I'm not sure if this is what I'm supposed to blog about this week, but it is on the syllabus so I am going to write about it! I am thoroughly intrigued by the idea of book club that we're using in our class. I think that the ideas on page 93-95 of our coursepack are really helpful things that we will be able to use in our classrooms eventually [some people may be able to use them for their lessons]. I think that allowing the students to pick and choose which activity they will do is an interesting approach. It allows them to choose something they enjoy to express the way they felt about something in the book, making it authentic to them. I do think, though, that it would be wise to group the students based on which activities they chose for that week, not to keep them in the same groups. I feel like this would be more effective, because they will be able to see many different perspectives from the book and not have to repeat one of the "book club" elements from the previous weeks/class periods.
Book clubs are able to facilitate comprehension in that they help students understand different aspects of the book based on the different portions that they hear from their classmates. Everyone will be giving a different perspective of the book, basically everyone did their own special "reading" of the book.
Now, I understand that book clubs are more geared toward older students, so I am having a hard time thinking about even using this idea with a kindergarten class. I am wondering what the two of you think about this, and if you would try to implement something like this with such young students/emergent readers. If you would, how would you do so?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I feel that using a book club in kindergarten would be hard, but it is not impossible. I think that the book needs to be read as a class because most kindergartners cannot read on their own, and those that can do not have great comprehension strategies yet. However if the book is read to the entire class and then the teacher splits the students up in groups, the kids could work on a worksheet together, or talk about what they read in smaller groups. The only issue with this would be how to facilitate it. It would be necessary to have an adult/staff member at each table to kind of keep the students on track and maybe give them some starter talking points. Most of the discussions in my class all lead back to the teacher. I think it would be interesting to try and have the kids in smaller groups and allow for them to respond to each other as opposed to only responding to the things that the teacher is saying and waiting for a reaction from the teacher/leader of the discussion.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that book club is a great tool for older students, and I really like your idea about letting students pick their topic for the day and putting them in groups based on that. Allowing for them to get a fresh perspective on the book every week may lead to greater gains in knowledge when the book is over.
I think it would be hard to do book club in kindergarten, but not impossible. For my class, the book would have to be read together as a group since some of the students really can't read yet. Also, I think the different tasks that can be done after each reading would have to be very simple. The tasks could be drawings, characters, predictions, retelling what happened, feelings, and many others. Even though the book and tasks are so simple, the main point is that the students are learning how to read a book and look at in depth through many different methods. Basically, even a simplified version of book club is effective because it is a method of teaching the students reading comprehension.
ReplyDelete