In the first reading unit of the year, students have learned about themselves as readers. We started the year learning about how to set ourselves up for success as readers and how to track our reading to learn more about our habits. Then students learned ways to deepen our understanding of a story, such as:
- Giving ourselves a comprehension check as we read
- Predicting using what has happened so far, what we know about how stories go, and what we know about the characters
- Looking for clues that an author is asking us to envision or collect information
- Retelling the big parts of the story, skipping over the smaller parts
As we finish the unit, students are working on strategies to build our reading grit, particularly when they come to harder words in the text. Using context clues and knowledge of figurative language are two big tools we have begun practicing.
Ask your student about his or her reading goals. How are they working to grow their grit as a reader? What will help them to build their reading lives?
