So what's the deal with round-robin during guided reading?

Uh-oh. Am I totally opening a can of worms right now?

Round robin is a practice that is probably as American as apple pie. In case you haven't heard the term, round-robin means everyone has a copy of the text.

You choose students to take turns reading aloud. When one student finished reading aloud, maybe you stop him or her and have a teaching point or a conversation.

Then you move to the next student. Sometimes this happens during guided reading. Sometimes teachers use this as a whole-class reading strategy.

They may call on students randomly, move in a predictable pattern, or ask students to "popcorn read", where a student reads a piece, stops wherever they want, and then calls on the next student to read.

Here's the thing: research shows that round robin is not the most effective way to grow readers.

Here's why:

1. Only one student is doing the reading at any time, rather than all of your students.

2. Round-robin means that students are reading aloud, which some people like because they feel like it's good for fluency. The issue is that your students aren't the best model of fluency in the classroom. You are.

3. When one student is reading, the others might be "following along", but are they thinking, comprehending and reacting, or are they just desperately trying to keep track in case they're next? Or, if you move in a predictable pattern, they are probably counting out the paragraphs until they figure out which part is going to be theirs. Then they're practicing it in their heads, over and over. How do I know this? Because I used to do that.

4. Studies show that, when kids read in round-robin fashion, they are actually doing far less reading than by using other methods.

5. Studies also show that round-robin encourages a few bad habits: teachers interrupting to tell students what the word is when they're struggling, which results in students interrupting other students to tell them words they are having trouble with.

6. Round-robin puts teachers and students in a tough spot. Do you call on the struggling reader to read aloud? If you do, you're asking them to struggle in front of everyone, which is very hard on self-esteem. If you don't, the other kids notice that you don't, and decide that student is a "bad reader". That student does, too. (They probably already feel that way, but this confirms it.)

Am I telling you you're doing it all wrong? No! But when we learn something new, we should apply that to our teaching, right? So then what do we do instead of round-robin?

Here are some of the reasons people don't want to stop using round-robin.

1. They say kids like to read aloud.

Some do. There are appropriate times for that. At other points in the day, reading with a partner means half of your students are reading, not just one. You can differentiate texts that way, too. But guided reading isn't the place for it. And not all kids enjoy it.

2. They say kids like to help each other.

Some do. Working in teams gives them lots of opportunities to help each other. But guided reading isn't the place for it.

3. They don't know any other way to do it.

But there is a way!

Here's what you do:

1. You do your normal beginning-of-lesson things. You introduce the strategy you're going to work on (which is the point of guided reading - introducing a strategy and having students practice it with your guidance). You introduce the text and background knowledge, etc.

2. You introduce their purpose for reading (I use a purpose question that will require them to respond using the strategy they're practicing. For example, if we're practicing inferences, they have to make an inference to answer the question.) If they're only reading a certain amount of pages, have them put a sticky note marked STOP on the page you want them to stop on.

3. You ask all students to start reading. You can start them at the same time in the upper grades, because they are able to read to themselves. For some groups, you can have them whisper read. Just teacher judgment, there. For primary grades, many students read aloud. If you're worried about students listening to each other, stagger start them so they start reading at different times. Start one, wait till they read a few sentences or so, start the next, wait, start the next. etc.

4. As students are reading to themselves, they're supposed to be applying their strategy somehow, whether it's decoding, comprehension, or fluency. Tap front of a student. This signals them to "turn up the volume" a little so you can "listen in" wherever they are. They don't go back to the beginning or the beginning of a paragraph or anything. They just turn up the volume. Pause them, and prompt them to apply the strategy. You may prompt them in decoding if you see there's an issue. Listen to them read again. Prompt again. Move on to a different student.

5. Listen in to each student at some point during the lesson, prompting and discussing. I take anecdotal notes in order to plan my next lesson(s).

6. As they finish reading the text (or the chunk of text), they answer the purpose question, and then go back and reread. They NEVER just sit there.

