You asked about sticky note thinking. I use this task as a way for students to show me what they are thinking as they are reading. I introduce it at the beginning of the school year and revisit the task when necessary since it is a great way for students to stop and think about what they are reading. However, it is not something I expect my readers to be doing on a daily basis. If done too often, it can actually interrupt the flow of reader and detract from comprehension. My hope is that the practice will lead to students "talking back to books" in their head naturally as they read independently. Below are some of the tasks I ask of my readers beyond just thinking on sticky notes.
On most days, the IDR task is directly related to the mini-lesson I am teaching. For example, If I am teaching a lesson about context clues, I will ask students to briefly write about a word that they were able to solve that day using a context-clue strategy I taught in the mini-lesson. They would do such a task on the "3-to-a-page" IDR task response sheet that I referenced in the post. This is the most common type of task I assign because I want my students reading most of the time. I do not want them having to spend more time responding to their reading than actually being engaged in their texts.
On other days, then I might just ask students to use sticky notes to mark places in their text where they notice something. For example, when teaching students to pay attention to a character's dialogue when inferring character traits, I just ask them to write the character trait they are inferring on a sticky note and place it next to the corresponding dialogue in their text. This holds them accountable for applying the skill I taught in the mini-lesson, but it does not detract from their independent reading.
In terms of talking back to their books on sticky notes, I really do not assign this task on a very regular basis. If there is not a specific task for the day, I may ask my readers to "talk back to your book at least 3 times today." If I have a concern about a specific student's comprehension, I may ask that student to talk back to his book on sticky notes more often just so that I can "see" his thinking even when I am not reading with him directly.
I hope this helps you to understand more thoroughly how use the sticky note thinking and how I assign IDR tasks each day.
Marie,
You asked about sticky note thinking. I use this task as a way for students to show me what they are thinking as they are reading. I introduce it at the beginning of the school year and revisit the task when necessary since it is a great way for students to stop and think about what they are reading. However, it is not something I expect my readers to be doing on a daily basis. If done too often, it can actually interrupt the flow of reader and detract from comprehension. My hope is that the practice will lead to students "talking back to books" in their head naturally as they read independently. Below are some of the tasks I ask of my readers beyond just thinking on sticky notes.
On most days, the IDR task is directly related to the mini-lesson I am teaching. For example, If I am teaching a lesson about context clues, I will ask students to briefly write about a word that they were able to solve that day using a context-clue strategy I taught in the mini-lesson. They would do such a task on the "3-to-a-page" IDR task response sheet that I referenced in the post. This is the most common type of task I assign because I want my students reading most of the time. I do not want them having to spend more time responding to their reading than actually being engaged in their texts.
On other days, then I might just ask students to use sticky notes to mark places in their text where they notice something. For example, when teaching students to pay attention to a character's dialogue when inferring character traits, I just ask them to write the character trait they are inferring on a sticky note and place it next to the corresponding dialogue in their text. This holds them accountable for applying the skill I taught in the mini-lesson, but it does not detract from their independent reading.
In terms of talking back to their books on sticky notes, I really do not assign this task on a very regular basis. If there is not a specific task for the day, I may ask my readers to "talk back to your book at least 3 times today." If I have a concern about a specific student's comprehension, I may ask that student to talk back to his book on sticky notes more often just so that I can "see" his thinking even when I am not reading with him directly.
I hope this helps you to understand more thoroughly how use the sticky note thinking and how I assign IDR tasks each day.
-Beth