Ms. Natasha Theodora

Literacy Instruction

All things literacy!

Reader's Workshop

Why Do We Log Our Reading Anyway?

Why Do We Log Our Reading Anyway?

Because I said so! -Not the best answer. Seriously. Why do we do it?

This has been the question that I always dreaded as a teacher. Why in the world were we logging our reading? How was this piece of paper helpful at all? In my classroom it wasn’t. It wasn’t helpful because I wasn’t using it for anything. Kids were writing down that they read. I was checking to make sure they read at home (even though it was the same 12 kids that always read and the same 6 that never read). We were logging our reading during school and collecting so much data but WHY? I considered telling students to just stop their logging but then I figured there had to be a reason why we have students log their reading. Why would Lucy Calkins want kids to log their reading? There had to be a reason. Now I don’t know if this is the reason Lucy Calkins would give (let’s be real she is MUCH more knowledgable then I am) but I have come up with a reason and logging has changed in my classroom for the better!

Logging our reading gives us so much insight to the work of readers. This year I set up a little inquiry project for myself to figure out why logging student reading is helpful.  I began by logging my own reading. It was a journey that wasn’t always pretty but it was helpful. I noticed so much about myself as a reader. I noticed that I have a really hard time getting into books and I read slowly in small chunks of time. I noticed that I read more pages at home and less pages at school (I wonder why!). I noticed that at times I rush through parts of stories and then have to go back and reread because I wasn’t paying attention to what I was reading. I have the same problems my students have!

At the start of the school year I started logging the books we read for read aloud. Read aloud is a time to model skills for students that you want them to do on their own. Check out my post about Read Aloud Essentials to learn more about read aloud. If I wanted students to log their reading shouldn’t I be logging the books we read during that time? The answer is yes!  I was almost embarrassed when I realized how obvious this was. If you aren’t modeling it- you aren’t teaching it!

So we started to log our reading as a class. On Thursdays (because we had more time for read aloud that day) we started to look at our read aloud log. I would stick it under the document camera and ask, “What do you notice?” Then I would wait. I would stare at the screen and nod saying “Oh interesting!” Students would look closer. I would say, “Wow if you haven’t looked yet, look at the minutes” or “Oh my, look at the number of pages” directing student attention to areas I wanted to talk about. Then I would have them turn and talk with their reading partner. What do you notice?

After observations we started to have conversations where students could share what they noticed and things we could work on. These were a wide range of things. Please note at the start of our school year I had a high behavior class and fights would break out every few hours (literally) so our class time was really chopped up. Read aloud was also right after recess so there was a lot of drama but these were their real observations…

  • Some days we only read for 5 minutes when we have 20 minutes of reading time (due to behaviors)
  • Some days we read really fast and we read more than a page a minute.
  • Some days we read really slow and read way less than a page per minute.
  • One day we didn’t get to have read aloud. (This was due to student behavior. Our class had to evacuate and I was suddenly holding read aloud in a conference room and I had ran out of the room without the book! So I just decided we would sit in a circle and tell stories) Why did this happen? Could it have been prevented? Kids who were involved in the problems noticed. One of them apologized to the class for starting the fight and started to realize his behavior was hurting our class!

Slowly behavior during read aloud started to change. We were able to read without interruptions and read aloud became the saving grace of my classroom! A few months later when we analyzed our reading log we noticed some different things. This time I decided to jot down our noticing on a T-chart. Trying out a little tool for looking critically at ourselves as readers.

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First we jotted down everything that we noticed about our reading log. These are also things that students might notice in their own reading log.

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Then we looked at those two behaviors. We noticed that two were probably connected. We were reading really fast and we weren’t stopping and jotting. After that realization we knew we could set a goal.

Our goal was to stop and jot as we read. During my read aloud time I started modeling stop and jots. Guess what skill my students weren’t doing as they read- stop and jots! We learned so much from analyzing our reading log. After this I didn’t push students to analyze their own reading log- the kids wanted to. Could we do this with our reading partners? Yes! We absolutely could. Making a T-chart is so easy for students that some of them had a conference with their reading partner during reading that day to determine what they could work on based on our own analysis.