7. After everybody's "done", we have a discussion about their strategy use and the purpose question.

Then we're done, unless I prompt them to apply this strategy to their independent reading.
I know that was a lot of information, but I really hope it's helpful. Got questions? Let me know!

P.S.
For more on lesson planning, for guided reading, check out my post where I break it down!

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Beyond Dr. Seuss: Ideas for Celebrating Read Across America

Are you considering moving beyond Seuss for Read Across America? You may have come across  this article from the Conscious Kid that is moving you to try something different this year.

While many of us have celebrated this event with Seuss-themed activities and books (March 2nd is his birthday),  you can definitely celebrate the love of reading in a million ways that don't involve Seuss! After all, he is one of thousands of authors! This annual event is a great opportunity to celebrate reading with students expose them to something new in the world of literature.

If you're looking for new ideas to try out at your school, read on! You'll find tons of activities and theme suggestions to help you plan a fun schoolwide event!

#1 A Read-a-thon

When do you have time to just read? When do your kids have time to just read? The best way to grow the love of reading is to spend time reading! A read-a-thon is a fun way to encourage all-day reading. There are a few ways you can do this:

• Schedule a day of reading across your school. Everybody reads, all day in their classrooms
• Schedule guest readers throughout the day. When there's a reader, kids listen to them read. When there's not a reader, kids read on their own or with their friends.
• Guest teacher and faculty readers. Rotate teachers from one classroom to the next to share their favorite read alouds.
• Read with stuffed reading buddies. Each child can bring a stuffed animal, or the teacher can supply some, to read with!
• Read with human reading buddies! Schedule older students to read with younger students. 
• Make it into a contest: have kids keep track of their reading by # of pages or books read. Each class can have a thermometer and, at the end of every hour, you can check and see how many pages or books have been read. Color it in to keep track!
• Everybody reads. This means that, for a certain amount of time, everyone on campus will read. Principals, coaches, office staff - everybody reads in a visible place so kids can see it. You can have each person join a different class to make sure the kids know that everybody reads!

 #2 Book Battles

This would be a month- or week-long event. Choose several books and have classes read them. Have classes vote on them to determine a winner! If you do a Read-a-Thon (like suggested in #1), you can ask teachers to read the books during the day and have classes vote on them in the afternoon!

We did something similar with Dr. Seuss books a few years ago, but you could easily do this with any books you'd love kids to read! We provided each class with a tally sheet. Each book title was listed and students voted on their favorites. Then we used this data to make a bulletin board to represents which books we loved the most!

#3 Have an author study week

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of authors who your kids would love to get to know. Choose a great author and feature their books and activities around their books all week! You could also do this with a book battle (which I describe above in #2!) Here are a couple of great suggestions with books that could appeal to a range of ages.

Jacqueline Woodson writes about things that kids can relate to, while, at the same time, broadening their cultural experience and awareness. Books you could use to feature this author include The Day You Begin, The Other Side, and Each Kindness. Read about how you can use The Day You Begin here!

 Peter H. Reynolds would make an INCREDIBLE featured author for Read Across America. His books are accessible but powerful to a wide range of ages! Books by Reynolds that kids will love are The Dot, Ish, and The Word Collector. Just think of the visual arts connections you could make!

Allen Say teaches us to value our stories. Spending some time reading Allen Say books and having your kids share their stories would be an amazing way to spend the week. Books you could use to feature Allen Say include Grandfather's Journey, Tea with Milk, and The Bicycle Man.

Other fun authors could be Andrea Beaty, Kim T. Griswell, and Tad Hills.

Looking for some diverse children's authors to feature? Check out this list!

#4 Create your own theme!

You can choose an awesome theme of your own and build book experiences, crafts, and engaging days all around your theme! Here are a few ideas:

Reading Adds Color to Our Lives: feature crayon activities and books like The Day the Crayons Quit, and Red: A Crayon's Story.

Blast Off to Read Across America: use fun space-themed books like Rufus Blasts Off! and Mousetronaut, and meaningful books like Mae Among the Stars, or Hidden Figures.

