Enrichment Reading

4th & 5th Grade Enrichment

Lions Park Enrichment Reading classes take place during homeroom core reading instruction. Any work your child misses during homeroom reading period will need to be completed by your child. Our time in Enrichment Reading is divided between Reading Workshop, writing/analysis of our reading in Reading Notebooks, and Class Read Alouds.

Reading Workshop

(taken from Nancie & Anne Atwell/Scholastic's "The Reading Zone" 2016 - 2nd Edition)

How to Create Critical Readers: The 3 Keys

A child sitting in a quiet room with a good book isn’t a flashy or, more significantly, marketable teaching method. It just happens to be the only way anyone ever grew up to become a reader.

During Enrichment Reading, we'll make time for students to open books they love and engage in the single activity that consistently correlates with high levels of performance on standardized tests of reading ability—frequent, voluminous, self-selected reading. The ultimate goal: students becoming skilled, passionate, habitual, critical readers.

And that is the goal of Reading Workshop. Just as important, along the way I hope students will become smarter, happier, more just, and more compassionate people because of the diverse worlds they experience within those hundreds of thousands of lines of black print.

Here are a few more reasons why it’s so important to give children time, choice, and access, when it comes to books and reading.

Time

We know that students need time to read, at school and at home, every day. We understand that when particular children love their particular books, reading is more likely to happen during the time that’s set aside for it—that the only surefire way to induce a love of books is to invite students to choose their own.

Choice

I believe in the power of student choice when reading. So in RW, I'll help children select enjoyable books, develop and refine literary criteria, and carve out identities for themselves as readers. It’s essential that every child be able to say, “These are my favorite authors, genres, books, and characters this year, and this is why.” Personal preference is the foundation for anyone who will make of reading a personal art. Opportunities to consider and reconsider books make reading feel sensible and attractive to children right from the start—and that they will read more books than ever dreamed possible and more challenging books than I ever dreamed of assigning.

Access

Students need access to a generous assortment of inviting titles. Our enrichment classroom and LRC are filled with hundreds of books that I am eager to share with my readers through Reading Workshop. During workshop we'll have book talks (teacher and student led), read daily as a community with our read alouds (see below), write reviews on our selections (panning or praising), and widen our horizons to what is available to us as readers.

Homework

Each evening Monday - Thursday your child will read their baggie book (self selected chapter book or novel) for at least 25 minutes. During weekly 1:1 conferences, I'll note the page number students are currently reading. Students are expected to advance through their selected books nightly and be prepared to discuss their reading during 1:1 conferences.

Reading Notebooks

Each student will have a Reading Notebook to develop their reading comprehension as well as literary analysis skills. Graham & Herbert note the importance of writing in response to literature "...Writing about a text should enhance comprehension because it provides students with a tool for visibly and permanently recording, connecting, analyzing, personalizing, and manipulating key ideas in text" (2010 Harvard Educational Review).

Here are a few examples of the type of writing we'll be doing in our notebooks:

Literary Elements

Letter-Essays

Peer Letters

Book Reviews

Class Read Alouds

4th Grade

Our first read aloud, Becoming Naomi Leon, is a multiple award winning book (including the Pura Belpre Award for its depiction of Mexican culture) and will coincide with National Hispanic Heritage Month. Mexican-American Naomi finds her voice through family trials (abandonment) and discovering her heritage.

4th Grade

Our second read aloud, The Tale of Despereaux is a Newberry Award Winning fantasy by Kate DiCamillo. Kate DiCamillo was our National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2014-15), and says about stories, “When we read together, we connect. Together, we see the world. Together, we see one another.” The book is divided into three books, ending with a coda. The expansive vocabulary, rich descriptive language and theme of light vs. dark keep readers interested as we follow the three main characters on their epic journeys.

4th Grade

A Long Walk to Water (Linda Sue Park) begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the "lost boys" of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya’s in an astonishing and moving way.

5th Grade

Echo is a historical fiction Newberry Honor winner that spans several locations and periods of history (WWII Germany, Midwest Orphan Trains of the Depression, the Lemon Grove Incident in California, and Japanese-American Internment Camps). The three masterful stories are tied together in the conclusion. This is consistently ranked "a favorite" by my 5th graders.

Call it Courage

Armstrong Sperry tells the tale of Mafatu from the island of Hikeru. He tries to overcome his fear of the sea in this treasured classic and winner of the Newbery Medal. This is a model for how conflict is imbedded in character, setting, and theme.