Programme de Lecture (PdL)

PDL - Programme De Lecture

The French Reading Program that we will use in the classroom was developed by my former teaching partner, Josée Malo, and is an excellent program for French literacy development. It is an opportunity for students to strengthen their reading comprehension skills, expand their vocabulary, develop their language fluency and explore new strategies as a reader and as a writer. Moreover, it is a chance for them to discover authors as well as authentic cultural situations.

The Programme de Lecture (or PdL) is administered like an old fashioned library: each student starts the year with one library card allowing him/her/them to take out one book at a time from the classroom collection. 

Each student also has a little red booklet used as a reading journal where students record their reading process:

JE LIS (I read)

JE COMPRENDS (I understand)

JE RÉFLÉCHIS (I think)

JE PARTAGE (I share)

The book and the red journal are kept in a large transparent plastic bag. Students are expected to treat the books with great care.

Students should always have the plastic bag containing the book and the journal with them every day, at school and at home.

Choosing a book for the Programme de Lecture

The selection offered to students is quite varied: fiction, non-fiction, easy and challenging. They are taught to find a book that interests them and that is also "the right size" for them, using the 5 fingers method i.e. there should be less than 5 words on a random page that they cannot figure out at all.

Completing a book for the Programme de Lecture

Although it takes a few weeks to establish the routine, the steps to completing a book for the Programme de Lecture are quite simple.

1) Students choose a French book from the classroom selection (or from the library), making sure it is the right level for their abilities using the 5 fingers test.

2) Using the format  "Modèle de PdL", students read - by themselves and in their head - and record in their red notebook the date and pages read,  getting initials from an adult or older sibling who sees them read each time.  

Here is the format to follow (also found in the red booklet and attached in the files below):

Titre du livre :                                                                                        

Auteur:                                                                                                    

JE LIS 

date        page     à page       initiale        

date        page     à page       initiale        

date        page     à page       initiale        

3) Students choose 1 task to complete from the list of tasks and write a detailed response.

JE COMPRENDS

Example for the task  "Écris les sentiments que tu ressentais pendant ta lecture et explique pourquoi tu les as ressentis.") :

J'a ressenti _____________ quand ____________ parce que _______________

____________________________.

4) Students write a personal comment to tell what they think about the story and why; (including examples from the book to support their opinion, connections from their lives, favorite parts, etc.)

JE RÉFLÉCHIS  (exemple de commentaires)

Je pense que cette histoire est   ______________________________

parce que __________________________________________.

Un bon exemple de ceci est quand ____________________________

________________________________________________.

Cette histoire me fait penser à ______________________________

parce que __________________________________________.

5) Students read a passage out loud to a friend or a family member (who initials).

JE PARTAGE

 J’ai lu un paragraphe à haute voix avec :                                  (initiales:____ )

Since students' skills vary and since a wide variety of books is offered, some children will read and complete activities in 2 days whereas other students will take 1 or 2 weeks to finish. 

Some students will be encouraged to read long French novels and others short illustrated novels; what is important is that students select books to match both their interests and abilities AND that they work in their PdL every day.

7) Students hand in their plastic bag with the book and the red notebook reading journal to the teacher who will review their work and hand it back before they can take another book.

It is important that I see the work completed before your child starts on another book to ensure that he/she is selecting books at the right level and using good strategies. Since I have to review the work of each student before they can choose another book, there might be periods of heavy traffic in the marking box. While they wait for the corrected book to be returned to them, they have a choice of "leisure" books they can enjoy in class during reading time!

However, these leisure books are for students waiting for their PdL work to be reviewed. Should your child forget his/her plastic bag at home, I will gladly provide him/her with an interim short story to read for our reading time in class. 

Completing PdL at home

If your child says he/she/they can't do his/her/their French home reading because:

- the PdL was left at school; or 

- he/she/they is waiting for the teacher to review his/her/their PdL:

He/she/they can still do his/her/their daily French reading at home! 

Since French Reading will be the main homework on most days, he/she/they can access a variety of short stories at the websites listed in the Resources section.

After reading these online stories, he/she/they records the date along with the titles of the French stories he/she/they read as well as his/her/their comments about each story and we will staple this piece of paper to the reading journal when he/she/they has it. Your initials will get him/her/their tickets for the draw as always!

Weekly draw

Who does not like surprises? Every time your child gets an initial for reading and according to the quality of his/her/their work in showing comprehension and in reflecting on his/her/their reading, your child will get tickets for the weekly draw.