This document summarizes a presentation about building independent reading for students in upper elementary grades. It discusses the importance of reading for student development and engagement. It provides strategies for selecting books that interest students, creating a community of readers in the classroom, using read-alouds to foster reading skills, and allowing student choice and agency in selecting books. The presentation emphasizes selecting books across genres and text levels to appeal to varied readers and making reading a enjoyable experience.

1. Building an Independent Reading
Life in Upper Elementary Grades
LCCS Educator’s Institute March 2015
Maureen Nosal

2. Fasten Your Seat Belts! Here We GO,
Thinking Together About Kids and Books!!

3. Walter Dean Myers
National Ambassador for Young
People’s Literature 2012-2013
“When I began to read, I
began to exist”
RIP

4. The Power of Reading Volume
Reciprocal influences on the
cognitive domains of:
• vocabulary
• reading comprehension
• critical thinking
• general world knowledge
Cunningham

5. How children view themselves
as a reader
Children’s reading self-concept develops very
early and in response to initial reading
experiences
(Chapman & Tunmer, 2003; Lynch & Cunningham, 2005)
Research is consistent with
perspective arguing a child’s
reading self-concept is formed
as a consequence of patterns of
success or failure
(Corglioni & Cunningham, 2006; Pintrinch & Schunk, 2000)

6. Learning Identities and Attachment Theory
• Students need to have goals they value and a
belief they can make it. Confidence is
created by expecting success for
motivation. The first step in reaching these
goals and community spirit is by engaging
students with a context they can be
successful in. Students need relevance for
learning.
• When creating a social awareness, which
fosters learning, the attachment theory
needs to be in place. The attachment theory
involves being attached to the academic
world, to the world of numbers, to others in
the classroom, and to see the larger social
world outside the world of their own. Secure
attachments in the school world are
essential for fostering success and learning.
Dr. Ernest Morrell
Director of Institute for Urban and
Minority Education, Teachers
College

7. Effective Learning Communities
Ernest Morrell
Value Expectancy Motivation

8. Winning Back Reluctant Readers
• Know the students
• Know the books
• Seek creative ways to connect the two
Pat Scales

9. Be a Book Whisperer!
• According to the Kids and Family Reading
Report, the most likely reason our reluctant
readers avoid reading is that they have trouble
finding books they want to read.

10. The “Home Run” Book
• Jim Trelease has suggested that one very positive
experience can create a reader, one "home run"
book.
• Alfred Tatum writes that our textual lineage
includes the things we have read that have been
significant in shaping our identities
• Take a moment to recall an important reading
experience in your life. What was the book, and
what do you remember about both the book and
the experience that changed you as a reader?

11. On the Back
• Who is part of your reading community (as an
adult reader)?
• Who do you go to for book talks,
recommendations, social reading
experiences?
• Jot a list on the back of your “home run” book
paper and be ready to share

12. What Does it Mean to Be Part of a
Community of Readers?
• Who are *WE as
Readers?
Reading has the power
to change lives. How do
we harness that power?

13. #shelfies!

14. Help Kids Name and Share Their
Passions Ruben Trejo Mata

15. Why do reading habits matter?
We are creating school time readers rather
than lifetime readers. (Trelease)
• If children only see reading as something they
do in school, then they are vulnerable readers.
• Reading is a critically important life skill.

16. Leisure Reading
IRA Position Statement
• The position statement's recommendations are based
on these principles:
• Students should choose their own reading materials.
• Students are better able to choose engaging and
appropriate reading materials when teachers and
family members scaffold their selections.
• The benefits of leisure reading are increased when
teachers scaffold school-based leisure reading by
incorporating reflection, response, and sharing in a
wide range of ways that are not evaluated.
• Students should be encouraged to engage in self-
selected reading outside of school.

17. Listening to Authors
In his own words …..
What strikes you?
Why is this important? Or,
how does it help us think
about our role as
teachers?
• http://billmoyers.com/epi
sode/junot-diaz-on-how-
a-library-changed-his-life/
Junot Diaz

18. Invite the Ambassador into Your
Classroom
• http://digitalcampus.heinemann.com/referen
ce-library/resource-detail?rid=f0efc3ab-b295-
4b77-abca-02048e406c9b

19. What Are Some of the Books We Need in
Our Classrooms for Independent Reading?
• Series
• Genres
• Text Bands
• Authors
• Favorite Read Alouds and Old Favorites
• Balance of Classic and Contemporary
“Books as maps”

20. Book Smarts
Five authors every child in
grade __________ should know
are__________, __________,
__________, ___________, and
_______________.

21. Professional Texts

22. Resources for Real Wild Readers
• Lists
• State Books
• Newbery, Caldecott, Pura Belpre and other
ALA Awards
• Blogs, websites, goodreads
• Author pages
• Friends, Book Clubs, Librarians

23. Consider the Place for Comics and Graphic
Novels in Your Library

24. Lunch!

25. “Please Mrs. Nosal, help me! He only wants to
read Diary of a Wimpy Kid! I don’t know what to
do with him!” ~ Daniel’s mother
I was feeling her urgency clash with his agency!

27. Looking at Our Units with a Lens on
Texts
• Which texts feel important to our teaching?
• Which texts feel less relevant lately?
• Do we have books in our libraries to support
the range of readers in our
classrooms?

28. Read Alouds at the Center
Reading aloud with children is known to be the
single most important activity for building the
knowledge and skills they will eventually
require for learning to read.
~ Marilyn Jager Adams

29. Kate DiCamillo
PSA for Reading Aloud
• https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=S0c9-JMmvoo
Ulysses – Superhero Squirrel!

30. Benefits of Read Alouds
• They build community
• They expose children to books, authors, or
genres they might not discover on their own
• They provide prime opportunities to introduce
students to genres they often avoid
• They support developing readers
• They reinforce that reading is enjoyable

31. Read Aloud
Focus for Listening
• Theme / Message?
• Book of the Month?
• Text Sets?
The Promise, by Nicola Davies

32. Revisit Curriculum
• Talk with your colleagues at your tables about
your curriculum
• Are there books and/or authors with whom
our kids can “grow?”

33. Reading Tools
• What systems of accountability are working
for you?
• Which systems are working for your readers?
• Are the systems that work for you working
also for your readers? (and vice versa)
• What would you like to try with your
students?

34. Beyond Leveled Texts
• http://digitalcampus.heinemann.com/referen
ce-library/resource-detail?rid=769f6001-aeaf-
462b-9ac9-be1543fee652

35. “I’m a challenger … I know what I like
and what I don’t like as far as books
go.”

36. Share Out
• What resonated with you today?
• What are you looking forward to trying with
your students?

37. Happy Reading!
The book to read is not the one which thinks
for you, but the one which makes you think …
Harper Lee