As you may remember, I’m spending a lot of time working with book clubs in various classrooms at my school. Mindy Brock’s class is studying a unit on theme in their reading workshop, so we are experimenting with theme-based reading clubs.These are different than the book clubs we’ve tried before because the clubs are formed around several titles that all have a common theme running through them. We wanted students to have multiple opportunities to think about themes and how authors teach us lessons.
Ms. Brock and I chose books that fit into some general themes and made the following clubs:
(Click here to download these lists in PDF format.)
There are, of course, many themes that we have not yet covered, and there are certainly more books that would fit into the themes we chose. We are just working with the contents of our libraries while we are trying this out. Also, we stuck to just picture books for now, as we wanted all of the students to be able to read all of the titles so that they could make comparisons between the themes.
On the first day, we explained to the students that they would be choosing their own reading club. We told them the names of the books that were in each bucket, and they chose their favorite with their reading partner. This was a much smoother process than we thought it might be, and before we knew it, every single student had his or her nose in a book. What a relief to know that engagement was not going to be an issue!
Each day, we asked students to think about the theme of the books they were reading. We kept the workshop format the same with a mini-lesson and long stretches of reading time, but instead of independent reading, they went off to their reading clubs. The students were able to talk and write about their thinking as soon as they were ready, and Ms. Brock and I moved from group to group, coaching those who needed extra support.
I was thrilled when we finally got to the point where every student had read every book in the bucket. We were able to push their conversations much deeper since they could talk well across texts, not just about their own. The students did really well with this, and they were coming up with connections between texts that I hadn’t even considered before.
We recently let the students choose a new club to continue the same work. They have new club members and new books to read, but they are still thinking deeply about the lessons they can learn from books. I can’t wait to see how this work grows!
As you may remember, I’m spending a lot of time working with book clubs in various classrooms at my school. Mindy Brock’s class is studying a unit on theme in their reading workshop, so we are experimenting with theme-based reading clubs.These are different than the book clubs we’ve tried before because the clubs are formed around several titles that all have a common theme running through them. We wanted students to have multiple opportunities to think about themes and how authors teach us lessons.
Ms. Brock and I chose books that fit into some general themes and made the following clubs:
(Click here to download these lists in PDF format.)
There are, of course, many themes that we have not yet covered, and there are certainly more books that would fit into the themes we chose. We are just working with the contents of our libraries while we are trying this out. Also, we stuck to just picture books for now, as we wanted all of the students to be able to read all of the titles so that they could make comparisons between the themes.
On the first day, we explained to the students that they would be choosing their own reading club. We told them the names of the books that were in each bucket, and they chose their favorite with their reading partner. This was a much smoother process than we thought it might be, and before we knew it, every single student had his or her nose in a book. What a relief to know that engagement was not going to be an issue!
Each day, we asked students to think about the theme of the books they were reading. We kept the workshop format the same with a mini-lesson and long stretches of reading time, but instead of independent reading, they went off to their reading clubs. The students were able to talk and write about their thinking as soon as they were ready, and Ms. Brock and I moved from group to group, coaching those who needed extra support.
I was thrilled when we finally got to the point where every student had read every book in the bucket. We were able to push their conversations much deeper since they could talk well across texts, not just about their own. The students did really well with this, and they were coming up with connections between texts that I hadn’t even considered before.
We recently let the students choose a new club to continue the same work. They have new club members and new books to read, but they are still thinking deeply about the lessons they can learn from books. I can’t wait to see how this work grows!
Three ways to help students see themselves as readers and build a reading identity.
I love reading with small groups, but the planning is not easy. Storyworks magazine has been a game-changer this year, and my kids love it as much as I do!
