In a previous article highlighting the practice of reading groups in the classroom as written about by Harvey Daniels I suggested the heart of the elementary reading program should not be basal readers or contrived reading assignments that attempt to build various skills, but rather be founded on the notion that children will be more interested in reading if they are able to read what is given them (and many children can't read the stories in a graded basal) and if they have a chance to choose what they want to read. If they are more interested they'll read with more heart and enthusiasm for understanding.
That said, a teacher cannot simply tell children in the first week of school that they'll be reading in small groups and then in week two send them on their way to do so with their own literature. The modeling process for book groups should be an intensely focused time period of several weeks, after which children are prepared to take on the big responsiblitiy of managing through the group sessions.
I begin my year with a whole group book study. To ensure that everyone is able to particpate in the discussion regardless of their level I have the book in question on CD so that various children can follow the story while listening to the story. Mr. Daniels emphasizes discussion above decoding and so if the teacher is providing a way for every child to seriously discuss the book then the goal is met. I likewise make sure that every student in the class has a copy of the book being read in the whole group forum.
Each day I guide them through the routine of first discussing the previous day's reading and then working as a class to decide how many pages we should read. "This is what you will do when you are in your small groups," I will tell them. "Listen to each other and decide as a group how many pages you'll read." i'm always emphasizing that what they are doing in the whole group is what they'll do in the smaller group once they start on their own. When we decided on pages I let them go off on their own to read and respond to the section we chose to read. How do they respond? This is where much modeling is required.
I have an entire list of response suggestions outlined for them in a book club packet that I hand out for their reading folders and each day I model a different type of response for them, making sure I show them how to date their notebooks and write up the response.
In this particular article I'll highlight the character map. To help children reflect on the central or secondary characters in the book I show them how to map it out. Hence, I write a character's name in the middle of the board and box it. I draw several lines from the central box and attach each line to a circle. After having read a section of the book I tell the children that to help me think more about a character in the story it helps to take some notes about what I have discovered about the character's character. I tell them this response may prompt discussion among the group. What if someone in your group disagrees that a particular character is dishonest? What if another person in your group asks you to explain why you see a particular character as sneaky. To put together a response that evokes rich discussion is partially the goal in writing a reading response. Of course, in the modeling I'll ask children to help fill in the circles based on how they see a particular character, which keeps them all involved and entices discussion related to the contributions.
One of the other things I'm always reminding the children is that in book study we are reading for enjoyment, yes, but we also are reading for discussion. It is similar to DEAR time because it is independent, but it should involve much more thoughtful reflection. Children need to know that they read for different purposes so that they can separate silent sustained reading from the independent reading done as a member of a book study or in their bed at night.
