Reading
is a very big push in our room, because it is so essential to everything else we
do in our lives. I have very high standards for reading and work hard to help
students achieve those standards. All students will set Accelerated Reader
goals and read every day about 30 minutes in class (Read to Self in the Daily 5) and should be reading at
least 30 minutes each evening at home. (Please also be sure they are
going out to play too!) We will set up dates on our classroom wall calendar
which students copy into their planners to
help students reach their AR goals more quickly.
We will use a wide variety of reading
curriculum to achieve the goals of our class and to meet state/district EALRs
and GLEs. We use the Houghton Mifflin texts a bit, Daybooks a bit and we
will do novel
studies. The social studies and science curricula will also be part of
reading this year.
We have
several Reading challenges in place in our classroom. The first is to join
the 500 point club. Students are busy reading attempting to have at least
500 AR points for the year. They have books on their own AR list from the
tests we have at Silver Ridge. They can also read books we do not have
tests for and write a summary. I will look up how many points the book is
slated to have and if their summary is complete, they will earn that many
points. In addition for each trimester students reach their AR goals, they
will be invited to and in class TEA PARTY. This is a fun time for all of
us.
Another challenge is to read almost all of the Award nominees
for this year. We use the Sasquatch nominees, the Young Readers Choice
nominees in two categories (although we are taking some off the list this year).
They read these books and take tests or write summaries for points. These
books can also be used for the Distinguished Reader contest later in the year.
Students are also invited to complete 10 literary travelers
during the year in at least 5 different genres. We will discuss the genres
each month and students have the choice to pick. (non-lit travelers
complete a book report on the assigned genre of the month.)
The final challenge is to be a "distinguished reader" which is a district
monitored honor. I give you some lists of award nominees or winners and you
must read at least 10 from the lists to earn both a certificate from the
district, but an invitation to the party and a B-N surprise.
