Readers in grades 3¨C6 present unique challenges and opportunities for teachers. Many intermediate readers can decode text well, but few have the skills required for the thick textbooks and complex literature they will encounter in the middle grades and beyond. Teachers need to guide students as they develop sophisticated strategies for tackling a variety of new text, while helping students cultivate the independence and self-reflection they need for reading success beyond the elementary grades.
Bringing Reading to Life is a series of four programs filmed in Franki Sibberson's fifth-grade classroom. The eighteen classroom vignettes present a vibrant portrait of readers at work, delving into novels and nonfiction with ease and confidence, even as they grapple with the new demands of increasingly difficult texts. Franki and colleague Karen Szymusiak show the importance of thoughtful room design and classroom library layout, carefully structured reading groups, brief whole-class lessons, extended discussions that build on previous reading experiences, and individual reading in a wide range of texts.
Franki and Karen also demonstrate a multitude of teaching and learning strategies that help students in grades 3¨C6 thrive, including mini-lessons, conference and discussion techniques, reading notebook design and use, small-group structures and writing extensions, and read-aloud routines.
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