“Do we have to stop DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time now? How about ten more minutes?” Everyday after recess for about 20 minutes, my fifth grade students come back eager to begin DEAR time. It’s sometimes a struggle (worse than pulling teeth) to have my students stop reading so I can move to the next subject. I know, a teacher having her students stop reading sounds real horrible. And then after lunchtime, they are eager for me to read aloud a book to them. I’m constantly asked to read one more chapter, just one more chapter. I’m very fortunate to have a class that’s excited about reading.
I’m a fifth grade teacher at an elementary school. Many of my students are second language learners, and speak another language at home. I’m continually instilling in them the desire to read with a passion not as a chore and to appreciate the numerous adventures a book has to offer. I have one student who wants to be a chef, so all he reads are books on cooking, food or biographies on chefs.
I want to maintain and continue the momentum that my students have for reading by creating small book club/literature groups amongst my students. Just like mainstream, I want to read the same book with small groups of students and then discuss the book after several chapters. This would allow guided reading to be more intimate and at the same time I’m able to monitor each student’s reading ability and comprehension. And by having various small groups, I can already imagine my students talking to one another about the book they are reading, and sparking the interest to the other students. But in the end, every group would have read every book.
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