Novel Studies (3rd-5th Grade Reading Intervention)
I joined DAA as the 3rd-5th grade Academic Intervention teacher in late February. My goal was to plan literacy instruction that would be engaging, purposeful, and rigorous. I wanted small groups of students to get excited about the books they were reading; at the same time, I also wanted to provide them with literacy skills and practice that would support students with achieving their end-of-year reading goals. To meet both of these goals simultaneously, I decided to plan and implement novel studies!
3rd grade students read two novels this spring, both parts of book series - a Magic Treehouse book and a Ruby Booker book. 4th grade students read From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a best-selling story about two siblings who run away from home and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 5th grade students read My Side of the Mountain, another best-selling story about Sam Gribley, who runs away from home and learns to survive independently in the wilderness of the Catskills Mountains. Each of these stories have engaging plots, strong characters, detailed settings, and important themes and lessons.
Once I selected the novels, I planned text-based questions to go along with the readings. By providing students with these questions, I would ensure that they knew when and how to monitor their comprehension of the story. These questions allowed students to tackle some pretty challenging texts and to really understand the characters, setting, plot, word choice, lessons/themes, and so on. In addition, by reflecting and writing responses to some thought provoking questions, students then were able to engage in meaningful discussions with their peers. Rather than moving quickly through the text, these questions empowered reading groups to slow down and deeply engage and think critically about important portions of the text. Most significantly, students were required to support their answers with evidence from the text, an important skill that they can apply to any text that they read.
Novel studies happen in class, but they can also happen outside of school and at home! The first step is selecting a novel that is at the appropriate reading level as well as interesting and exciting to the student. Then, students and/or students’ families can craft your own questions to support comprehension of the text. You might consider using some of the question stems below:
Plot and setting: “What problem is the character dealing with in this chapter? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.”
Character: “Describe the relationship between character X and character Y. Use evidence from the text to support your answer.”
Vocabulary: “Can you explain what the word XX means in this sentence? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.”
Theme: “What lesson can you learn from this story? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.”
All question stems above are adapted from the book A Teacher’s Guide to Reading Conferences Grades K-8 (2019) by Jennifer Serravallo
If you do a novel study at home, I would love to hear how it goes! Happy reading!!