Making Reading Plans for the Holiday Break: A Mini Lesson
To help your students develop the habits of lifelong readers, please tale a few moments this week to encourage children to read during the holiday break. If you have not already done so, consider conducting a short mini lesson to challenge, direct, and encourage your students to build a sensible reading plan for the extensive holiday break. It is amazing how quickly students’ reading skills slip when they are not reading. Lengthy holiday breaks can be difficult for many readers if they leave school without a doable plan they have created and committed to during the time they will be away from school.
A short 10 minute mini-lesson that, for example, begins with a discussion about how adult readers download books to Kindles, reserve books at the library, and pre-order books before their release dates when they know that they will have a little extra time to read is a good way to begin the conversation. In addition to offering a good model for your students, this opener can also be the starting point for students to begin planning their own reading during the lengthy break.
Support your mini-lesson with short reading conferences to discuss current books, and guide students to consider what they might read next. Discuss how their reading experiences and preferences can lead them to the next book and the next.
To guide planning, encourage students to consider two important considerations for planning purposes. Ask the following:
Finding Time to Read: When do you see some downtime to read? Are you traveling during the break? How much time will you spend sitting in the car or at an airport? How can you keep up your daily reading habit over the holiday? Considering their holiday schedules gives students an opportunity to set realistic reading goals for the break.
Choosing Titles: What books have you been reading? What books have caught your attention that you might like to read next? What are you looking for in your next book? Are you in a reading rut? How can you challenge yourself with your next book? Setting aside titles they want to read, looking back over their reading experiences, and planning to move forward, will help students continue to develop their reading lives.
After looking at holiday schedules and choosing books, students work individually or with partners to record their reading plans in their reading notebooks--setting goals and sharing them with each other. Writing down these plans and verbalizing them to each other makes these plans concrete and real for students. Reading isn't something we might do during the holidays; we have reading plans!
Explain that this is what readers do; they need to read, so they plan for it. Share that you have a staggering tower of books waiting to read over the break. That you are looking forward to long hours at home, curled up in a chair reading.
Share your enthusiasm and promote books during this last week of school before the break. Your enthusiasm to read over the holiday will likely ignite a firestorm among your students and fueling their interest to read. Finally, please make certain that books are made available through the library or from your classroom library for the students to take home and read.
Posted December 13, 2010
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