Sean in a recent comment gave a nice synopsis of where he is with reading. I think it is an excellent interpretation of the overall reading ideas found here:
I’ve played around with the following when reading the novels:
1) 5… maybe 10 minutes silent sustained reading. I’m actually getting 10 minutes of silent sustained reading from my students, I think because they enjoy the break from hearing me talk.
2) Discuss and ask about what happened previously in the story.
2) Storytime! Easy as pie. I read aloud and they follow.
3) Break up Storytime with Read & Discuss (reading comprehension questions / circling around vocabulary you care to target / Parallel Questioning / character study questions / plot questions / etc.)
4) Reader’s Theater: Prep to find a good place in the pages you’ll be reading that day for a chance for students to either 1) simply read the dialogue of the characters, or 2) act out the parts of the characters, or 3) both. Teacher can guide the student actors in L2 as needed.
5) Freeze Frame: Students group up in 3s or 4s to create a tableau vivant as Robert Harrell termed it. As student groups are frozen in front of the class, teacher walks around the frozen actors, describes, and circles.
6) Exit slip: “Choose any 3 sentences from what we read today, copy them on your exit slip and translate them to English.” It seems that translating 3 sentences takes on average 5 minutes for my kids.
I think Ben would say that the Read & Discuss is the most valuable CI. It’s tricky to measure how much R&D is just the right amount given the class, the book, and the day. But if the R&D is flowing, let it flow.