I am very excited to introduce the students to their reading group's stories! The following are the novels we will be working on this first semester. Ask your child which book they will be reading and have discussions about the topics and themes in the books to help them build their background knowledge!
Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes As the waters rise, will hope survive? The main characters is named Lanesha. She lives in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. Possible Parent Discussions: Hurricane Katrina, Ninth Ward, New Orleans Culture
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse A young girl living during the Great Depression tells a tale in poetry about her life and experiences during this difficult time. Possible Parent Discussions: The Great Depression, Black Tuesday, economy
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli He wasn't born with the name Maniac Magee. His real name is Jeffrey Lionel Magee, but when his parents died and his life changed, so did his name. Possible Parent Discussions: Homelessness, Foster Care, Racial Discrimination
Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix Luke has never been to school. He's never had a birthday party, or gone to a friends house for an overnight. In fact, Luke has never had a friend. Possible Parent Discussions: Growing Population Rates, Defying Government Policy, Dystopia
Second Quarter Guided Reading Titles
Sounder by William H. Armstrong
The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
Uglies by Scott Westerfield
Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikelson
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
THIRD QUARTER GUIDED READING NOVELS
Great Escapes of WWII by George Sullivan
The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
Behind the Bedroom Wall by Laura E. Williams
Survivors True Stories of Children in the Holocaust by Allan Zullo and Mara Bovsun
A Boy at War Series by Harry Mazer
*Homework will be posted on Hawks Homework!
Ready, Set, Go.... Here we are the beginning of the year already! I am so excited to get to know all of you! We are going to read some novels that I think you will all really enjoy! Here is how 6th grade reading classes will be set up.
Reading Workshop: Minilesson: The class period will start out with a mini lesson by the teacher to model what skills and standards we are working on. The mini lesson is a short 10-15 minute lesson to model for the students what their tasks for the day will look like and the expectations for the class period.
Worktime: Next, students will be either pulled to come work in either a small group with the teacher, work independently, or work with their small table group on assignments. I'll meet with small groups based on the text they are reading. These are called "guided reading groups" where students are reading text at their reading level. If you peeked into the classroom during this time you should see several different activities going on such as: a small group meeting with the teacher, students reading independently, or working on assignments, some students meeting with their guided reading group, or students working in partners. The classroom will be very busy!
Debrief: At the end of the day students will be brought back together as a whole group and we will share out any new learning or examples of our work for the day. This is about the last 5 minutes of the class period.
Now, this doesn't magically fall into place the first week of school! It's going to take a lot of practice on the routines of the workshop model. My goal in using this type of instruction is to ensure that all my students have a more individualized learning experience in my class. I want them to grow as readers, and to be able to do this they need to read text that are at their level, but also work with students from all reading levels. This is why I choose to use a model that students are both receiving support at their level, but then working at their assigned seats with students from all mixed reading levels.
Guided Reading Groups: Groups are determined by looking at data from students SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory.) For the beginning of 6th grade I used their SRI scores from the end of 5th grade as well as their TRL (text reading level) from the end of 5th grade.
*Groups will be changed accordingly after each SRI test and other assessments throughout the year (running records, or CFA (common formative assessments.) The groups are flexible and subject to be changed at any time throughout the year to ensure that the student's learning is being scaffold using the correct support!
Content Standards (Common Core State Standards) Assessed during the first and second quarters are: RL .1 -Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
RL .3- Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves towards a resolution.