What are some things you could notice in a student reading log? Once we notice we come up with a possible reason this is happening. Maybe…

  • Student are starting a million books and they aren’t finishing anything. (We highlight books on our reading log when we finish and put a red dot by books we are abandoning.) Maybe they are choosing books that are too hard. Maybe they are choosing books they aren’t interested in. Maybe they don’t understand how to sit down with a book and truly engage.
  • Students are not reading at home. Research shows that reading 20 minutes at home each night helps students become better readers. Reading at home is the only homework I assign because I believe it is that important. Maybe they aren’t reading at home because they aren’t bringing books home. Maybe they aren’t reading at home because they have to babysit their siblings. Maybe they aren’t reading at home because they are playing video games.
  • Students are flying through books. Maybe they are way too easy. Maybe they aren’t doing any thinking work as they read. There might not be any post-its or reading notebook entries. Maybe students don’t understand how to do the thinking work of a reader.
  • Students are taking forever to finish a book. Maybe this text is too difficult. Maybe they are spending too much time writing down jots and not enough time reading. Maybe decoding is difficult and it is holding them up. Maybe they are talking to their friends during reading time.
  • Students don’t even have a reading log. This happens quite frequently in my classroom. If students don’t have a reading log maybe they don’t see the point of logging their reading. Maybe they are at a level where it doesn’t make sense to log their reading. Maybe they need a different kind of log that works for their level. Maybe they just need to be told again that they need to log their reading.
  • Students are starting and finishing each book they read. Hooray! They are doing what we want to see them doing.
  • Students are reading faster than a page per minute but have stop and jots. Maybe this student is ready to switch levels because this level is getting too easy. Maybe all of their jots are surface level and their thinking needs to go deeper.
  • Students are reading at home and at school. Yippee! Let’s celebrate this. Maybe this student has parents that make sure they do their homework each night. Maybe this student was really engaged in the book they were reading and they didn’t want to put it down.

After analyzing reading logs students want to log their reading even more. Now they see the value in logging their reading. Every once in a while we will hit a slump where kids aren’t logging their reading and that is the point to show them the value once again.

Why is it so important for students to log their reading? It gives us valuable data about who students are as readers. It helps us see strengths and it helps us see weaknesses. We can see things to praise readers for on their logs. We can see what we need to teach readers based on their logs. Logging reading helps students self-reflect on their reading habits and set goals to improve as readers.

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Reader's Workshop

9 Read Aloud Essentials

9 Read Aloud Essentials

“Smart readers ask themselves very effective questions as they read to reduce their uncertainty about what they are reading; they know when they are more or less on-track.” – Marie Clay

Read Aloud is an essential part of the school day. Students get to see and hear how a fluent reader make meanings of texts and they get to try it out in a highly supportive environment. 

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Let’s gather for read aloud!

  1. At least 20 minutes of your day- Developing readers need to see a proficient reader interact with text. It needs to be a routine part of the school day and it needs to be a significant amount of time if we expect students to grow as readers. When I taught 2nd grade I would usually read a picture book a day during read aloud and a chapter from the chapter book we were reading during snack. That means that by the end of the year my students had heard AT LEAST 200 stories read aloud to them. Mem Fox says that children need to hear a thousand stories before they can learn to read and it is no different with developing readers. As a third grade teacher I often read a chapter or two in our text during read aloud as well as a picture book during snack time. Children need to continue to hear stories and watch how they should interact within texts. No child is too old for read aloud. In fact, I used read aloud frequently when teaching middle school Spanish. Read aloud can be in any subject at any grade level.
  2. Has to be planned for and prepared- Read aloud is so much more than just sitting down with your students and sharing a text. It needs to be interactive. Winging read aloud shouldn’t be an option. When planning, I like to first sit down and read the book for my own enjoyment- even if I’ve already read it many times. Then I think about what I want my students to learn from this text. It could really be anything. It usually aligns with my current reading unit and is a lesson I will be teaching the students in the next few days. It could be a strategy you notice most students have been taught but aren’t using. Once I know what I want students to learn I plan crucial moments to model interacting with the text and places for students to interact with the text. I write down the exact questions or comments I will say and place them in the book at the exact places I would ask them. I also read it aloud to myself to see how the flow goes. You might find you planned too many stops in a short amount of time or you might find that you need to work on your fluency while reading. (It happens!) After that I can read to my students prepared with a focus in mind.
  3. Are Interactive! Students should be talk, talk, talking during read aloud. When we were in school teachers shushed kids who were talking when we were reading a story, now any child should interrupt the reading to make meaning of the text. We need to teach our students to interrupt a read aloud but once we do we need to let them build meaning themselves and help them build that meaning. The more kids talk during read aloud the more you know they are understanding the text and practicing vital skills you are teaching them. Have meaningful conversations based off of what you had planned. Let students ask questions to help build their meaning. LET THEM TALK!
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    Turn and Talk! Before you have students turn and talk they need to be taught who they turn with, what they do as a listener and what they do as a speaker. Once that has been taught turn and talk becomes a simple move to use during read aloud and at other points in the day.

