How do you feel about reading? Not as a teacher, but as a person. If you love to read, when did that start? With what book? Which teacher?

Take a moment and create a hidden norms of BBurg reading list. What do you think you're expected to do or not do?

What do we actually want for our kids?

What it is:

Repeated readings of a selection of a text.

Focused, guided questioning led by the teacher that helps students dissect paragraphs, lines, or word choices of authors.

Read with a singular focus. Tied to 1 standard; 1 objective.

While toggling back and forth, you also zoom in and out, looking at words, to lines, to entire sections some times.

We mistakenly think that in order for reading to be rigorous, it must skip to independent all the time.

Read to the kids. It's called, Control the Game. You can decide which parts need re-read (for burst lessons) who will read aloud with you (for automatic differentiation) and what needs emphasis.

Also, you can build in more guided CFUs if you are reading aloud. You stop, pause, ask them all to respond. There's more thinking in that than kids zoning out (or just plain not doing it).

Create those moments of magic.

Old way:
Read page
Discuss page
Write about it

Better way:
Read page
Write for comprehension
Discuss page + re-reading
Write for interpretation
Assess (possibly in writing)

Rather than teaching students set markings for annotating, teach them how to think about a text and author's choices. Use a separate sheet of paper for them to write down questions and thoughts.

Have them think about:
memorable lines, key terms, central issue, examples of supports, unfamiliar words, questions about an author's point, responses to a point the author makes.

Other questions to think about:
What's the writer want to say? Why? Patterns used? How's that working? What's noteworthy? How effective is this?

Use the time in PLC to begin creating these lesson. One a week is a good goal. This is also the adult learning piece because you'll be thinking, analyzing, etc.

Make this a non-negotiable.