pacing of trade books

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pacing of trade books
By Carolyn

What I do is start the beginning of the year with the basal reader and do a couple of stories, maybe a unit there. Then I introduce the first paperback novel. I think the pacing will depend upon the students you have and
their interest and attention span. I had low ability level fifth grade students this past year, so we went slowly through our first novel, which was "Sign of the Beaver." I started each class with all of the novels we read with my reading a little bit out loud to the kids to get them involved, then I would stop at a certain point to have them arrive at a conclusion/make a prediction

about how the rest of the chapter might go. They would then read silently. To make sure they comprehended, I gave them focus questions which they had to answer. I usually gave them a worksheet with this question. I tried not to just make it all comprehension/worksheet stuff. I tried to add some activities; however, this does add time to the novel reading, and I do think the kids get bored and restless if you spend too much time on a novel.

I spent a month on each novel I read, except for the short ones, and I found that that was about right--not too long to become bored with it, and enough to become involved with it, plus include a few activities for fun.