Spark the JOY of READING Early On!

That's the face of a kid who loves books!

Isn't that the goal?

Get books in the hands of kids early on and let them enjoy those books. Every single time a child is reading a book, there doesn't need to be a quiz or a discussion or a running reading record. Sometimes kids need time to explore books and just foster that love of reading that will last their whole lives.

That's why I really do love the program we use in our school, Collaborative Classroom. It gives kids time to love on books, build their reading stamina, and conference with teachers. If you haven't heard of it before, look into it! It's a nonprofit and has transformed our culture for learning!

Read 20 Minutes a Day, EVERYDAY! Collaborative Classroom can help!

How do you instill a love of reading into your kiddos?

Start early.

Read with your child every day.

Model being a reader so your kids know it is important to you.

Provide a variety of texts and opportunities to explore books.

Create a rich literacy environment at home and in your classroom.

As a classroom teacher, I dedicated about half of the room space to my enormous classroom library, and no matter the grade I taught, I always brought every single book with me to the new classroom I was setting up. You never know what book will strike the fancy or meet the needs of a student - I wanted kids to have every book at their finger tips. And it showed everyone who walked into my classroom that I believed reading was important and worthwhile.

Now, many of us have seen this infographic:

How do you get kids to love reading?

Our new ELA program is masterfully engaging kids in reading every day.

In the past, our reading programs did not provide for a sustainable chunk of time every day for reading independently - I had to build that in myself. That meant giving up time somewhere else in my schedule to get every kid reading in a quiet and focused environment for a set amount of time to build stamina, foster a love of literacy, and give me the opportunity to conference with them individually. IT WAS WORTH IT TO ME.

Now, I am in several classrooms for our IDR time - Individualized Daily Reading. Our ELA program, Collaborative Classroom, sets goals for kids to read a certain about of time, uninterrupted, each day, while the teacher conferences with individuals. It's basically my dream - administration putting this structured reading time into the schedule. And the kids LOVE it. They're beginning to love reading, which will positively impact them in every other subject area. As well as in life, because isn't that our goal? To develop life long learners?

If you're look for Collaborative Classroom resources, check these out by clicking here!

Classroom Theme Posters

Theme posters are one of my MUST HAVES!

I printed the theme posters below from Beth Newingham. But there are TONS of free theme posters floating around on TeachersPayTeachers!

In the past, I always had theme posters hanging on my wall. I had them blank in the beginning of the year, and as we read books as a class, we added pictures of the book covers to the theme we thought it matched up with. I would print the book cover and when we finished the book, we would talk about the evidence to support various themes, always understanding that a book really can fit many themes, but that we were going to choose the one we felt it fit in with BEST.

Now that our school is using a new program, Collaborative Classroom, for all things ELA (Seriously, everything. If you are looking for new curriculum, this is it.) I still wanted to do theme posters but make it work for that program. So, since I work with grades 2-4, I printed some freebie theme posters for each of them. Then I printed and laminated the book covers that the teachers will be reading to their students for the comprehension piece of the curriculum. Now, as teachers read a book aloud, they can connect it to the common themes. And anyone who teaches at a state testing grade knows, theme will be tested. Oh yes, theme will be tested.

Bonus? Talking about theme is a great conversation. It teaches kids how to provide evidence to support their opinion and to respect the opinions of others!

How do kids become better readers?

How do kids become better readers?

They read.

How do kids develop a love of literacy?

They read.

How do kids develop their vocabulary?

They read.

How do kids develop their imagination?

They read.

How do kids learn to value books and stories?

They read.

How do kids develop their focus and concentration?

They read. (Anything! Picture books, baby books, chapter books, etc.)

How do kids learn the difference between real and make believe?

They read.

How do kids further their language development?

They read.