Reading Changes the World: Include books about changing your world like I Walk With Vanessa, Let the Children March, and Rosa. 

Reading Helps Us Grow: Use books like The Gardener, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, and Grandpa Green.

 #5 Host a Bookmark Contest!

It's pretty easy to host a bookmark contest! We hosted one to celebrate the Grand Opening of our Reading Lounge! Here's how you do it:

1. Create a template. We contacted our school district's print shop because we planned to have the winners of the contest printed and distributed to kids. They provided us with a template they wanted us to use. If you're printing and cutting in-house, you can use whatever size you'd like!

2. Distribute the template to students who are interested in participating in the contest. Provide some basic rules about content, if it needs to be related to a theme, and what kinds of materials they used. Our theme was "Reading Helps Us Grow" because our reading lounge was garden themed. As for materials, we said pencils, colored pencils and/or crayons were fine.

3. Set a due date, a place to turn in their entries, and remind students frequently about the date.

4. Choose the winners. Once all entries are submitted, have a group of teachers get together to judge the bookmarks. Select as many winners as you'd like and have them printed, or print them on carstock and cut them out yourself!

5. Distribute the bookmarks to the kids! We had trouble choosing, so we had a winner from each grade level. Students were able to choose which bookmark they wanted from the eight different choices!

6. Feature the winners somehow: we made a bulletin board and announced it on our campus TV news. 

Found an idea you like? Pin it to remember!

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Celebrating Diversity with the Mentor Text: The Day You Begin

When you look across your classroom, what do you see? Are your students from similar backgrounds and cultures and do they have similar experiences?

Or do you see a diverse group of kids who come from different places, speak different languages, and struggle to find a place that feels like home?

Either way, as teachers, we have two responsibilities for kids when choosing books: to reflect their experiences with books that serve as mirrors, and to expose them to different lives, with books that serve as windows.

The Day You Begin is an absolutely beautiful book that can serve as both a window and a mirror, depending on your students' experiences.

If you haven't read this book yet, it's definitely a must-read.



The Day You Begin is a lyrical book that shares the experiences of students who have moved to a new, foreign place, and how they are struggling to feel like they belong. The children in the book have come from different places, and their experiences, lunches, names, and languages are different. They feel that "no one is quite like you." And it's not a good feeling.

Over time, they realize they can share themselves and find connections between themselves and other children and "the world opens itself up a little wider to make some space for you."

I dare you to read this book without crying. Seriously, I read it three times in a Barnes & Noble and got choked up each time.

The language of this book is incredibly moving and flowing, engaging the reader from the beginning and asking them to make connections to their own experiences or to people they know. It demands empathy.

And that's exactly how I would use this book. Making connections to oneself, to another text, to the world, and even to each other is a beautiful homage to the intent of this book. Here's what I would do:

1. Read the book, several times. 
Talk to students about your experiences and notice the beautiful language of the book together. Point out the way the author describes feelings and ensure that students understand the meaning. Have real conversations about the book. There's a lot to talk about, despite the short lines.

2. Student-to-Student Connections
Assign students randomly. Give each pair a Venn diagram. Have them brainstorm the things that make them similar and different. This freebie below is a good way to get them started, as it has little categories across the bottom that can help them think about how they're alike and different. Then have them use the sentence starters to write about their similarities and differences!

3. Text-to-Self Connections
Not everyone has had the experience of moving from another place to land in a new home, but most of us have felt like we don't quite belong. Encourage students to talk about a time they have felt like the characters in the book.

4. Text-to-Text Connections
Have students think back to other texts you have read with them or that they've read on their own. What makes this book similar? If you need a few ideas for titles, check out the other titles in this Celebrating Diversity Link-Up and add to your collection!

5. Text-to-World Connections
There are more than enough stories in the world that we can connect this text to. Have students think about things that are going on in the world and use those things to connect the book to the world.

You could actually do one of these things each day for a week and reread the book each day. By Friday, students will have done many different levels of thinking and this experience should follow them as they grow!

