Reader's Notebook

Reader's Notebook

I’m trying to frontload my school year, starting off with things that I want  my kiddos to HAVE before I even get into the MEAT of lessons and teaching.  I came across this idea from Simply 2nd Resources, and modified to fit what I wanted my kids to have in their Reader’s Workshop bags.

This is the front image.  I have 4 sections…Reading Log, Writing About Reading, My Stop and Jots, and Strategies to Habits.  I made the tabs with card stock…I just glued them in, and then put tape over them.

This is the reading log section.  Teaching 1st grade, I found it hard for my kids to keep track of their reading, as they would often spend the majority of their independent reading time just writing down the title!!  I’m hoping that as I move into 2nd grade, their writing skills will have developed enough for them to at least keep track of what they’ve read.  I didn’t really see the need for kids to take ownership of this…until I actually started keeping track of my OWN reading.  I use the Goodreads app, mostly because I wanted a record of my reading, and so I can go back and revisit authors I’ve enjoyed.  I have a genre cheat sheet (I got this one from the Scholastic web site), and then I made my own reading log for the kids to use.  As the year goes on, I’m hoping they will either be able to write up their own reading logs, modifying them to include things that THEY find helpful, or I can just print out more of these.  I wanted to include the date, the title, the genre (this is mostly in prep for MAPS testing, I’ll be honest), and their personal review of the book.

The next section is “Writing About Reading.”  The bulk of our testing is written response where kids CITE THE TEXT (I still personally think this is crazy for 2nd graders, but I won’t even get on my soap box about that).  I included some evidence based terminology that I’m hoping they will use to write GOOD, QUALITY responses (this one is from a TPT document that uses Reading A-Z books to practice Mclass written responses; the entire document has been a GREAT tool if you'd like to check it out here...this link shows just one pack, but there are packs for levels F through I think S maybe??).  I think this will be good if I decide to grade some of these responses, and great to show parents!!  I might even include a rubric or example responses as the year goes on, but we’ll see…

The next section is “My Stop and Jots.”  This is obviously blank right now, but I’m hoping will house the students’ stickies.  Ideally, I’d like the kids to write the book title, possibly the author and date read, and put the stickies under that heading.  But if they can just take them out of their books before returning them to the classroom library, I’ll be a happy teacher .

The final section is “Strategies to Habits.”  I have not used this before, though it was recommended when I went to Teacher’s College training (seriously, that’s what it’s called, not just when I went to college to become a teacher…go to readingandwritingproject.org).  I wanted a place for kids to put stickies that I give them during conferencing (because I am hell bent on actually conducting good, quality reading conferences with my kids!!).  This section will be under construction for now, but I’m hoping to utilize it.

Finally, not really a section, but I wanted to include it.  Again, not my idea (taken from Simply 2nd Resources, who got it from a blog called “The Life and Times of a Third Grade Teacher”), but I really liked it! My kids were CONSTANTLY losing their stickies, so I’m hoping this makeshift folder pocket will work.  I just cut card stock into a sort-of triangle, glued it in, the put tape over it.  I don’t know how it will hold up…I’m assuming some will keep theirs’ pristine, while others will need tape replaced every week…we’ll see, I suppose.

I’m excited to use these this year!