Group Reading

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Home : 2004 : June : 30

Group Reading
By Patricia

When I taught fifth grade I regularly used literature circles with novels. What I did was assign a set number of pages rather than a specific time length to read. I would look at how many pages the slower students could
read in say 30 minutes and go from there. I did allow students to read ahead but was strict in the class discussions that we only talk about events which had been assigned already. If someone forgot started to talk about something which the rest of the class had not yet read I would stop them in a humorous manner such as putting my fingers in my ears and saying "don't tell me what is

going to happen". Usually the student would stop and giggle. I also would have these early finishers do extra fun activities on the book. So they were not tredding water waiting on the rest of the class...there are some internet quests out there in cyberspace for many books.
Students rated each other in their group and had to say which members of their group had not completed the assignments. A couple of times of having to confess to irritated classmates that they hadn't read usually fixed the problem of students not doing the work. They also had to deal with the normal consequences of not having their homework with me .
Oh yeah, at the beginning of the year I model how to be part of a literature circle with the entire class and a short chapter book. It will go so much better if you train them to know exactly what you want them to do. I hope this helps a little.