Invisible Reading Strategy

Invisible ink will hook any reluctant writer! Teach like a pirate and teach your students to record their thoughts without stress or judgment. My students are in the midst of the Lucy Calkins unit Navigating Nonfiction. I amped up the lesson about mentally recording main idea and details on your hand by calling it The Invisible Strategy!

 

 

Not only did the lesson reinforce main idea and supporting details, but I was able to extend the lesson and teach Common Core vocabulary.  Sometimes the main idea isn't called the main idea!

Students added the graphic reminder to their reading notebooks.

 

During independent reading the students practiced using the strategy.

The Invisible Strategy was a memorable introduction to the formal reading strategy of Boxes and Bullets and helped them grasp it more easily.

 

 

The students' understanding of main idea transformed from invisible to concrete!

4-Star Jottings

I saw an anchor chart similar to this on Pinterest. My students really liked the 4-star rating system. We had done a lesson on jottings recently where they learned about making juicy jottings. I had used an analogy of eating dinner and asked them if they would rather eat a thin, tiny piece of pizza with no toppings or a thick one dripping with cheese--I also used steak, a salad, and nachos to help them relate to making better jottings.

 

One of my students was thrilled to show me some of her jottings she had put in her reading notebook after finishing a book when I conferenced with her. She put stars at the bottom of each one to show me that she tried to make better jottings this time. I told her that good readers use the anchor charts to help improve their jottings. She asked me to take a picture of them! She was a little off-base with some of her ratings, but we talked about that during our conference.

Poetry Jottings and Comprehension

I struggle between what I know are TRUE balanced literacy practices and what is required by my state to measure comprehension with common assessments and standardized testing. So I try my best to meld the two together.

In December my students were practicing inferencing as they read a poem about a cat laying under a Christmas tree and looking up at the ornaments. Instead of just having them read the poem and answer the questions on the back, I had them "turn and talk" and "stop and sketch." Then they had to make a jotting on a sticky note about the poem. Some students made predictions and others explained having empathy for the cat because they have laid under a tree outside and looked up.

After reading the jottings, I printed off three main comments that the students' responses fit into. I print my conference notes on address labels so I can stick one in the student's Reading Notebook and another in my Conference Notebook.

Then I called the students back and used the printed comments to give students compliments and things to work on to improve.

                          

                          

                           

 

Reading Notebooks

I've been wanting to use Reading Notebooks for years, but I wasn't able to figure out how to organize them or what to include in them.  I wanted a way to keep my students' responses in one place, but I wasn't for certain how to use Reading Notebooks for an exact purpose. 

This summer I received training in the Balanced Literacy framework from Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. I spent time on Pinterest and reading other teaching blogs. I compiled my ideas and combined them all together into a template that meets my teaching needs. This is the Reading Notebook I have designed for my students to use.  They actively use it and so far so good!

 

I organized it into 3 sections: Independent, Read Aloud, Minilesson. Students put their jottings on sticky notes in the Independent section after they finish a book. They put the book title at the top of the page and then the jottings underneath. During Read Alouds students can stop and jot, stop and sketch, make predictions, and record other responses. In the minilesson section I can have students draw Thinking Maps to display information about the book, they can glue templates for activities, or they can write responses or questions.

 

This library pocket is on the inside back over. Partners can write notes to each other about their books. They can also put questions in there. I also use this pocket as a way to differentiate between the two literacy blocks that I teach.  My inclusion block does not have this pocket in their Reading Notebooks.

 

This pocket is on the inside front cover.  If students see a book they want to read but someone else has it they can write it down and put it in the pocket. The student's reading level is also written on the pocket.

 

As the culminating lesson of Unit 1 "Building a Reading Life" in Lucy Calkins' Reading Workshop, students decorated their Reading Notebooks to reflect their new reading lives. They used clip art, photos from home, and old Scholastic book order forms!

 

They listed their favorite book topics.

 

 

fluency tips

 

student self-assessment and goals foldable in the independent section of the notebook

 

 

empathy and envision reminders in the minilesson section

 

high five retelling in the minilesson section

 

envisioning jotting in the read aloud section

 

well, the spelling needs work, but these are jottings in the minilesson section after learning how to revise a mental movie after reflecting on characters' actions

 

 

I used a story wheel during one of my read aloud lessons and afterwards these students sat in front of the anchor chart and recorded one of their own in the Reading Notebooks in the read aloud section. I got the story wheel lesson from the Better Lesson website (click here to visit this extremely resourceful site).

 

 

During our character study students added a list of character traits to the minilesson section.  They also added the template for a biopoem--a more rigorous way of describing a character.

 

I will add more details and photos from our Reading Notebooks as the year progresses.

 

How Do I Use All of These Jottings to Help My Students?

Sticky notes are all over my classroom!  I thought I would not be able to manage all of these yellow pieces of paper.  Instead I have embraced them and have even started using them myself!  I have taught my students how to jot, how to put the sticky notes in their Reading Notebook after they finish the book.  I created a Parking Lot for them to display sticky notes that I want to read and assess. 

 

Then I had to devise a way for me to use these parked sticky notes for a teaching purpose.  So I read through the jottings and put them into three categories: on target, on their way, not on target.  I did this for each of my two literacy blocks.

 

on target

on his way

on his way

off target--copied text from book

off target--no details

 

my notebook where I keep track of my groups

 



I wrote a tip for each group to help them improve their jottings.  I printed the tips on address labels.  I put an address label in my conferencing notes for each child and gave each child a sticker to put in his/her Reading Notebook. I now have a record of what I have told each child to work on and they have a copy of the tip that I gave him/her.

 

my conferencing notebook

 

 

student Reading Notebook

 

 

After Word Work lessons, I will have students respond on sticky notes.  Then I can analyze their spelling and put them into groups to give more directed skill lessons.