Congratulations, teachers, on finishing yet another year! Give yourselves a pat on the back and a round of applause! We salute you!

Summers are usually filled with a lot of time with friends and family, cook outs, the pool, beach time, and… self initiated professional development and prep! This summer my group of literacy friends at The Reading Crew are planning a book study. We will be hosting the book study on the blog Adventures in Literacy Land and our first blog post will be published on June 17. The book we have chosen is Teaching Reading in Small Groups: Differentiated Instruction for Building Strategic, Independent Readers by Jennifer Serravallo.

We choose this book because we felt like it was a must read for any teacher looking for clear, strategic ways of grouping children effectively and efficiently. She touches on the reading foundations for which her ideas are built offering concrete ways to talk about reading that helps the teacher and student feel more confident about what they are doing.

The chapters in this book are:

  1. Beyond Reading Groups, Beyond Guided Reading
  2. Forming Groups: Making the Invisible Visible Through Assessment
  3. Without Engagement, We’ve Got Nothing: Helping Children Want to Read
  4. Guided Practice Toward Independence: Strategy Lessons for Comprehension, Print Work, and Fluency
  5. Talking About Books: Improving Partnerships and Clubs
  6. Reading with Fluency and Expression: Shared Reading, Warm-Up and Transfer Groups, and Performance Clubs
  7. Moving Readers to the Next Level: Text-Level Introduction Groups
  8. Organizing and Managing Small-Group Conferring: Common Questions

How to participate in our book study:

Each week, starting June 17th, a member of The Reading Crew will be posting their chapter reflections and take aways from the book on the blog Adventures in Literacy Land. We encourage you to comment and interact with us through the blog post comments. Please comment and be an active participant!