I-PICK

Once my students were able to sustain 3 minutes of reading, I felt they needed the boost of choosing their own books.  Since they are only beginning kindergarten, most are not “reading” – they are looking at pictures and inventing stories, maybe identifiying a few letters or sight words, but not reading the full text.  A choice of their own book for their book box was a good incentive to hit that 3 minute mark, too!

I introduced the IPICK chart quickly.  Again, they are choosing books for pictures and interest, but not for reading level.  I focused on “I choose a book” and “Interest”, encouraging the students to choose books with pictures and ideas they thought were interesting.  I plan to come back to this later as they begin to actually read words and look for books that are a good fit.

Then they got to choose one book from my classroom library.  It is divided into fiction and nonfiction, and in labeled bins.  It will take them a while to learn to put them away, but for now, they can find topics they are interested in or books similar to what I might share in class.  I made sure that some of the stories I have read aloud were included so that they could have the opportunity to revisit and retell a story they had heard.

Non-fiction, divided by topics; big books haven't been used yet, but will eventually be available.  The little bins on top will eventually have a small selection of DRA-leveled books.

Fiction - mainly by author or series.  I also have a bin I call "Buddy Books" - doubles that I will let them use for Read to Someone.

A few days later, and we are going strong.  We are up to 6 minutes of sustained reading.  They know the Read to Self expectations very clearly, and love to see our Stamina Graph go higher and higher.  On Friday, I will let them trade in their current books for new choices to keep in their book boxes for the next week.

I set another incentive for them: when we get to 8 minutes, we will add a new way to read (hopefully next week).