This summer I am working on a program for next school year that will be a genre challenge. Our students (k-5) will be challenged to read a book from a different genre each month. I am trying to come up with suggested reading for k-2 and for 3-5. They don't have to choose from the list, but it will help those who are not sure what they should read. I am, however struggling with ideas for books and it is taking me a long time to search internet lists, etc. So, I need your help! Here is my genre listing: history, poetry, mystery, science fiction, adventure, fantasy, biography, animal stories, and humor. If you have a favorite picture book or chapter book that you could suggest for any of these genres, please let me know! I would really appreciate your help. If I am not in the right place for this message, please direct me to the right place! Thanks!
I love the idea about book scouts. I'll talk to the teachers in 3-5 about this. One of the problems we had last year was the fact that the kids didn't want to read different genres. Our state assessment next year will be totally different. We are going to have to expose the kids to different genres. Thank you for the wonderful idea. I guess I'm going to have to talk to the librarian about this as well.
We did not have a problem at all with students sticking to one genre. The students were very excited to get their badges. We all posted these on our hallway bulletin boards so everyone could see. We then finished off the unit with a reading camp. We had teachers reading different genres to students in various tents. It was fun!
This year I did have bookmarks with all the genres listed on them (they were a hand me down but I think they were from the typical teacher store possibly really good stuff??) but the kids had the ability to choose the books they wanted within it. It really helped them to differentiate, plus it got them reafing non-fiction which is rare! I used their AR tests to check that each was covered.
I LOVE this idea! We are departmentalizing 4th grade next year and I will be teaching reading. I've been looking for something to encourage students to read different genres. I hope my students are as excited about this as I am! Thanks so much for sharing!!
Thanks so much for sharing this! I teach 5th grade so I'm not sure I'm going to actually use it but I love that they included recipes, joke books, magazines, and newspapers.
I really like the idea of Book Scouts! We do AR, but I can see it working along with the Book Scouts (might even make AR more than just a point thing for my 5th graders). Thanks for sharing.
a la "Book Whisperer" last year. Although many did not get to 40 books, EVERY student read more than in previous years. Because I suggested various genres, many students expanded their reading repetoire to include them. I didn't force them to read a particular book but left it to them.
Here is the 40 book challenge I will use this year that I adapted from Donalyn Miller's "Book Whisperer". I tried to include various "bins" from our classroom library.
I think this is a fantastic idea. I teach 4th grade and would love to implement this for the school year. How do the students document their reads? Are they required to answer questions, give a short summary, etc. just curious.
I also read the Book Whisperer, and decided to follow a 30 book challenge instead of the 40 book challenge. I teach 5th grade and our 6th grade teacher was doing the 40 book challenge, so I decided to get them started a year early and do 30 instead of 40. I was really impressed with kids who said they hated to read but read a lot more books than they typically would have. I look forward to using this again this year, because I truly feel it gets them to branch outside of the books they normally read and encourages them to find books they enjoy reading.
wow I love the book scouts idea, it incorporates so many ideas of working as a team, individual responsibility and working toward a goal that I am trying to instil in my students, especially the younger ones.
I think that I will be implementing this with my 2nd -4th graders. Last year I introduced all of the genres right before February and then had them try to read a book from each genre that month and they just filled out a chart. I think this will be much more fun and appealing and then maybe end it in February with the whole school camping theme at the end like we usually put together.
Maybe the students will work for all the badges and then forms that they fill out for the genres after the badge they can put into a cooler or something where prizes can be chosen from.
I have camp chairs already since my theme is stars and my reading area is reading under the stars. This will be fun!! THANK YOU!!
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06-21-2011, 01:03 PM
thank you
