There is one question that literacy specialists hear almost every time they discuss small-group reading instruction with teachers. Often, this is the major hurdle that teachers of literacy have to overcome before attempting small-group reading instruction. Teachers need a block of uninterrupted time to meet with a small group, and the other students need to be engaged in activities that provide them with opportunities to extend their literacy knowledge. Students must also know what to do if they need help while the teacher is working with others and what to do if they finish their current tasks. The following list suggests activities that allow students to apply and practice reading and writing at an independent level.
- Ask students to choose one book that they will be able to read independently and enjoy for at least 30 minutes. Provide students with sticky notes, and ask them to look for cause/effect text structures as they read. Ask students to consider how understanding these structures helped them to better comprehend the book. Students can place a sticky note beside any interesting cause/effect structures that they notice as they read. The teacher may need to model this activity before asking students to do it independently. Instead of cause/effect, students can locate compare/contrast structures, sequences of events, descriptions, similes, metaphors, and figurative language.
- After reading a nonfiction text with the teacher in small-group instruction, the students can create a fictional text on the same topic. The teacher can supply students with paper and ask students to write the text and create illustrations.
- Students can research and report on a topic that relates to a book that students have read. Students can choose a topic that interests them and one that they would like to explore. Students can create a chart, poster, or diorama to complete their report.
- Students can read a book or reread familiar text with a partner. Then the students will brainstorm a web that shows the main ideas and the important details of the piece that was read.
- Students can respond to independent reading in a journal. Students can relate any connections they have made that helped them to better comprehend the book or article, (personal connections, connections to another book, connections to community or world events), as well as their feelings about and reactions to material that was read.
- Students can write a letter or a postcard to a friend, a parent, a teacher, a historical character, or an imaginary person. They can explain something that they have learned from their reading, or they can discuss reading that they have enjoyed. Students might decorate their postcard, stationary, or envelope.
- Students can retell the book they have read by creating a cartoon strip or comic book. The characters in the cartoon can retell the sequence of events and important details in speech bubbles.
- Students can deepen their understanding of a piece they have read by drawing a graphic organizer that conveys the main points in the book they have read. (Venn diagram, flow chart, two boxes with an arrow between them for cause and effect, boxes for details and arrows from each box to one larger box where the main idea will be written)
- After reading, students can reread familiar text and go on a “scavenger hunt.” They can look for and list nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, dialogue, a statement, a question, and an exclamation. Ask them to consider why the author chose to use the items they have discovered.
- Students can create a retelling cube from a large sheet of paper. On one of the six sides, the students will write the name of the book they have read. Students can illustrate and write about the main events and information in the text on each of the five other sides. After the writing and illustration have been completed, then students can assemble the cube.
A well-organized learning environment provides a framework for familiar routines to promote students’ independence. It is vital that students be meaningfully engaged in a task that they can accomplish without the teacher’s assistance. It is equally important to allow students time to enjoy reading materials and to deeply comprehend the text that they are reading.
Below are additional websites that provide even more suggestions.
Want to have a conversation with your students about their reading? Integrate the Reader’s Response Journal into your Reader’s Workshop.
*If you are no stranger to using Reader’s Response Journals in your classroom, you will still want to check out the links below. They are excellent resources.
Reader’s Response Journals allow students to respond to their reading. It gives them an opportunity to share thoughts, feelings, and questions regarding any element of the story. This could include characters’ actions, events, opinions, and even likes and dislikes about the text. Students can share predictions, parts of the text they find confusing, and connections to personal experiences, other texts, and world events. The best part about student responses is that they can’t be wrong, so students should feel the freedom to take risks in their writing. The teacher isn’t asking students to share information from their reading JUST to see if they actually read the text. The teacher and student are ACTUALLY having a conversation about the text. These written responses between teacher and student are a very important part of understanding the text on a deeper level.
The response to reading is in the format of a friendly letter. Teachers explicitly model how to write a friendly letter including the date, salutation, body, and closing. Teachers should also model in detail the many ways students can respond. Many of these have been previously mentioned above. Students are instructed to summarize what they are reading and then add their responses. Teachers can utilize mini-lessons to teach students about paragraphs, types of salutations and closings, lead sentences, and much more.
There are many resources and websites that provide support in using Reader’s Response Journals. I have listed a few below. The first source is a brief slide show that I have found very helpful. Make sure you check it out! You will be glad you did! Some of the others include guidelines, examples of journal responses, prompts, and rubrics that allow you to assess journal responses.
Reader’s Response Slide Show
Reader’s Response Prompts
Busy Teacher Cafe
Reader’s Response Journal: Best Practices
Readers’s Response Journal: Instructional Strategies Online
As the school year begins, the first thing that we think about as teachers (next to putting together a beautiful room!) is rules and routines for our classroom, especially when it comes to independent work.
Last year a school asked me to help its staff create training sessions that focused on “Rigorous Classrooms.” Rigor–really??? My first thought was, “What do they mean when they say rigor?” Rigor to me means “strict” or “hardship.” Were the teachers not strict enough? In reality, this school was looking for students to be engaged at high levels (rigorous levels) when doing independent work.
In doing my research, I stumbled upon the International Center for Leadership in Education website and their Rigor and Relevance chart. The idea of the chart is to look at activities/tasks from two perspectives. One is to decide if the activity is rigorous enough on a scale from 1-6 and the second is to decide if the activity really has any relevance (putting knowledge to use) utilizing a scale from 1-5.
Typically, the school I worked with found that instruction in classrooms was fairly rigorous except when they took a closer look at independent activities/tasks that students were doing while teachers met with small groups (guided reading).
The sessions we created were to use the Rigor and Relevance chart to assess whether independent workstations and/or independent work were high on the scales. Not surprisingly, teachers found that most independent tasks did not rank high in rigor or relevance. On average, we found many teachers (excellent teachers at that!) did not have any rigorous and truly relevant tasks assigned, and students were mainly engaged in low-level thinking tasks. Is it a big deal? Absolutely! Students can spend up to 30-40 minutes engaged in independent work. So this means over the course of the year, they could spend over 1,700 hours not engaged to their fullest potential. The best discovery of the entire project was that simple changes such as rewording a direction or adding an additional task easily engaged students to the potential goals the district was seeking.
Do you have any thoughts or comments to share? I would love to hear from you!
Read more on independent reading activities.
