[msjamie2]

Help! I have about 5 students in my 2nd grade class that are reading 4th grade or about levels based on Accelarted Reading. I need some activities that I could you for them during my reading block. Right now I'm just having them read indpendently and work in work stations with the other children. I would like maybe to have them do some sort of reading contract? Does anyone have any other ideas that I could use to challenge them?....Thanks in advance.

[kali]

There is this very very cute book by Scholastic that is called

"Ready-to-Use Independent Reading Management Kit"
by Beverley Jones, Maureen Lodge

It has reproducible contracts that go with a book they are reading. I am really picky about recomending books too,because I know how hard it is to find resources that you will actually use! This is a fantastic resource. They help with comprehension and support student's independence with cute graphics and creative ideas. Another item to add to your bag of tricks. Your kids will love them.

Another idea would be to do readers theater with this reading group. That way they can work on fluency and voice. There are great scripts out there for all grades. They could use part of the time to practice on their script. They could perfrom for your class.

Could they keep a readers journal...responding in some way in their journal. It could be notes, reflections, an illustration, web, questions, oppinion, etc.

Once you get several ideas you can rotate them, keeping it different and fun.

[NCP]

I have used lit circles with high second grade readers before. I have them rotate the jobs every couple of days. The circles are nice because the kids can really take charge and make decisions. Here are the jobs I use: (I have these on cute posters, but I don't have them saved on this computer)

Director: this person directs the group by writing 2 or 3 questions about the reading. At first they ask a lot of direct questions (What happened when...?), but they can work up to questions like, How do you think they felt?

Summarizer: this person writes a summary of the story.

Illustrator: this person draws a photo from the book and then write a caption or sentence about why they choose it.

Word Detective: this person looks for 2-3 vocabulary words and gives them the definition.

Connector: this person makes connections to the text. These can be personal connections, world connections (outside of the classroom), or connections to other books.

Predictor: this person makes a prediction for the next chapter.

The kids read 1-2 chapters each time and then meet and share out the information. Then they can also work together to decide how much to read and when to rotate jobs. It takes a bit of work, but the kids can do it and really like the independence. Good Luck!