Read to your kids every day. (We read 5 books minimum after each meal, and 5 books minimum before nap or bed. That's just read alouds.) Let them explore books. You might have to get comfortable with some books getting ripped or "loved" beyond repair. Sometimes that happens. Encourage them to read to each other, even if it is reading the pictures or retelling the story if they are not yet ready to read the words. Read every day, as much as you can. That's my Ted Talk. :)

Center for the Collaborative Classroom: Our New ELA Program

Let me first start by saying that I am not a program person. I have always used a balanced literacy approach to teaching reading and writing - and my students have always been very successful. The problem was that I was an island. What kids were doing in my class, they were guaranteed to continue in their next class. Our school was all over the place and there was no consistency. There may have been pockets of great teaching happening, but there was no cohesion, and so our students could not sustain any great learning that was taking place from year to year. We basically had a patchwork quilt of teaching going on.

Enter Collaborative Classroom. This year, we adopted this program k-6. When I say that our elementary school teachers are obsessed, I mean it. Finally, we are all on the same page! And our teaching is connected - reading, word work, writing, interventions, small group reading, spelling, grammar, SEL, EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE!

By the way, I am definitely not cool enough to be paid to say any of this. I am just sharing my thoughts on a "program" that is sooooo not a basal, but is structured enough that any teacher should be able to follow it and find success.

PS the program is only 30 weeks. So there is plenty of time to integrate other types of learning into your year, take a break for a Social Studies/Science unit, or do some test prep.

Here are the big programs:

- Caring Classrooms - We don't use this component because we follow Responsive Classroom, but SAME THING. It is basically morning meetings and basic SEL practices that make sense. FYI, the entire program integrates these practices throughout and builds a strong foundation of SEL for kids starting from day one.

- Making Meaning - Our reading comprehension program. It is based on the BEST read alouds ever. I seriously love every single one. It is rooted in discussion, partner talks, sharing, quick writes, etc. So, of course some testing grade levels freaked a little. They love the program but the big bad test is always looming, so we chose one read aloud text for each unit to buy class sets of, and I created test prep questions for that text. Now, the teachers feel better!

- Being a Writer - Again, based on mentor texts and a Writer's Workshop mentality. LOVE IT. Our teachers always struggled with teaching writing. Everybody did it differently. Some people didn't do it at all. Yes, that is real. 

- Being a Reader - This is mostly K-2, based on teaching kids to be independent during small group work. It also comes with "sets" of books for small group reading. Now, these text levels go through third grade, so our k-3 teachers use them for small group reading. Our fourth grade teachers use them for their lower readers, in addition to continuing to use Literacy Footprints, which we love. *Also, second grade has a word work component here and there is a letter learning piece to K-1.

- SIPPS - The interventions! OMG, the interventions align with the tier 1 instruction, can you believe it? I love it. As a classroom teacher, I hated not knowing what my kids were doing when they received a reading intervention. I am very controlling. But now, the program is fairly scripted, research-based, and I know exactly what every kids is doing - and it aligns with the Being a Reader program. In fact, kids getting a reading intervention are also receiving small group instruction in their classroom and literally see the overlap of the program. They say, "Hey, I learned this word with my reading teacher!" Yes, yes, you did. Not a fluke.

- Guided Spelling - Only for 3-6, but awesome. We were kind of using Words Their Way for a while. I love Words Their Way, but some teachers taught it really thoroughly and others...didn't. So this program is better. It is setting up a strong foundation of understanding patterns within words. There is some differentiation, but definitely not like Words Their Way. So some of our teachers ARE still using Words Their Way for their lowest spellers during their Academic Intervention Support time, but those are only the very motivated and dedicated teachers who previously used Words Their Way and understand it at its core.

And that is Collaborative Classroom! In the nuttiest nutshell ever. If you have more specific questions about it, ask! I love talking about Collaborative Classroom. Also, go make a free login in their Learning Portal or Hub. They are nonprofit, so all of their resources are right there for you to check out and try - I'm talking teacher manuals, student workbooks, printables, professional development videos/blogs/articles - you name it. I literally taught SIPPS for a year before we bought the program. It is way easier now that we have all of the materials and I'm not making everything from scratch, but I was definitely able to do it! And you can too!