book review

As a huge fan of the fantasy genre, including the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, I take these words very seriously, but I may have a new favorite book series...Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Over Spring Break, I started and finished both The Lightning Thief, Book One and The Sea of Monsters, Book Two.

This series is for middle schoolers, but is appropriate for most students that can read at a six grade reading level.  The protagonists, include a male and a female, both of whom are strong characters. Oh, and one of their parents is a Greek god.

After my 'aha' moment with Comprehension Connections I bought the book all excited to put it to use. I'm an ELL support teacher with over 70 students so I don't provide the daily read alouds and mini-lessons for most of my students. More often than not I have 15-30 minutes with students to do guided reading and/or fluency work. While I haven't been able to try as much as I'd like so far, I have liked how simple the lesson ideas have been for me and students.

Today I had one of those 'aha' moments, not in my classroom but at a training focused on blending National Urban Alliance (NUA) strategies, like thinking maps, and balanced literacy.  A coach involved in the training demoed a series of lessons on priming students for comprehension strategies with text.  She prefaced the demo by sharing that when she taught Stephanie Harvey's Comprehension Toolkit lessons, her students never had the comments that Stephanie's students did or went away with the same level of understanding.  In retrospect, she realized that when introducing students to a comprehension strategy with the Comprehension Toolkit, she was requiring students to learn a new strategy, a new text, a new subject and a challenging

This year I was fortunate to be invited into a literacy cohort for professional development (PD) along with two teachers from my school.  The PD is intended for newer teachers who teach in the K-2 grade band.  This year I'm working with English language learners in first through fifth grade at all levels of English proficiency.  However, what I'm learning transfers easily to the 3-5 grade band and beyond. 

Karen Hesse received a Newberry Medal for Out of the Dust.  For me, Out of the Dust was a gut wrenchingly beautiful novel.  Today I read The Music of Dolphins, which I chose only vaguely recognizing the authors name at the time.  (I'd make for an awful librarian, other than loving to devour books greedily.) 

The Publishers Weekly quote on the back says it best, The Music of Dolphins "poignantly explores...what it means to be human."

I am a big Kevin Henkes fan.  He's the author and illustrator of great picture books, like Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, Sheila Rae, the Brave, Owen, and Wemberly Worried, just to name a few.  But, he has also penned some well received novels for intermediate readers, 4th to 6th grade reading level.  Bird Lake Moon is the first of these novels that I've read.  I picked it up at the library since Olive's Ocean, his most highly acclaimed novel, wasn't in.

Ida B., by Katherine Hannigan, tells the bittersweet tale of Ida B. a precocious, free willed fourth grader whose life is almost perfect.  Ida B. spends her days playing on her family's farm in the apple orchard and babbling brook.  That is, almost perfect until it's turned upside down when the home schooled, only child's mom gets cancer and Ida B. gets sent back to school. 

Ida B., feeling betrayed by her parents and the world for the bad times that came upon her, hardens her heart against her parents, new teacher, new neighbors, new classmates, and even the trees and brook who were once her good friends. 

Part of being a reading teacher, for me, is reading the literature that my students are reading or that might serve as a good read-aloud or mentor text for writer's workshop. Since break came early with a snow storm, I got to my local library to check out some books, as well as extra time to read.

One of the books I checked out was by the great Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. For those who don't know, Edward is a china bunny who through mishaps loses one owner only to move on to another, at least eventually. Through his journey Edward grows to appreciate life and others, most importantly, he learns to love.