We did just that and then MORE!
Our last two fiction reading units had similar concepts in them so we were able to dig deeper into the concepts that were being addressed. With my wonderful first graders ready to move up into second grade, we decided to take our oral conversations centered around our books and actually WRITE about it.
We all know that if you can say it, then you can write it.
Reader's workshop is where all of the work began. In every reader's workshop, it begins by having a mini lesson. The mini lesson was used to address the concept being taught and then students took out their expert book to practice the concept by talking about it to their learning partner. During this time, I was able to confer with students and teach in on any confusion they had. I also was able to push students to expand on their thinking by having them give support to why they were thinking that. They then took a few minutes to write down their thinking. For the remainder of reader's workshop, students read other fiction books and looked for the same concept that was addressed in the mini lesson.
Each child chose ONE expert book and zoomed in on...
- setting
- characters
- beginning, middle, end
- character's feeling
- character traits
- favorite part
Why did I choose to do this?
- It gave me an opportunity to know the story that each child was reading from beginning to end so that I can help assess their thinking on skills being taught
- It allows students to talk about their books
- Students get to introduce their books to other friends which can encourage other students to read the book that they read
- Students become fluent with reading it and understand all parts of their book
When we were done, students all celebrated their hard work and put their expert book back into the leveled bins. Students couldn't wait to read a book that their friend read and talked about!
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| We added our hard work to the hallway! |
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| A close up of what students did! |
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