I am advocating for a greater focus on readings from stories using our Reading Options, and less on the novels. Reading even simple novels in Level 1, especially, should, in my opinion, not be done. The kids should never have to actually struggle or feel any pressure whatsoever when they read, because struggle means engagement of the conscious mind in trying to “figure it out”, and that is not in alignment with what I believe Krashen to be saying about reading.
In my own experience, effortless reading happens best when students read things that they themselves have created in class.
Besides the stories, our PLC members Steven (Fresno, CA) and Kathrin (Germany) have brought up just today something else that could provide us with another great solution (besides reading the stories generated in class) to our woes with those pesky novels. Steven and Kathrin suggest that we can also get our readings from what our kids produce in the form of free writes! Maybe some of us already do that, but the idea is new to me, and it is a welcome one.
Using free writes as sources of reading material for our kids is a fine idea indeed. All we have to do is re-write, in corrected language, what our kids wrote as free rights and then publish those texts and distribute them to be read during the FVR period to start our classes.
Doing this:
1. provides more compelling reading input because it aligns more with what kids are interested in.
2. is not just about white kids.
3. keeps the reading in bounds because how could they write beyond their level?
4. is cheaper to produce.
5. gives us texts written by older brothers and sisters of current students, which builds our program (see Kathrin’s comment on this idea below).
The only drawback I can think of would be the extra time required by the teacher to produce the new reading texts, but I don’t think it would be too much if the teacher were to devote 10 or 15 minutes a day to the project.
Steven wrote:
…[one idea that I have had is to] gather end of the year freewrites and write stories from them…
Also this morning, in response to Steven, Kathrin wrote this:
…I have used free writes that I really liked and typed them, not only for those kids, but for future years as well. I also use the class created stories, even OWIs and print them right after we read them in class together and add them to the folder. Then they can read them during FVR again. They go on my website too so they can read them from home and show their parents what they work on in class. I have the readings sorted by class level, so the 1st year stories go in a different folder than the 2nd year stories….