The strongest readers read more than 20 books a school year and 40 minutes a day. My kids don't have books at home so we have literature circles grouped by reading level where 4 kids read a book together every 3 weeks. We have the curriculum but we need books! Please help us get the missing books.
My sixth graders have big dreams.
Sadly they face big challenges in high poverty, gang-ridden neighborhoods. 100% of our students qualify for free lunch, most are from single parent households, and it is not even safe for them to walk 2 miles to the public library. Still give them a good story and they love to read! Some read at 3rd grade level while others read at 7th grade or above! Grouped with like level readers and with good books they flourish. But this is the first year we have 6th grade at our school and we don't have the books for literature circles.
My Project
Our goal for sixth grade is for all students to grow 1.5 to 2 years in reading and for every student to be on grade level by the end of the year. The key to reaching the goal is that students will read a book every three weeks in class in literature circles in addition to a class novel we'll read at home. The literature circles allow students to read together, discuss with their peers, and then write a report and give a presentation on their book. This engagement with literature gets students comfortable with reading and writing. We only have full sets of 5 of the 20 leveled books for our literature circle curriculum. We need the rest to truly let our kids shine. Once literature circles get kids interested in reading we already have a growing class library (with 1 copy each of 150 titles) to get kids reading even more. These books not only advance our curriculum but will help turn our kids into life long readers so that they will be ready for middle school when they leave our class.
Combined with the novels we are reading as a whole class the literature circle group reading gets kids reading 50 minutes a day; 20 in class and 30 at home.
This strong reading practice will allow them to catch up with their more affluent peers, be prepared for middle school and high school, and the broad variety of titles makes sure each child can move up from his or her starting reading level at a manageable pace while finding books that interest them and motivate them to read. It's essential!
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