reading without books

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reading without books
By Sandy

You could also do a Reading workshop. Check out various levels of books from your school library. Then let each child read a book of choice sitting anywhere in the room for say 15 minutes. I would start out with a whole
group mini lesson...it could be on sequencing, cause and effect whatever skill you want to work on. Then let them break up and read silently. During this time I meet with each group (a different one every day). We share about the books we are reading (author, title, and something that has happened so far. Then the others in the group are given about two minutes to ask questions and

then it is the next person's turn. Then call the students back together for a whole class activity. On Monday's we would do Making Big Words, on Tuesday's we wrote to our journal buddies about what was happening in the book we were reading. On Wednesday, they responded to their journal buddies, on Thursday we did some type of writing about our book. Either illustrating something that had happened and writing about it or writing a friendly letter to one of the characters etc. Then on Friday we had some type of artsy type project to do for their book. When each child finished their book, they were required to do some type of book report on it. I had several forms out that they could choose from. They completed the book report and then started another book. On Fridays we also let students who had completed their book report or project share it with the class if they wanted to. I also made my students get a "c" or better on their report or project. If they didn't, they had to keep redoing it until they did. You can also require that so many books be read per quarter, month etc. Maybe the first two have to be regular type book reports but the third one could be a story quilt, or diorama or mobile or something like that.