  4. Log Your Read Alouds!  I am always telling my students to log their reading. This is a huge struggle for me as a teacher. I am constantly asking myself if it is worth it because students don’t see value in it. This year I have really been focusing on why my students log their reading and have even started my own personal reading log. If we want students to see value in logging their reading we should log our read alouds too! This year I stared by only logging our read alouds and not having students log their reading at all.  Once the kids saw the reasons we logged our reading they were literally begging to log their own reading.
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    This is our class reading log. When we finish a log we hang it up outside our classroom door. Everyone can see what we have read and can talk to the students about different texts.

  5. Read alouds = mentor texts-  Children need to be shown the connection between reading and writing time and time again. In writing I frequently pull out old read alouds and use the authors we know as our mentor authors. Students will also begin to notice author’s craft in read aloud and point to the different ways the author wrote the words or the way the illustrator drew the pictures. When students are using a beloved book as a mentor text they begin to take on the skills the author uses much faster. When you tell them what writers do that is one thing. When you can show them what their favorite writers do and that they can do the same thing it is so empowering. 
  6. Reread! So often I know teachers will read a book once and be done with it. As a reader myself I frequently revisit old texts and reread; children should have the same opportunity. A class favorite of mine has always been The Junkyard Wonders by Patricia Polacco.  Each year I reread that story at least 10 times. Each time we reread we look through a different lens. The first time students read we often have a pretty surface level conversation with a few deep ideas sprinkled in. As we continue to reread a text students can have deeper thoughts. They already know the story now they can begin to ask big questions and really dive deep in their understanding. When I said earlier they should hear at least 200 stories, it might be the same stories over and over again.That’s ok! When we reread we also are modeling that rereading is an important skill. So often students think that if they read it once they are done. In fact, when we continue to reread we learn something new about ourselves and the world around us each time. Rereading is such an essential skill for readers.
  7. Great place to build conversational skills- During read aloud discussions students discover basic understandings about having a conversation with other people. We often talk about not speaking over someone, not raising hands, waiting for a pause or silence and then jumping in to the conversation. While all of this is happening students are beginning to understand how to communicate with others, a skill that will help them forever. Read Aloud can be a fantastic jumping off point for classroom conversations. 
  8. A time for high support modeling- I know I’ve said it a million times already in this post but it deserves its own number. If you are going to be asking your students to take on a new task in their own reading, it has to be modeled in read aloud first. Let me repeat that again! If you are going to be asking your students to take on a new task in their own reading, it has to be modeled in read aloud first. AND it has to be modeled several times. They need the opportunity to see a proficient reader try out a skill. During a read aloud you are the one with the text. You are the reader showing how to navigate a text. They are watching you and now is the time to show off skills that you want your students to be doing. Show them exactly what you want them to do. If you want kids to stop and jot and they aren’t show stop and jots during your read aloud. If you want kids to infer about characters show the exact steps you take as a reader to infer. Show them! Show them so when they get to try it on their own they already have an idea of what happens when you do it as a reader. 
  9. Go where your students lead you- After an entire blog post stressing the planning of read aloud… I have to say that we should go where our students lead us. At times I have had a phenomenal read aloud planned around noticing how characters respond to problems and then students really latch on to the theme of the story. I have a choice. Sometimes I redirect their attention to my goals and trick them into going along with what I have planned. Other times I let them latch on to theme (or whatever they are grasping) and plan to come back to the read aloud another time (maybe the next day) to engage them in the work I had planned. There are times I have to add in more turn and talks throughout a story because the room is bubbling with excitement. There are times when I eliminate a turn and talk and model it myself because I am noticing kids need more modeling this time and less talking. Remember we can plan lessons all we want HOWEVER if our lesson isn’t in the direction the kids are heading it might be best to put our lesson on the back burner and come back to it another time.

