Real Readers!

I cannot believe that we've already been in school for 6 weeks!  The time has flown!  We have been busy setting up routines, reviewing material and learning a lot of new things.  The thing that I am most impressed with however, is that my kiddos are already starting to become "Real Readers"!  The second week of school I taught an excellent lesson cycle on Metacognition based on Tammy McGregor's book Comprehension Connections:  Bridges to Strategic Reading. 

I also added additional lessons inspired by  Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis.  

My students recognized the difference between "fake" reading and "real" reading so fast!  The anchor chart we created (from Comprehension Connections) has been a helpful reminder but being a "Real Reader" has stuck with most of my kids!  In order to assess their level of metacognition I had the students read a Reading A-Z book that was at their level and write down their thoughts on Post-It notes and then stick it on the page where they had that thought. They were encouraged to write down any and all thoughts that had to do with their book.  They wrote down a ton!  (I think this was because they just love being able to use Post-It's!! :) 

But it was a great way to see their thought process and the different levels of thinking happening in the classroom.  I'm hoping to fit this assessment in every quarter in order to see how they change over the course of the year.  If you'd like to try this out, I've attached the rubric I used which can be altered to fit your class.  Click here to download it!