Digging Deep in Our Reading: A Look at Some Charts

Perhaps the most important purpose for the charts we create with students during mini-lessons is that they become a tool for students to independently try the strategies that have been taught. An important part of the reading unit we've just finished (a unit that focused on characters and in which we also learned how to negotiate reading  and talking about a book with a partner) has been digging deep through writing, talking, and thinking about our reading.

Picture this: a mosquito skims the surface of McCarter Pond, maybe causing a little ripple in the water but, really, making no impact. Then, there's a duck that goes completely into the water, splashing around, even diving deep, down to the bottom, to try and find some food.

Earlier this fall, we related this image to our reading. We have a choice. We can choose to be mosquito readers, skimming the surface of our books, going quickly from page to page or book to book, not pausing to think deeply about our reading. Readers who read like mosquitoes aren't changed by their reading. Or we could read like ducks, digging deep into our books by stopping to think, talk, and write about our reading. In this way, we'd read in a way that allows books to change us, to give us new ideas.

Thinking, talking, and writing deeply isn't an easy task. Simply: it's hard. It's easier to stick to the plot of the story, missing the chance to really have ideas. What's harder (and, therefore, as fourth graders in our room know, has bigger pay-off for a reader) is to really dig deep, thinking about our ideas and supporting them with textual evidence.

We've been learning when to stop, think, write, and talk about our reading and also how to do this most effectively. We'd like to share the charts we've been using in class so that it may support talking about reading in a deeper way at home. Our readers have had a lot of practice borrowing phrases off of the chart and using them as they think, write, and talk more deeply about their reading; we are sure they'd be happy to teach you how to use the charts.

The first chart is a chart that helps readers know when it often pays off to do some writing about their reading. The column on the left lists (some of) these different times; the column on the right gives a vision for different ways the writing about reading at that stopping point could go.

The second chart is from our character unit and shows some of the strategies taught during mini-lessons. Under each strategy are a few post-its that students have been using as they've done their own writing and talking about reading.

Hope this helps you dig deeper in your talk with your child about his or her reading. Now, we're on to nonfiction reading!