Reading and Writing Informational Text

When my announcement that we were going to be focusing on Nonfiction/Informational Text in our reading and writing these next several weeks, was met with some loud groans, I have to admit I might have smiled to myself and been secretly thrilled with the challenge of turning my third graders into lovers of all things nonfiction. 

*Disclaimer: I will most undoubtably interchange the words informational text and nonfiction ALL. THE. TIME. but I think you all know what I mean! ;)

I had only lugged 40+ books to school on Tuesday to help introduce my kiddos to the wonderful world of nonfiction. I had spent 3+ hours planning out my reading and writing units over break so that I know exactly where we are headed these next 6-7 weeks and I am very excited. As I sat planning I was very thankful for the freedom I have in planning these units and for the depth I can go into with third graders. I have always loved teaching writing, but its always been a struggle. I have to say that teaching the 6 traits has been one of the best things to help me grow as a writing teacher. I wish I had moved through them with my 1st graders before. There is so much freedom within the 6 traits, but it has been the structure I have needed to help my kids move ahead as writers! 

We started out on a text feature scavenger hunt. This served as a great pre-assessment for me to see what the kids knew about nonfiction. They each had their own book and I called out 6 text features we were going to be covering in our iBooks that day, one at a time, and we searched for them in the book we had. After we found them we talked about the purpose of each text feature. The more the kids browsed the books the more interested they became in the books they held in their hands. Before break I had asked them to write down some topics they wanted to learn more about. So all the books I chose out of the library were ones I knew they would be interested in! ;)

When we settled down later that morning for independent reading, I introduced my kiddos to their bag of books. I had missed using bags of books (read more about them here) and with the direction we were moving in with this unit, I knew it we needed to start using them again. For the first time they chose 3 books and I added in some post it notes for later one when we start recording more of our thinking. Most kids had one or two nonfiction books in their bags. 

I love Independent Reading. These kids just get it.

What I loved the most about Tuesday was noticing that the kids automatically sat next to other kids that were reading on the same topic. The book talk I heard was fabulous! They would whisper new things they learned to each other. Throughout several conferences I noticed that a couple of the kids were doing a first read of the captions and other text features. We discussed that later on too that we don't have to read all of the text, which can be the nice thing about nonfiction! 

I am so excited for where we will go in the next couple weeks. Be sure to check back weekly for more updates! 

2015 Focus: Book Talk!

Last week we started building book talk into our independent reading time! 

To get started, my literacy coach and I did a mini lesson together. We modeled what good book talk looked like and what not so great book talk looked like. The kids shared the things they noticed, what we were talking about, how we were talking etc. Then they got started! Our actual independent reading time was pretty short the first day. They were definitely enjoying the chance to get up and chat. So we met back together and discussed the good things I noticed and heard when they were getting together.

Each day we discuss the procedures. Things like: be sure to spend some time reading first, go to someone near to you, tell them you want to share some thing about your book, share, walk back. 

Can you tell some of the things we have been struggling with? ;)

And honestly, its mostly for this one sweet boy who takes tiny steps over to a friend, hides behind a book while he mumbles something and then slowly walks back. It is so precious. He wants to share but is almost too shy to do it! 

Day 3 we ended up making an anchor chart with some book talk starter sentences.

We had to talk about the fact that we are not getting together to read the page, but share something interesting, or something they learned. The sentence starters have helped with that some! 

There was lots of chatting the first week, because it was a novelty, but the kids quickly settled back into the routine. I of course have to remind one or two kids to get back to reading, but for the most part they have figured it out. Some share often, others don't. Some kids have their "go to" chat partner, while others like to visit 2-3 other people. Its interesting to see who they decide to talk with. I have been able to start conferencing again, which is nice. I spend a good week just wandering around and monitoring. 

So now it is on to my other goal of gathering good data in my conferences for our strategy groups! It's starting to come together now that mid year testing is over, but it has a ways to go! 

Another aspect that I have finally introduced is using post it notes to start recording our thinking. We did it whole group in our reading mini lesson the other day when we were practicing asking questions during a story. 

I want to do it a couple more times together before I let them take it to their independent reading time. I just loved the questions they asked with the book Hondo and Fabian, and then our follow up discussion the next day was so interesting and we searched for clues in the text and pictures! (and we ended up doing a lot of inferring!)

If you want to catch up on my Independent reading focus check the label 2015 focus for the old posts! :)