Reading by Children:Independent Reading and Writing and Literature Circles

Independent Reading

Preparing for independent reading a teacher or parent should understand the children's literacy personalities and evaluate the classroom library.Independent reading starts with a child being read to, they take what they know from watching someone read aloud to them into their own reading. everything from, speed, acknowledging new vocabulary, the emotion they read with and what they retain. For all parents out there remember that independent reading starts with reading aloud to your child.

Understanding a child's literacy personality can come from:

• observations of students during read/write aloud
•  shared reading and writing
• guided reading 
•  one on one conferences 
• Reading response journals

When one uses different ways to evaluate a child to find insight into what catches their eye and they will enjoy the most, it is important to remember everyone has different thoughts and ideas into choosing what they want to read. Not all students literacy personalities can be found through one way either, several tactics may have to be executed. Getting to know a student, along with their likes and dislikes are crucial for a teacher, for it becomes how a student learns best and their process of picking what to read. While not all children can deiced what to read on their own, that is where the parent or teacher comes into play to help a student find a book that is best suited for them.

A Classroom Library Should Include:

•  Your personal interests
• Your professional interests
• Course objectives 
• large range of students interests, preferences, and genres 

While most teachers starting out may not have a veyr extensive classroom library, one can use the help of grants and parents to extend the classroom library. For example have each student bring one book that they fancy and are willing to donate to the classroom. If a teacher does this every year, by year two she will already have fifty new books to her class. 

Should Be Organized:

• Reading levels
• Topics
• Authors
• Genres  

Having an organized classroom is always impratn but to have the books in a classroom organized as well is very important. For if a child just goes and grabs a book off the shelf that looks good, the book may be to easy for them with no challege or too hard and bring about a very frustrated reader. As we teachers know time is crucial as well in a classroom, and when students know what type of book they want to read or a specific author, it limits the time of searching for a book when the classroom library is well organized.

Self selecting a book can be difficult especially if the child is not a very good reader. Which can create a real challenge if they go to library without you, or are picking out a book with their parent. There are two methods educators use to help children pick out a book. They are called the Goldilock method and the five-finger method.

 

• To Hard: A book you would like to read, but you do not have strategies for figuring out unfamiliar words and/or unfamiliar concepts 
• Just Right: A book you are interested in and you have strategies to figure out most unfamiliar word and/or unfamiliar concepts.
• Too Easy: Books you like to read for fun books you've read before.

Top Ten Read Alounds: Reading by Children:Independent Reading and Writing and Literature Circles 

1. Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair by Patricia Polacco (1996, Philomel) 
2. Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton (2006, Delecorte) 
3. Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge ( 2006, HarperCollins) 
4. The House of Wisdom by Florence Parry Heide and J. Heide Gilliland (1999, Dorling Kindersley)
5. The Library Card by Jeff Spinelli (1997, Scholastic)
6. Please Bury Me in the Library by J.Patrick Lewis (2005, Gulliver)
7. Read and Rise by Sandra Pinkey (2006, Cartwheel Books)
8. Richard Wright and the Library Card by William Miller (1997, Lee &Low) 
9. Shelf Life:Stories by the Book by Gary Paulsen (2003, Simon & Schuster)
10. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo (2003, Candlewick)