Download the Student-to-Student Connections Venn Diagram here on Google Drive!
And head to Amazon to get The Day You Begin with my affiliate link!

The Reading Crew is sharing so many great diverse books today! Click below to learn about some more diverse books to add to your library!

An InLinkz Link-up

Self-hosted Wordpress: [inlinkz_linkup id=801311 mode=1]

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Celebrating Read Across America!

If you've followed my blog for a while, you'll know that Read Across America Week is kind of a big deal around here. We celebrated last year, the year before, and the year before that. And guys, we go big or we go home.

We've covered all sorts of treats in red & blue chocolate, made truffula trees, cut out dozens of letters spelling out the word, "Seuss", and generally have a blast.

The week after Read Across America, I pretty much just want to take a 15-hour nap.

Last year was no different. We celebrated with a few different things: tasty treats, fun crafts, lots of new bulletin boards & hallway decorations, and, of course, guest readers!

Some people completely understand my crazy obsession with doing so many fun things for this week, but others might think I'm a little nuts.

Here's the real reason: It's an excuse to have some fun. I want our kids to love school, to love reading, to love books, to love to learn. Any excuse we can find to make a big to-do and share the joy of learning, books, and reading is worth it! We could do this even if there wasn't a special week for Read Across America, but it's a great, ready-made reason!


Anybody who knows me knows that any good holiday/celebration/ordinary day starts with a special mug. I saw this cute mug for sale on our last trip to Pheonix, and I had to grab it! It served me well, even if it was a bit smaller than my usual ginormous coffee mug!

So here are the fun things we did last year to make this week special!

Fun wall decor. Last year, I made the big truffula trees and my librarian & I decorated the doorway to the library! You can check out the DIY for the truffula trees here.

An easy way to add a little life and interest to the hallways is with the Seuss character silhouettes. We projected images of the characters onto black butcher paper and I traced them with a white crayon. Then we cut them out and taped them to the wall. We made them all face down towards the hallway to show all the characters heading to read!

These cute Seuss arrow signs were a lot easier to make than I expected! I printed out sheets of color with words typed in "Doctor Soos" font. Then I drew the arrow on top with a permanent marker and laminated & cut the arrows out. I used a hot glue gun to glue the arrows and the Seuss hat to a long pole and used butcher paper and Dollar Store poofs for everything else! (Poofs made by one of my teachers for a baby shower - it's good to reuse!)

Bulletin Board

For our new bulletin board, we decided to have kids vote on their favorite Seuss book! We chose nine Seuss titles and made a little table for teachers to use to collect the kids' votes. Then, we used a Seuss hat to represent each vote on our bulletin board! Surprisingly (to me, anyway), Green Eggs & Ham had SO MANY votes, the hats didn't all fit! Turns out, kids really loved making green eggs & ham in kindergarten, and so that's their favorite!

My personal vote: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, with The Lorax as a close second.

This was the little table we used to gather the votes!

Fun Snacks


Every year, we make fun snacks for the teachers. We leave them in the lounge so they can grab one during lunch! On Monday, our first treat was Barbaloot Snacks.

This comes from The Lorax when Seuss writes about "the brown barbaloots in their barbaloot suits" eating "barbaloot fruits." So we used chocolate teddy grahams and fruit flavored marshmallows to make little snacks!

 We decorate the lounge to add a little Seuss fun for our teachers!

Our Tuesday snack was Lorax cheeseballs. This was an easy one!

On Wednesday was our most complicated snack. We laid out some plates, melted some red and blue chocolate discs and drizzled them over some chocolate donuts. Then we stuck a stick in each one and used our little styrofoam-filled pots to display them! This day's theme was "Donut you love Dr. Seuss?"

Thursday wasn't too complicated. We made truffula tree snacks out of celery and carrots. It was a bit of a stretch, I guess, but teachers were ready for a healthy snack :)

On Friday, we reverted to 100% sugar. My niece made us these adorable colorful swirl cookies. We thought they looked Seuss-ish!

