I discovered from a Parkston colleague that Dr. Schopp, South Dakota's Secretary of Education, spoke to the Parkston community about Common Core back in November. If you still have questions about Common Core State Standards, I highly encourage you watch Dr. Schopp's presentation. Just click here. You will need to forward the presentation about 15 minutes or so before she begins.
We will be starting book clubs on Tuesday, Jan. 21 - groups of students will be reading the same books and then discussing their books for the next four weeks. I've chosen three historical fiction titles, and students picked their top three choices from those: When Zachary Beaver Came to Town (which is set in a small Texas town during the Vietnam War), Code Talker (which is based on the Navajo Code Talkers of WWII), and Elephant Run (which is set in on a teak plantation in Burma during WWII).
Typically, my students have been reading a good deal of realistic fiction, science fiction, mystery, and action; however, they seem less likely to pick up historical fiction, so I decided our book clubs would be the perfect time to explore out a different genre. Limiting students to three titles was done on purpose as in addition to face-to-face conversations, students will also be holding cross-section conversations via blogs so that they gain perspectives from students reading the same books in my other classes. Limiting titles to three makes the blog management a little more manageable. Thus, for the next several weeks, students will still have independent reading time. Yet, they will more than likely be focusing on their literature circle title during that time. Some students may finish their book club reading sections by reading at school and then read another book at home; whereas, others may need to continue to read their book club book at home. Whatever the case, keep asking your child what he/she is reading and how it's going for him/her. Monday marks the start of a new semester at Mitchell Middle School. It also is the day that students will be turning in their December reading logs. Prior to Christmas break, I had one request of my students: that they continue to meet their weekly reading goals during the two-week hiatus from school. Some students asked why they needed to keep reading, but most understood my request. A two-week break from school without any reading whatsoever could potentially undo what we've been trying to accomplish all of first semester: establish the habit of reading outside of school. I compared not reading for two weeks to an athlete abandoning his training schedule for two weeks for pizza binges and vegging out on the couch. A reader, like an athlete, would regress.
Before students and I left for break, we made sure to have a book to take home to read - one students had already been reading or a new one (or two, in case they finished the first one). When students return on Monday, I will check their reading logs to make sure that during the two weeks they were gone, they still met their weekly reading goals (these are based on students' individual reading rates, which vary according to reading ability and the complexity of the text students have chosen to read). I admit that I'm a bit apprehensive that some students will have neglected their reading over Christmas break, but I also suspect that many students will surprise me with their page totals. (It was a pretty cold break, so I'm hoping students found time to curl up with a good book.) As you may know, there's plenty of research out there to support the importance of kids' reading at home. I came across this Huffington Post article recently: A Parent's Part in Motivating Independent Reading. The article some great tips for establishing independent reading time in the home. As the article states, "Independent reading is reading for the love of reading," and during many instances during first semester, students determined their reading choices - by genre, author, topic, text complexity; developed and refined their reading tastes; talked and wrote about what they were reading; and did a whole lot of reading period. Thus, at the start of this new semester, my humble request to you, parents, is to continue to cultivate your child's reading habit at home each and every evening. We know that our kids will only get busier as they get older, so establishing a strong reading "stamina" now is absolutely crucial not only to their academic success in the future but also to developing a life-long love of reading. |