Reading response journals

In upper grade classrooms, students spend a great deal of time responding to the texts they read. Over the years I have found that no matter what grade level I teach, students have a difficult time writing thorough and meaningful reading responses. At the start of every year my students need quite a bit of guidance when writing their responses. One of the best ways that I have found to teach students to write meaningful responses is by providing them with sentence frames. I like to encourage…

Getting students to write about reading was a struggle for a LONG TIME! I tried all sorts of approaches, all types of reading response journals and notebooks, and yet it still felt so forced. This year, things have changed!

Not sure where to start when it comes to creating a Reading Response Journal? This post shares my favorite tool to use!

This year, I revised the materials in my reader's notebooks. I'm using a combo of a binder and a notebook for reading workshop this year, and I'm not 100% happy with it. I thought I would share some of what I've been doing. Maybe you can help me tweak. Let me first tell you how I've been working it. In their binder, they have a section for anchor charts and handouts. There's an index where they write the title of the paper so they can see at a glance what they have. It' sort of like a mini…

Reading Response activities will likely form a major part of your reading programme, whether you are running guided reading groups, a daily 5 system, literature circles or a reading workshop set up. It is time-consuming to create follow up activities for every book, so it is great to have ready to go activities, featuring reading comprehension strategies, that work across a range of genre. This freebie will help in your upper elementary classroom.

Responding to text with prompts for journal entries. English language activities for reading and responding to text.

Read for tips on setting up and using response notebooks. They are great tools for reading response, word work, writing, data, and more!

Okay teacher friend. It’s finally here. And I’m so excited! I’ve had this resource collecting dust on my computer for years now. I’ve been using this strategy in my classroom for the last few years, but haven’t had the energy or time (teacher life + mom life is exhausting, am I right?) to put it all together so that it’s ready to go for busy teachers like you! Well, it’s finally finished and I finally get to unveil it to you! Did you know I have a FREE downloadable reading response menu…

Okay teacher friend. It’s finally here. And I’m so excited! I’ve had this resource collecting dust on my computer for years now. I’ve been using this strategy in my classroom for the last few years, but haven’t had the energy or time (teacher life + mom life is exhausting, am I right?) to put it all together so that it’s ready to go for busy teachers like you! Well, it’s finally finished and I finally get to unveil it to you! Did you know I have a FREE downloadable reading response menu…