else we are doing. However, this typically only allows a few students to contribute, and the rest only get to sit and listen. My assumption is that as the year goes on, there will be more opportunity for book discussions. We are still kind of in the “launching” phase of Daily 5, so maybe once the students are up to the proper length of reading and have learned and practiced all of the routines, we will focus more on discussion.
Because of this, I found the description of the fishbowl to be quite helpful. In addition to being a great strategy for having a discussion, it can also be helpful to move into more independent discussions. Having a group model a book discussion before having students try it themselves would be useful, especially with my first and second graders. We use modeling for everything! Anytime that the students are attempting a new task, or any task that requires them to be independent, we model the expected behaviors. By doing so, students are given ideas of what the activity should look and sound like, so they have no excuse for not following the expectations.
Assessment is something I also struggle with in my first/second grade class. I find that it is difficult for me to tell a student that they are not meeting my expectations. However, I really liked the “I Can Self Evaluation” idea. Giving students a chance to evaluate themselves can help them become aware of anything they are not understanding. Then, it may not be as much of a shock when they hear this same feedback from the teacher. My classroom does a little of this with their check in after each reading period. Each student gives a thumb at their heart (up for doing a good job, sideways for needs improvement). This is just for them and the teacher to see if they are aware of how they are meeting expectations. Having a written record of this would be helpful though to use in future conversations with the student, parents, or other teachers.