   

Dress Up Days

Every year, we have fun dress-up days for the kids and teachers! This year, we went with Horton Ears & blue on Monday,

 

Mustache Day for the Lorax on Tuesday,

Crazy Sock Day for Fox in Socks on Wednesday,

 

And Crazy Hat Day

It's one of my favorite school events and I love planning it! For more ideas, check out the posts I've written about the other fun stuff we've done below!

   

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Book Buddies: Growing a Love of Reading with Buddy Readers

Building a community of readers and writers should be #1 on our literacy priority list. Kids who read and write, and share those things with others, become lifelong readers, writers, and learners!

But that's easier said than done. Many of our kids, especially once they reach the upper grades, have had experiences with literacy that are less than positive.

They may have preconceived ideas about themselves such as...
* I'm not a good reader.
* I'm not a good writer.

They may have preconceived ideas about reading such as...
* Reading is boring.
* There aren't any books I like.
* Books are too hard to read.

This includes who are either struggling readers or kids who just don't enjoy reading.

I firmly believe that kids who don't enjoy reading need exposure to books they might enjoy and people who will talk about those books with them. But those kids don't know that. They think that reading is not for them.


So sometimes we have to try some pretty novel things to get them interested. One strategy I used with kids at my school was "Book Buddies." Book Buddies are buddy readers.

The goals of the Book Buddies program were many:
* To encourage the big buddies to find joy in helping someone read.
* To encourage the big buddies to have positive book experiences.
* To motivate the big buddies to be responsible at school, because they were serving as role models.
* To support the little buddies in their reading.
* To provide a positive book experience for the little buddies.


Getting Started
This is how it worked: I asked teachers to choose 5th grade students who were able to read at least at a 4th grade level, but who didn't engage in reading by choice. Then, I asked kindergarten and first grade teachers to choose students from their classes who struggled to read at or near grade level.


I paired up the big buddies with the little buddies. I trained the big buddies on how to do a read-to (like a read-aloud, but 1:1) and how to talk to their little buddies about interests and reading. I gathered them together in the school library and we decorated little canvas bags for them to keep their books in each week.

I also stapled their book buddy card to the bag. It included their name, the name of their buddy, and their buddy's room number, in case they forgot. Each big buddy also received a bookmark with directions about how to work with their little buddy.






















We gave the little buddies surveys about their interests and the big buddies and I met in the school library to choose a great book to read to them. Once a week, the big buddy would visit the little buddy's class and read with them.

They would talk to the buddy first, read the book to them, and then have the little buddy read their books (usually guided reading books they had previously read) to them.

Although the program was far from perfect, we had many successes. Little buddies loved their big buddies. They looked forward to visiting with them and were so proud to read their books to them.

Many (sadly, not all, but many) of the big buddies had a lot of pride in choosing books for their little buddies. They had to be responsible for choosing a book and practicing it, and the little buddies held them accountable for that.

Special Events
A couple times a year, we got our buddies together to celebrate their partnership in a group. At Christmas, we had a little mid-year celebration. We read a book together as a group and the buddies got to work on a fun Christmas-sy craft. 

At the end of the year, we had a Book Buddies Pancake Breakfast. Big and little buddies were able to invite their parents to celebrate their year of reading.

We made pancakes for them and watched a slide show with all of their pictures. They received a certificate and a free book (we gave out books at the slightest excuse!), and we included some goodies like pencils, erasers, and coupons for pizza and ice cream at places from the area.























With the incessant focus on testing, and the constant demands of levels and mandates from the state and district, it can be hard to find the time to do these sorts of programs. But really, isn't that what school is about? Growing readers, and growing people?

I really recommend trying a program like this out in your school to grow and support your reluctant readers, and struggling readers, too. They can really help each other grow.

This post should provide enough information to help you get started with something similar on your campus, but to make your life easier and give you a head start, I put together a resource that includes a facilitator's guide, printable, and editable materials to help your program grow! Check it out on TpT!

 

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