Friday marks our very first Page Turners meeting, and I am beyond excited to finally officially launch this activity!!! The theme of this year has been "new:" new reading, new spelling, new math, now entering the new portion of our writing...and top top it all off I've added new seating and new iPads. Yikes! No wonder I feel like the year is flying!!! Even though we are launching Page Turners much later than originally planned due to all the "new," the students and I are SOOOO excited for our first meeting on Friday. To make sure that YOU aren't feeling like this is all totally new, here is some background on why I created Page Turners, what it is, and how you can be part of it at home. This will be lengthy, so watch the headings and skim through to find the information that YOU need.
Repost from last fall:
Photo credit: Hope King of Elementary Shenanigans
Reading. One of my favorite topics!!! Why? Reading is the single greatest determining factor in your child's success in school...and in life. Reading is what opens doors to new opportunities, allows us to communicate, escape into another "world," and learn about the world around us. Reading is used in EVERY subject in school as well as in almost every activity in life (try driving around or eating at a restaurant without reading anything). I promise you that this year I will do everything in my power to support your child in not only learning reading strategies, but also to help them LOVE reading.
So, what are my beliefs about reading?
- To get kids to love reading, you need to let them pick what they read!!!
- Kids need to build reading habits:
- Know how to find books and how/where to find ideas for picking books
- Choose books that are a good fits, both for interest and readability
- Build stamina for reading
- Read THROUGH the books we pick
- Repeat this process over and over in order to build qualities of being a reader that will last beyond 4th grade
- Reading needs to be modeled and supported at school and at home
- Reading needs to be enjoyable, without strings attached. No logging minutes or petty projects. (Do you know any adults who keep track of the number of minutes they read for pleasure?)
What is Page Turners?
Page Turners is the name of the reading club I've created for my students. Read
this post to learn about my experiences and the professional reading I completed during the development of this group. (The link in the previous sentence will take you to a professional development blog I write for teachers called "The Contemporary Classroom," where I have explained my "WHY" for creating Page Turners for other teachers.) In a nutshell, I want students to love reading, read widely, read often, and talk about their reading regularly with their classmates and families. Page Turners is all about encouraging students to simply LOVE reading.
What reading requirements are there for students?
Over the course of the year, each student is expected to read a minimum of
40 books 20 books (adjusted due to late start, although several students will hit the original goal easily), log the books they've read by genre, and be prepared to discuss their reading during Page Turners meetings. Students are expected to choose "good fit" books that fall within the genre requirements (i.e.: two realistic fiction books, one mystery, one historical fiction, two informational, etc.).
How are students held accountable for their reading?
Each student has their own Page Turners handbook, which they use all year long to record titles of the books they've read, keep track of books they want to read, and generate a list of absolute favorites to recommend to friends. Each time students complete another book, they log its title on their "Required Reads" page under the appropriate genre. In addition, students will share about their reading during meetings and complete occasional book share activities, such as a character sketch, an Animoto video, reading graffiti, or signposts they found in the book. Any of these activities would be presentented immediately following the preceding Page Turners Meeting so that students have ample time to begin and complete their reading prior to working on their project. Some projects, like creating a video using Animoto, would be given dedicated class time.
What are Page Turners meetings?
Each month we hold a Page Turners Club meeting, usually on a Friday afternoon. This time is spent reading, talking about reading, and enjoying activities and snacks. Each meeting has a pre-selected genre or theme to focus our reading in days before and our discussion during. I open these meetings up to parents, our librarian, the principal, our guidance counselor, other specialists, etc who would like to support student discussion groups.
We begin our meetings by
constructing reading forts (an idea I nabbed from a colleague),
settling in, and spending some quality extended time reading. Depending on how much time our schedule allows that day, we have read anywhere between 30-60 minutes.
Next, we quickly deconstruct our forts and regroup our classroom before gathering on the rug for a
Book Share. Each month we have a guest reader who shares a favorite book. Last year our principal has read Dr. Seuss's
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, a grandmother shared a picture book from her home country of Ireland about how Santa Clause carries on in Irish culture, and one of my classroom moms read from the first chapter of
Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers.
After discussing this book students break into groups of 3-4 to discuss the books they've chosen and read. Each month I have posted discussion questions that students can use to guide their conversations. Here is a picture of a few of last year's charts...
At this point in our meeting I quickly reassign my volunteers to either man the refreshment table (treats provided by yours truly or one of the volunteers), assist with our craft / project, or engage with students as they assemble with various board games. This time has been a fabulous way to build relationships and classroom community, especially for those students who may not spend a lot of time playing games at home with their family, need to work on not being a sore loser or cocky winner, or practice initiating conversation with those they may not otherwise.
Embarking on this journey last year with my class was unbelievably rewarding as I watched their love of reading grow, eavesdropped on conversations between students as they raved about one of their books, and witnessed the astounding growth they achieved as readers in fluency, higher-level comprehension, and vocabulary development. Not a day went by without someone relating something from a book they'd read to a lesson we were work through. I am so excited to kick off this year's Page Turners meetings!!!
