Following is a description of how I handled reading in my K-2 classroom. This was every afternoon, for we held our main, Writing Work period, every morning. And since we were in a K-8, one-school district, we had volunteer help from older students during their afternoon lunch recess. This description is here not as a recipe I think a teacher should follow. Rather, I’m sharing it to trigger your own ideas.
Schedule
Story Time: 20 min. Total Group
Quiet Reading: 20 min. Reading Conferences and “Everyone’s Nose In a Book”
Quiet Activity: 65 min. Teacher Reading Conferences and Children’s Quiet Activity
Story Time
We had 105 minutes every day after lunch, and I was usually holding conferences approximately 80 minutes of that time. I chose afternoons for reading, since the kindergarten group had gone home by then, leaving me fewer children to oversee. Afternoons usually began with me reading to the whole group on the rug. Sometimes it was reading an entire story, other times, it was continuing a story that lasted a few days. Or perhaps it was reading brief selections from books I hoped to interest the independent readers in choosing to read to themselves. (With no school library, we had weekly visits from the county library truck. So I would order a few copies of 4 or 5 books I thought the children might be interested in and able to read. They could select them at the end of Story Time and begin exploring them on their own during Quiet Reading Time. Then we would take them up together during their individual reading conference.)
I also used this time to interest the children in Bill Martin’s Instant Readers. There were many selections in them which are delightfully done, repetitious and easy to predict. I encouraged the entire group to join in as I read. Doing this repeatedly, often by the end of the session I would be silently holding a book for them to see, turning the pages while the children were “reading” the entire selection from memory. At the end of the Story Time, I offered the book we had been working on to the children, who would vie for the chance to get their hands one of the several copies we had of each title.
Reading Conferences and Quiet Reading Time, AKA “Everyone’s Nose In a Book”
Following Story Time, I set out a large clock to show what time it would be at the end of 20 minutes.* During those 20 minutes, two activities were to be going on: 1) Teacher Reading Conferences, and 2) children reading or looking at books (what the children liked to call,”Everyone’s Nose In a Book”). Since I scheduled this period to coincide with the middle and upper grade lunch recess, we also had the help of several older students, who usually dropped in to do “Books and Banks” or simple reading conferences with a conference folder. (See below for descriptions of both.)
The children gave this period its title, which meant that independent readers were to be reading their book, while non-readers were working with their Books and Banks activity. At the beginning of the year, before I had introduced Books and Banks, children not yet reading could sit with someone who would read to them, or sit alone or in small groups to look at pictures in books.
When the clock showed the 20 minutes had passed, someone would call out “time’s up.” That signaled the group could go on to the final block of the day’s time: Children’s Quiet Activity, while I continued holding individual conferences.
Supporting an Emergent Readers As They Move Into Books
I recently discovered a series of very helpful videos on YouTube, by Rachel Wyatt. they show you how to introduce a new book to a beginning reader.
My mentor, Jeannette Veatch, who was a nationally recognized reading specialist, devised a way for a child to select books at the appropriate level for them.
This would be for a child who had already read several simple books introduced as shown in the video above. Dr. Veatch had the child choose a book, open it to a random page and begin trying to read it. They were to put one finger up each time they reached a word they didn’t know and couldn’t figure out. If they reached 5 fingers, they were to decide the book was too difficult for them and look for another one.
Her books are out of print, with used ones now selling now at exorbitant prices. But you might find, How To Teach Reading with Children’s Books, in your university library.
Reading Conferences and Quiet Activity
It took some time for the children to get used to the idea that they were to be looking at or working with books during Quiet Reading Time,* and that they were to make the transition to Quiet Activity without my directing them. But once they did, I had around 75 minutes of relatively uninterrupted time to read with individuals before I began to prepare the class for dismissal. (And with the helpers who came in regularly, every emergent reader was able to read, in a structured way, with someone older almost every day. I used a chart to organize and keep track of their help, without interrupting my conferences, as described in the final paragraph on this page, below.)
Once someone signaled to the rest that “everyone’s nose in a book” time was over, from then on, four types of activities were going on: 1) Reading Conferences with me or with tutors from the upper grades; 2) craft projects as follow-up to their reading book; 3) long-term writing projects from the morning; or play at the sand table (the only time of the day the lid was off) or with other the materials and equipment described in the section on the Supportive Environment.
Bottom line was that the children were to choose another activity and carry it out in a way that no one’s work was disturbed, so that I could continue conferencing with individuals. (A child disturbing work would sit in a chair for a time out. But this seldom happened, for there were lots of other things to to do keep them busy.)
My reading conferences went as follows: The children already reading independently usually used a one either one of the Bill Martin books mentioned above — or they might have chosen from a set of children’s trade books by Scholastic, which provided a few copies of several different books, graded according to reading levels. This program also had ideas for follow-up activities and longer-term projects to extend each story’s themes.
During an individual reading conference, we would discuss the story, I would probe for comprehension, and the child would read portions of the book they had chosen to share with me. Then we would plan for how they would carry out one of the activities suggested, or design one of their own. These activities could become a project they would on in the afternoon, and usually also included writing, which they could also do during our writing Work Period in the morning.
Each independent reader — those beyond Books and Banks — had a Reading Folder. This was a record of when they began working on a book, who had read with them, what if any difficulties they might be having. This was all dated, so I could monitor how often a child had been reading aloud to someone older. It also recorded what project they had decided on as a follow-up to their book, and how it was going. (I held sessions with cross-age tutors to explain how to hold these conferences, as well as the procedure for working with a child on Books and Banks.)
