Reading Response Letters Update

Earlier this year I mentioned that I started having my students write Reading Response Letters. Last week as all of their Google Accounts got set up, I switched the assignment that used to be in their reader's notebook over to email. I am going to experiment a little to see if I prefer this or their notebooks. For me it is a toss up. I love typing because I am able to get my thoughts out quickly, whereas my hand can't always keep up. However, for some of my students it may be the opposite. I might eventually leave it up to my students to decide which they prefer.

The email format is easier for me to correct because I can read and respond from home versus reading notebooks only at school since they are so big and bulky to carry around.

I am also experimenting with having students include a couple of their classmates on their reading response email. This would not be as easy to facilitate with notebooks. They are able to interact a little bit more about their reading with email.

In addition, I just started writing a weekly blog post on our classroom blog that is a reading response post to my students, and they leave me questions. I have been writing a couple of questions for them to ponder related to my post at the end. Once I started writing them I quickly thought of many ideas for future posts. As I am conferring with students during reading workshop the ideas start flowing. For example, last week two of my students were rereading books, yet their thought process was completely different. One was rereading but had not noticed anything he forgot the first time, while the other was rereading a book for the 6th time that she had reread throughout various years. She was able to talk about why she loves the book and how she has read it differently as she has grown older. This sparked my idea to write my post this week about why I love rereading books from time to time and to give insights into my experiences with rereads.

I always love reading my students thoughts about reading and their current books. While there have been weeks when I was buried in journals, I still love the component. For next year when I will have three classes I am trying to evaluate whether I will be able to keep up every single week or not. I have considered the possibility of having students complete them weekly interacting and responding to their small group and then having me respond directly to them on a rotating basis. That way they would be writing each week, but I would not always be the one responding to all of my students. The social aspect of sharing about their reading would still have gains for them, while still being manageable for me time wise.

Time will tell what ends up being the ideal set-up for my classroom, but in the meantime I am willing to experiment and fine-tune.