Back To School Part 3: Setting Up Reading Notebooks

Reading Notebooks have been used over the years in a variety of ways . In my classroom life  I have used them in all of these ways: a place to respond to the book, a reading log, a student-teacher communication book about books read, a list of books to read in the future, a place to house reading goals, a place to prepare for book talks or book clubs, reading notes or mini-charts from class, lists of new words/ideas encountered while reading, a sticky-note holder, and maybe even a book report holder. AHHH! That is just one teacher! Yikes! With all these ways to use a notebook floating around out there, it seems quite exhausting to determine how YOU  can use this notebook in the most effective way.  This is where I, teacher friends, come in and try to make some sense of this whole reading notebook thing.

THE NOTEBOOK

A simple plain composition notebook works for most kids. You might want to ask kids for 2 reading notebooks in the initial supply list, so that when kids run out of room in one notebook, they can move on the next on right away.

The Set-up

Just like in my earlier post, I am suggesting that students use the first four pages of the book for the Table of Contents for consistency. Again, students would number the front side of all pages and keep the back sides blank. As you will soon see, the TOC would start with Goals, Book List and then Reading Responses.

Goals

Page 5 & 6-Most schools in my area require students to set and monitor goals at least monthly. This is a safe place where kids can write them and reflect on their reading goals at the end of each month/unit of study in school. I would give kids at least 2 pages in the notebook to write them (or more if he/she writes large). 

Books to Read List

Page 7 & 8- This is a personal book  list that students can add to or modify as the year goes on. I suggest that teachers share their own "Books to Read List" with the class to help them see how one works. This also goes hand in hand with the goals.....you write out the books you want to read and then you read them!

Reading Responses -Page 9 & beyond....

Let me get this out first...this IS READING WORKSHOP and we want kids to spend their time reading, not writing. So in my classrooms, I have  strongly suggested that children DO NOT write about reading every single day. Yes my fellow NY teachers, I am well aware that the new Core Common Learning Standards adopted by New York State added in the standard stating that students must respond to literature. However, this does not have to be in the same old way  " Today I read about Mercy Watson the pig. Today he went with Mr. Watson to ..."  

 A Scaffolded Approach

While recall is an important skill, it is  a very LOW LEVEL skill. To promote higher levels of thinking, students should be encouraged to respond to reading by jotting on a sticky notes about a variety of things while reading. Then, at the end of the session, students might  be asked to pick the sticky note that was the most important to them or the story, and share it with their reading partner. Then after sharing, students could take that one sticky note, place it in their reading response notebook and write long about it for homework that evening (or maybe not!). 

Ramp it Up....

  Later on, you could to ramp up the reading responses by having students would pick out at least 2 important sticky notes to expand upon or write long about once a week. This way, students would not feel the pressure to write about a book they just started or a topic that they don't know much about.  

 I Finished a Book, Now what?

When a student completes a book, I would ask a student to remove all of their sticky notes from the book and sort them into categories (i.e. character notes, predictions, setting notes, my ideas, and so forth*) in the notebook and then reflect on it.  This can and will look like many different things depending on the reading level.  In addition to sorting, perhaps with help of a partner, students might try to find the 'best' sticky note and write long about it.  Or a student could  even find the one sticky note that really changed his or her mind about the book/idea/ character and reflect on it. These are just some of the ways that I have had students stop and reflect on a book before moving on to the next one; by using the reading notebook for reflection.


*These are just some ideas, but you can let the kids sort them on their own and see what they come up with. This is also something that can be done as a whole class based on Read Aloud sticky notes first and then tried with partners.

Back To School Part 2: Setting Up Writer's Notebooks

Getting your classroom ready for the first day of school is sometimes the only thing on teachers' minds.  Sometimes we forget that we have to teach the first few days too. I am a HUGE advocate of starting off strong and by that I mean, YOU WILL TEACH ON DAY 1 and  in most cases, give homework. I know that this might go against all the touchy feely ideas of being a teacher,  but if you don't start now, it begins the snowball of 'non-teaching days.' Might I remind many teachers of the day(s) before a holiday, the day that you come back after a break, the days when you have assemblies, the field trip days, and so forth....So to start the year off strong, plan on teaching on the very first day to set the tone and get the kids excited about reading and writing!!!

Teaching a mini-lesson on the first day of school and showing your students how to set up the notebook in a particular way will make your life easier in the end. By taking the time to phyiscally model the  setup on chart paper, with a giant sized writer's notebook or with a regular sized notebook using a document reader camera, will save you tons of time later when assessing.  When I say modeling for the class, I mean starting with a blank notebook page and taking your class through the entire  process.  In the past, I have done this on chart paper in the front of the room and left the chart there for the first month of school as a reference. 

Day 1 Writing Notebooks Set Up

1. The first four pages (front and back counted as one page) were the table of contents. I labeled it Table of Contents  (TOC)  and then had the children put numbers on all the front (or right sided ) pages in the notebook. (once kids are in 4th grade, they could do this at home for homework early on)
2. The first entry in the TOC  was done in class on day 1 and part of it was completed at the meeting area before being set off to try it on their own.
3. Page number (top right corner of page)
4. Top Header: (in the middle of that big empty area): H for entry done in Home or S for entry done in school
5. Far left side of paper in the margin the date  (8/3) 
6. Students start writing on line one, and try to write to the end of each line
7. Students write on the RIGHT/FRONT  page ( i.e. page 5) and then continue on to page 6 which in the next page in the notebook
8. Students are expected to fill up at least one page during  a workshop period ( this can change depending on the grade and level of the students)
9. The LEFT or BACK side of the notebook pages are used for revising or expanding ideas that come up after a student has completed an entry and thus would DATE that page on the left margin too. 

Here is an example of what a notebook might look like:

 

  
Now here is an actual notebook from a student in Grade 4. Please note that this entry was labeled as support, because the student was working on an essay unit and needed help in distinguishing the different parts that were used to support his idea/thesis that Henry Hudson was dumb.

Questions? Comments?
 
Next up: Back to School Part 3: Setting up Reading Notebooks