Books and Banks for Emergent Readers
By dictating and illustrating their 5-page writing books, the children not yet reading independently were actually creating their own primers, in lieu of using professionally published basal readers. But some felt under some pressure from themselves and others to be reading a “real book.” So I developed a face-saving way to get everyone in a hard-cover book, while making sure they would be successful. We ended up calling this strategy “Books and Banks.”
Rummaging around in the teachers’ work room one day, I had stumbled onto several copies of a wonderful old hard-cover, California basal reader, “I Know a Story.” This became the basis for Books and Banks. It had a natural cadence that allowed the words to flow so easily that the child could predict what the next words would be. With this easy flow and the children’s increasing skills gained through their daily experience with writing, Books and Banks bridged any gap there might be between the child’s writing and their ability to read professionally published books. This old Wonder-Story book,was published twice, with the two different pictures on its hard cover, as shown here. It is out of print now, but I mention it in case your district might have old copies somewhere in a district library or warehouse, waiting to be dusted off and used. However, any book with easy flowing, repetitive text would do.
#1 Books and Banks: Introduction and Chanting
During whole group meetings, the class learned to chant the first, 6-page story in I Know a Story, titled, “The Gingerbread Boy.” While I read, the entire group chanted, so everyone knew it by heart. I also had it translated (in pencil, under the English) and read to them in Spanish, so everyone understood the story. We did this repeatedly for many days early in the school year. Every child had one or more turns acting it out, so that even the non-English speakers understood the words in the story.
#2 Books and Banks: Learning the Procedure
Once everyone was very familiar with the story, I called to my table,in groups of four, the children who were not yet reading independently. Each child got a copy of the book, along with a small container with a lid which was their “Word Bank.” Beginning with the child I thought would be able to do it most readily, I showed them how to work with the sentences. (Once everyone had this introduction, conferences thereafter were held individually.)
#3 Books and Banks: Introductory, Simple Conference: “Show-Me.“
Each child had a turn while the others watched. The process went as follows:
a. The child chants the first sentence in the book (others chime in). I write it on a strip, and we all read it again together. Then the child cuts up the sentence, scrambles it up, and reassembles it — comparing it with the book at first, if needed.
b. The child “reads” the sentence twice.
c. I ask the child to“show me” the words — out of order — until each word has been touched twice, while the others watch. (This is Part 2 of a Montessori 3-Part Lesson.)
d. The child places the sentence in an envelope, drops it it in the Bank, takes their book and bank and leaves the table to repeat the activity alone. (Once they have finished with that sentence, in subsequent conferences, they drop the words directly into the bank and place their new sentence in the envelope. Eventually they have many words in the bottom of their bank they can add to and use to create other sentences.)
#4 Books and Banks: Advanced Conference,”What Word Is This?” After that introductory, small group conference, all individual conferences went as follows:
a. Child reads previous pages (if any) they have already worked through.
b. Child drops the words out of the envelope and onto the table, and I remind them what the sentence said.
c. Child reassembles the sentence. (Uses the book, if needed.)
d. Child reads the sentence twice, touching the words as they go.
e. I ask the child to “show me” the words, out of order, until they have touched them all twice. (At this stage, they are probably saying the sentence from the beginning to find the correct word.)
f. If this has gone well, I say, “Tell me what word this is.”(Part 3 of a Montessori 3-Part Lesson.) Or more simply, “What word is this?” If this goes well during the next 1, or 2 conferences, we put that sentence in the bottom of the bank and repeat a “#3. Simple Conference” (above) with the next sentence. If not, we return the sentence to the envelope, and if the child has already gone through some previous pages, they again read all pages they know, and the conference ends.
Each child proceeds through every sentence in the first story of the book in this same way. The time it takes to finish the entire story varies. (We’re in no hurry — the purpose is to have the child in a hard-cover book, while buying time for them to develop reading skills through the Steps and through this activity.) In the several years I used Books and Banks, only one child needed to go on to the second story in the book, and part way through that story, he was ready for trade books. All the others were able to go into children’s trade books after working through the Gingerbread Boy.
Organizing Help From Tutors
As you can see, I tried to organize the afternoon sessions to allow myself as much uninterrupted time as possible to hold individual reading conferences. Recall that one strategy was have Quiet Reading time after our lunch, so that the older children who had recess during that time, could come into our room during their free time, and a parent would come in after lunch occasionally. Their first time in, I would have them sit with me through a Book and Banks, as well as a regular reading conference — to show them what to do, which was actually quite simple.
After that, and to keep these volunteers from having to interrupt me to ask who they should work with, I made a chart showing which children I wanted to be read with that day. The names of all my emergent readers were on that chart, and I placed a clothespin beside the names of the children I’d like to have seen on that day. The helpers would come in, choose a child whose name was pinned, then move that child’s pin back down to the bottom of the chart. After school, I could see who had not been called. Then accordingly, I would place pins up beside children’s names for the next day. So again, I could keep track of things, without being interrupted.
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*Nose In A Book Time: It took a little time for my children to get used to the idea of having a Quiet Reading Time, when they would be on their own, looking only at books. So I suggest starting with a 10 minute period and then slowly lengthening it. Before they got used to the idea, some would wander around, searching for just the right book, or just talking instead of looking at books. So I began helping them find a book before setting the clock and for awhile, I kept myself free after I set the clock to watch and direct them. But before long they realized that this time was only for books, had a book in mind ahead of time, and we finally were able to have 20 minutes of near silence. It was about this time that they began calling this “Everyone’s Nose in a Book Time.” Once we reached that point, I began to use the time to hold individual reading conferences. )