Readings are of a much higher quality when they are made from stories about Invisibles. In fact, the readings are so compelling that I now believe that in first-year classes, we should stop our forced marches, stop plowing through leveled readers, or novels, or knocking ourselves out trying to make whole-class novels comprehensible and fun, and simply read class-created texts based on the students’ stories. It is because the excitement just naturally carries over into the readings and the language in the stories is exactly what was needed by the class to express their unique vision and creativity.
Once, in response to my amazement that he could read a certain story so easily, a student responded as if it were the most natural thing in the world, “It’s easy for us because we’re the ones who made up the story!”
Reading days happen on the next day after the story and thus represent a full 50% of use of instructional minutes over the course of the year. One could say accurately that the stories are merely there to set up the reading, where really massive input gains occur.