BONUS TIP!! It is also important the think back and reflect later on why the kids weren’t being led where we wanted to lead them. Did I not model things well enough? Was my wording confusing? Was I trying to model too many moves all at once? What could I do better next time? Even when I think read aloud goes really well I always can find one thing that I can tweak to make my teaching even stronger. Teaching is all about self-reflection. Make sure that you are reflecting after your read alouds to grow stronger as a teacher!

Action Steps:
Now that you have these essentials what are you going to change or add on to your read aloud? I recommend sitting down by yourself and planning a read aloud from start to finish this week. Think about what your students are working on as readers. Think about where they need to go next. How will read aloud help them get there? What specific teacher moves will you make during read aloud to help your students become stronger, more proficient readers?

 

 

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Reader's Workshop

Log Your Reading With Your Students

Log Your Reading With Your Students

At the beginning of our new unit I made a choice to log my reading just like my students have to. We were having serious problems remembering to log our reading and I didn’t think my students understood why they were doing it. We hadn’t analyzed our reading logs for a while and the purpose wasn’t obvious to them. We needed a boost and we needed it fast. 

One afternoon while sitting in my classroom thinking about the problem I had my “ah-ha moment.” The words of my old literacy coach came into my head,

“If you’re not modeling it, you’re not teaching it.”

There was my problem! I had never kept a reading log. I had never logged in and out each day like they do. I wasn’t showing them how I log my reading all the time as a reader. This was the missing piece!

As a reader in the “real world” I log my reading all the time. In fact, I have a book where I keep track of books I have read. I write down quotes I love. I rate the books I read and write why I liked or didn’t like them. I abandon books all the time only to come back to them later. I even keep track of how many pages I read. I have also recently gotten onto Goodreads to track myself as a reader.  I log my reading all the time and my students had no idea.

The next morning I made myself a book bag with a Reading Log and as my students logged in, so did I. A majority of them noticed and came to peer over my shoulder as I wrote. I didn’t say anything to them. I just let them make their own observations. After my minilesson I sent my students off to do the important work of biography readers and I sat down at my table and read for the first 5 minutes. When I finished reading I logged out, put my book and reading log in my book bag, placed it on a shelf and began conferring with readers. At night I brought my book bag home and read for 15 minutes.

Each morning my students would come in and check my reading log. They were making sure I was doing my homework! They also started to notice things about me as a reader. “Ms. Rice do you notice that you are reading too slow. I don’t think you are reading a just right book,” one of them pointed out one day after reading. They were right! I wasn’t reading fast enough. From this comment we were able to sit down and have a conversation about it. I admitted that I wasn’t reading very fast because I constantly had to reread. Biographies are a hard genre for me because I can’t stay focused. Some of them were a little confused that I was admitting a flaw of mine. It’s not every day that teachers willingly admit weaknesses to students. Some of them blurted out, “ME TOO!” They were starting to see that even adults struggle from time to time.

From this point we have been able to have honest conversations about ourselves as readers. When students start to see that even their teacher isn’t the perfect reader all the time, they are more likely to admit their own faults and work to improve upon them. There were even days when I forgot my book bag at school. I learned that it really isn’t as easy as I thought it was bringing a bookbag back and forth. We had more honest conversations where I was told I needed to “work on being more responsible.”

Students need to see their teachers and adults around them immersed in the work of readers. Adults read all the time but children rarely get a glimpse into the world of adult readers. They need to see that adults face the same struggles as children and adults aren’t always perfect readers. I challenge you to log your reading with your students. Allow them to see you struggle and abandon books. Allow them to see you forget to do your reading and even forget your reading log. Children do as you do not as you say. Show them all readers have faults and they will be more willing to expose their own and improve upon them.

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