S16: Blog 3: Literacy Week
As you may or may not have heard, this week is Florida’s Celebrate Literacy Week. Because of this, I have gotten to share some fun activities with my students that we usually don’t have time during the day or week to do. On Monday, when I am in class all day, my students participated in “Popcorn Day” where they did both reading and math activities about popcorn. They even got to enjoy some as a snack.
On Tuesday, I stuck with the popcorn theme of the previous day for that day’s special literacy activity. We did a Readers’ Theatre story called “Pop, Poppity, Pop!” Reader’s Theatre is when students are given a script version of a story to read aloud. They do not use any props, costumes, etc. The focus in Readers’ Theatre is fluency. Cunningham and Allington (2015) define fluency as “the ability to read most words in context quickly and accurately and with appropriate expression.” (pg. 46) What I always say to my students is that I don’t want them to sound like robots when they are reading.
First, I read the script aloud to my students with the help of our classroom volunteer. We were modelling fluent reading. I read with almost exaggerated expression so that my students could see how the story should be read. I made sure that my voice went up when sentences ended with question marks and that I took a loud and excited tone when there were exclamation points. Then, because my students sit in groups anyway, I had them work in their groups to practice reading the script. My CT and I circulated from group to group to listen to the students and I joined in with a few group performances when I was asked. Finally, we performed the play as a class through choral reading. Choral reading is when all of the students and the teacher are reading together at the same time. It is another way to promote fluency, according to Cunningham and Allington (2015).
My students enjoyed the activity. My CT and I made the observation that ALL of the students were engaged with the activity, which tends to happen only on rare occasions. Because of this, I hope to be able to find ways to make time to implement another Readers’ Theatre activity soon. This activity was also useful to me as a teacher because I was able to identify students who are struggling with their fluency, which will allow me to plan some small-group instruction that will focus on that skill.
On Wednesday, I did a read-aloud of The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt. This is a sequel to a book called The Day the Crayons Quit that I had read to my students earlier in the year and that they had loved. Wednesday’s theme was all about social media and literacy so after we had finished reading the story, we, as a class, wrote a book review on “Facebook.” I explained to my students how social media sites like Facebook can be a great way to get in touch with authors of books you have read. I also told them that by putting a book review on a social media site you can tell other people if you liked the book or not and if you think they should read it. On chart paper I drew a box to symbolize the Facebook website and drew features of Facebook, such as a “like” button and a profile picture while explaining to my students what they were.
Then, we had a class discussions about the things that we wanted to put in our book review that we were writing for Mr. Daywalt. My students all told me their favorite parts of the book and we voted as a class which one we wanted to include. I also had them talk about questions they would like to ask the author. The most popular question was whether or not he was going to write another book. I then wrote out our review on the chart paper and we hung it out in the hallway to share with the rest of the school.
I loved this activity for several reasons. One reason is because I love any opportunity to do a read-aloud with my students. Cunningham and Allington (2015) say that “teacher read-alouds have been shown to be one of the major motivators for children’s desire to read.” (pg. 14) I hope that by reading aloud to my students I am turning them into lifelong lovers of books and reading. Another reason I liked this activity was because of the social media aspect. My students are growing up in a world dominated by social media. I think it is important that they learn it can be used for fun and academic purposes, as opposed to how it is often use to spread gossip and drama. Also, I think this is a really clever way to bring “technology” into a low-tech classroom like mine is. This activity is something my CT and I plan to incorporate more often as a reading response.
I have loved celebrating Literacy Week with my students and I cannot wait to do it again next year!
Addresses FEAPS 3 e and g
References
Cunningham, P., & Allington, R. (2015). Classrooms That Work: They Can All Read and Write (6th ed.). New York, New York: Pearson.
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