Top 100

Doing some research for my online class and stumbled on these two awesome resources I thought I'd share.  Check out the Top 100 Fiction Books Read and Top 100 Nonfiction Books Read by American students. 

What I love most is that they're sorted by text complexity/grade level.  Nice to have when planning new CCSS curriculum.  At least it's something to make this overwhelming task a little easier. 

Any of your favorites make the list?

Classroom Tour pt 7- Reading Rocks

Just by walking into my room all who enter know I teach reading...and love doing so!  There are lots of visuals and incentives to encourage an authentic community of readers.

I created this bulletin board using a projector to trace an iTunes logo.  I even stapled on old headphones for a 3D effect.  The students helped finish it up by creating book recommendations.

I also have a board for less lengthy recommendations above my library.

 

And here's a snaphot of my library with my checkout system.  I used old wood boards and recovered them with fabric and ribbon.  I used a staple gun and labels to make a "pocket" for each student.  Them my librarian or I can tell who has books checked out.  It's worked pretty well and reduced the number of lost books.

 

One last part of the tour...I've been using these incentive posters to keep track of our "Genre Reading Requirements."  If you've read with Donalyn Miller's amazing The Book Whisperer you're familiar with her 40-book challenge to increase reading stamina and volume.  (If you're not familiar, read it now.  Seriously.)  We have a similar challenge with 25 books of various genres.

 

I'm even on the poster (and being beat by most of my students!).  But I like encouraging them by talking about my own reading life and struggles with keeping my volume of reading up.

Library Leveling

During this past week's professional development, the subject of our classroom libraries came up several times. These libraries are an essential aspect of the reading workshop classroom.

I take a great deal of pride in my own library. I often tell my students that my book are like my children, and I expect them to treat my books with appropriate care. They usually take this charge quite seriously.

My library is voluminous and fairly quality in terms of books students want to read, but of course, it can always get better. For one, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I am working on incorporating more nonfiction.

Friday I started tackling the task of leveling my books. This does not, as one of my friends asked, mean that I stood there with a carpenter level to perfectly align my texts. Rather, through lots of googling, I'm attempting to research and assign a Fountas and Pinnell guided reading level to each of my books. I chose F & P over Lexile and DRA because frankly it's the one that makes the most sense to me. (Click here for a basic equivalency chart).

Wow, is this a big project!  I'm estimating I got through a third to half of my books in a little over four hours.  I really couldn't find any source of a comprehensive database, so for each book I ended up googling the title and "guided reading level."  Is there a better way to do this that someone can share?!

I'm pretty satisfied with the start I have so far.  I may just leave it at that percentage and see if I can have a former student help me with doing more at some point. 

One point that our trainer explained was that students should be able to access your library in multiple ways.  Meaning that the whole thing shouldn't be sorted by author, genre, or level.  I like that this de-emphasizes levels.  I don't ever want my students to think that they are a letter or number, rather than a real reader.  We do a lot of talk about finding "just right books," and level or Lexile is not always the best way to decide.  A motivated reader may be able to read beyond his or her skill if it's a particularly engaging text and vis versa.  This is just one more way for my kiddos to access great books and maybe try one they may not have before.  I'll let you know how it goes!

The middle and top section are sorted by author. (I love these green bins...thank you, Deals!) See the little colored dot in the upper right hand corner of the books?  That's where I'm adding the guided reading level.

These still need pretty labels, but this is the beginning of the books organized by guided reading level.  You can also see the pink bins. These are two of the most popular among students.  One is "Liked the movie?  You'll love the book!"  and one is "Miss S recommends" (I rotate books into that bin often).

Some favorite authors!