And With A Light Touch Chapter 10 & 11

This week I read Chapter 10 and Chapter 11 in the book And With a Light Touch.  Carol writes about the importance of reading-aloud to your class.  She has so many good points and benefits for reading to children.  We all know it is important however I know I am guilty of missing a story here and there because if I am running behind it is so easy to skip. 

However I need to make a point of making read-aloud a focus in my classroom.  Carol reads to her student first thing in the morning just to make sure she makes it a priority.  Not only do my students benefit from the rich language they hear as I read they also are exposed to the structure and organization of the stories.  Most importantly I need to spend more time talking about books and authors.  The hows and whys of stories are very important. 

“I’m teaching them to get in touch with their thoughts about what happens in stories and express their responses..”  This is the goal of every reading teacher.  Reading discussions are all about “sharing ideas, questioning text, making connections, striving to understand different perspectives”, most importantly to develop individually listening and thinking skills. 

When I choose my books for read aloud I tend to pick stories that reinforce and go along with what I am teaching that day.  I try to find the best stories and award winning literature. However I also like to pick stories that I know will motivate my students to challenge themselves as readers and writers.  

Chapter 11 is about responding to literature is a touching subject.  I don’t like to give busy work and I don’t like to give work that is going to take away from the enjoyment of reading.  With that said I know it is important to teach children how to process what they are reading. 

My favorite way to check on what the children are learning is through a letter.  Each week I ask my students to pick a book and write me a letter about the book their reading.  As the year progresses we add more to the letter.  We start out simple with title, characters and setting.  Then we move into story sequence, next personal connections and so on.  Carol also writes about how she works through the same concepts in her own way.  I liked how she wrote about making connections.  She had three types of connections:

·      Text for information

·      Text to self

·      Text to our world

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It is similar to what we have all read here on blog world.  There are great resources available for free on pinterest.  I know I have downloaded a few for my classroom.  Here are my favorite charts from pinterest as well.  I like that the second one adds media.  

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