Teaching 5th grade reading

[rdaugherty73]

Hi, I am new to this forum but trying to get some ideas on fifth-grade reading. I have taught second grade, but this will be my first year teaching reading in fifth-grade, last year another teacher taught reading to the fifth-grade. We do novel studies and use the basal reader. The teacher that taught last year only used the novel studies. I would like to use the basal as well as novels but I am not quite sure how I would fit it all in. When any of you are incorporating novels into reading do you read both the novel and the basal at the same time, so you get the benefit of the basal for skills but the interest of the novel or do you do one at a time. How much time do you generally spend on a novel study? How do you structure your classtime around the novel and the basal. Do fifth-graders read out loud or do you allow them to silent read? In second grade they read outloud because I had to know if they can decode, it doesn't seem like that would be necessary in fifth-grade. Thank you for any help!

[Boxcar]

You can combine readers and novels in a couple of ways. One good way is to have themes for the novels and stories you select. For example: Week 1 and 2 will be on the theme of friendship. On each Wed. we will stop the novel for the day and read a story from the reader instead.

[DebOH]

Fifth grade is a wonderful grade to teach! You will enjoy the students because they still enjoy learning. They appreciate jokes and love to participate.

I only taught from a basal when I taught 5th. grade, but I had them to read the story silently and then we read it out loud and dicussed the story elements, etc. as we read it aloud.

You will find that 5th. graders are just little kids (at heart) in bigger bodies. Enjoy them!


DebOH

[landreth2007]

We do independant novels in 5th grade. Each student selects a book on their level (after several lessons and practice on HOW to do this). We usually do one class novel each grading period. I have never seen so many kids excited about reading! It does take a lot of money and time to set up a good classroom library though to make it effective.

[Boxcar]

independant novels is a good idea.

[Hermione]

I have taught 5th grade reading for ten years. I use both the basal and novels. I teach Holes in the fall and Tuck Everlasting in January. I have both books on audio, so we read aloud, read silently, and also use the book on tape. They love to be read to, but I can't read it all the time, so I use the tape when I can. I use literature guides for the novels (which can be found at most teacher supply stores) to create a novel packet for each student which consists of vocabulary and comprehension activities as well as chapter tests.

These particular novels have been made into movies, so an extra treat is getting to watch the movie once we've read the novel and comparing/contrasting the two. They always like the book better than the movie!

Good luck!

[Boxcar]

Oh... I'd forgotten about Holes. I loved that book!

[Hermione]

I love teaching Holes, and there are SO many skills I can pull from it. The only downside is that Holes was such a popular movie a few years ago that when we read it, the element of surprise is gone because most of them have already seen the movie. That's a downer for me, but it never is for the students because they love reading it. So it all works out.

[hweber]

I did How to Eat Fried Worms last fall in fourth - and we worked on that for 2 weeks, outside of the basal. There were many writing and other literature tie in with it. We did literature circles two days a week, and then whole class activities the other three days. Then in December we did a book bistro and invited parents to come in. It was great. The rest of the year we did the basal. Just remember that when you go outside the basal, you need to keep up the spelling words and the writing/grammar instruction. That part was hard for me because I was so excited to teach the stories!

[dsmms]

Hi, I am new to this forum but trying to get some ideas on fifth-grade reading. I have taught second grade, but this will be my first year teaching reading in fifth-grade, last year another teacher taught reading to the fifth-grade. We do novel studies and use the basal reader. The teacher that taught last year only used the novel studies. I would like to use the basal as well as novels but I am not quite sure how I would fit it all in. When any of you are incorporating novels into reading do you read both the novel and the basal at the same time, so you get the benefit of the basal for skills but the interest of the novel or do you do one at a time. How much time do you generally spend on a novel study? How do you structure your classtime around the novel and the basal. Do fifth-graders read out loud or do you allow them to silent read? In second grade they read outloud because I had to know if they can decode, it doesn't seem like that would be necessary in fifth-grade. Thank you for any help!

I incorporate literature circles for my novels. The kids love this and it gets them excited about reading. There is a great deal of information about using literature circles in the classroom on the internet. Teacher tube even has a video of teachers modeling a literature circle using a picture book. You can use this format for any genre!:reading:

Donna

[MissTeach]

I still have students real aloud in 8th grade part of the time. I have discovered several students who could not read. Then I was able to get them the help they needed.