We spend a lot of time at the beginning of 4th grade talking about finding books to read that are "just-right". Many students come from smaller schools where books were labeled with the reading level or the library collection was divided into sections based on the difficulty of the book. At Meadowview, we try to take a more real-world approach and provide many options while teaching students the skills necessary to make good choices. We start by giving them a 5-step approach to choosing a "just-right" book.
- Read a page and make sure you can say and understand most of the words. (If you have trouble with more than 5 words, it may be too hard.)
- Retell what you read to show your understanding. (Who or what is it about? What is happening?)
- Make sure you are interested enough to read the whole thing.
- Make sure it isn't too long or too short. (How many pages would you have to read each day to finish it in one week?)
- Make sure it fits the assignment. (Did your teacher ask for fiction? Is there a certain type of book you need to read for class?)
To bring these points home, we use a hand as our graphic reminder and put a question on each finger. This is posted in the LMC all year long. Some teachers hand out smaller hand reminders for the students. When any student needs to decide if they can read a book by themselves, all they have to do is talk to their hand!
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